Fasting for Spiritual Breakthrough: A Guide to Nine Biblical Fasts (16 page)

The entire Near East was suffering a drought. To judge the people of Israel (Phoenicia’s neighbors), God had shut up heaven. Elijah the prophet “prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months” (Jas. 5:17).

Ahab, king of Israel, had married a girl from the region near the widow’s home. She was Jezebel, known for her faithful worship of the gods of Phoenicia. “Ahab...did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him” (1 Kings 16:30). “As though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat...he took as wife Jezebel...and he went and served Baal and worshiped him” (v. 31). Jezebel personally underwrote the living expenses of 450 prophets of Baal (see 18:19).

Very little is known about the Phoenician widow except that she was one of many widows in the land. She went about gathering sticks to cook her small evening meal. Life had been difficult but manageable when her husband was alive. There were good times and bad times. One of the best had been at the birth of their son. She recalled the proud look in her husband’s eyes as she presented their boy to him.

Times went from bad to worse when her husband died unexpectedly. She had barely been able to make ends meet before the drought hit, and now it was almost impossible to find the basic necessities of life.

The sun was scorching hot; however, her chief problem was that she only had enough food for one last meager meal. She had reconciled her fate in her own mind. She would take the sticks she had gathered and make her last cooking fire. She might have enough flour and oil left to feed both her son and herself, but that was all. She would use their last resources to prepare one final meal. Then, like their predecessors, they would find a quiet place to wait for death from starvation to overtake them.

“Please bring me a little water in a cup, that I may drink,” called a feeble male voice behind her (17: 10). The voice was so weak that she was compelled to help this stranger who had stumbled into her village. As she approached the well to draw water, she heard him call out one more time, “Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand” (v. 11).

Years earlier, she would have been eager to help. That was just the way people were in her village. They took care of strangers who were in
need of food and water. But now there was no food to eat. What she had was not enough to keep herself and her son alive. How could she give the little she had to a stranger?

She turned to explain to the stranger that there was no bread in her home. All she had was a little flour in the bin and a bit of oil in a jar. She was on her way home to prepare a final meal for her son and herself when the stranger asked for water. As she explained her situation to the stranger who had called to her, she knew she would have to do something. His appearance confirmed her awareness that he needed the food more than she did. She could not have known at the time that this stranger had been living in a
wadi
—a dry streambed—for the past few months, surviving off the carrion left by ravens.

“Don’t be afraid,” the stranger encouraged. “Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son” (v.13,
NIV
). He assured her that his God would take care of her family if she followed his instructions.

The widow was special. God had prepared her for this moment and this task. God had told Elijah, “Go at once to Zarephath....I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food” (v. 9,
NIV
). By the time he arrived at Zarephath the prophet looked so unkempt and sounded so hungry and thirsty that it almost sounded funny to hear him deliver God’s promise, “The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord gives rain on the land” (v. 14,
NIV
). She might have laughed if her own hunger had been any less painful. Still, it was easy for her to decide. She would die with or without her meal, so why not share what she had with someone in need, someone who had not yet lost hope completely?

As she trudged home with the prophet Elijah, the widow had no idea that her houseguest would be a prophet who would later end this drought through a power encounter with the prophets of Baal. She only knew someone needed something that she had slighty more of than he had. Missing a meal to provide it was the very least she could do.

The Widow’s Fast is named after this poor woman of Zarephath because she was willing to go without food to meet a humanitarian need in the life of another.

The Widow’s Fast was not a long fast. Just as Elijah had promised, God intervened in her situation. She was able to continue feeding her son and
new houseguest throughout the remainder of the famine. The prophet’s promise was fulfilled and the flour and oil were not consumed. In expressing a willingness to deny herself to meet the needs of Elijah, the widow of Zarephath modeled a unique approach to the discipline of fasting.

The Scriptures reveal a strong emphasis about the concerns of God’s people for the physical needs of those around them. It is not surprising that providing for people in need should become an important aspect of the discipline of fasting. Israel’s need for reform had prompted God’s question:

Is this not the fast that I have chosen...to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; when you see the naked, that you cover him, and not hide yourself from your own flesh? (Isa. 58:6,7).

The Widow’s Fast enables us to see God meet the needs of others, especially humanitarian needs such as food and clothing. Eventually this fast was practiced far beyond the small village of Zarephath.

The New Testament introduces us to other widows who fasted. Anna is described as a prophetess who “never left the temple but worshipped night and day, fasting and praying” (Luke 2:37,
NIV
). From the little we know of Anna, she appears to have had a ministry of serving God by fasting. Did that ministry, like that of the widow of Zarephath, involve sharing her physical resources with others?

Jesus identified another dedicated widow while teaching in the Temple. As He saw a poor widow place her last two mites into the Temple treasury designated for the care of the poor, Jesus said,

Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had (Luke 21:3,4).

She gave all she had. This widow was willing to sacrifice everything, probably including her next meal. The Widow’s Fast describes this widow who gave up necessities to help others.

Widows were not the only ones mentioned in the New Testament who fasted in order to provide for the physical needs of others. The apostle Andrew found a young boy who was willing to give up his lunch consisting of five barley loaves and two small fishes so that 5,000 hungry people could be fed (see John 6:9). Someone else must have made a similar sacrifice when Jesus fed 4,000 people who had been fasting for three days (see Mark 8:1-9).

There is some indication that the spirit of the Widow’s Fast was part of the spiritual discipline of the Early Church. Paul used the example of the Macedonian Christians to encourage the Corinthians to give sacrificially to meet a humanitarian need in Jerusalem. Concerning the Macedonian Christians, Paul wrote:

In a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality. For I bear witness that according to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability, they were freely willing, imploring us with much urgency that we would receive the gift and the fellowship of the ministering to the saints (2 Cor. 8:2-4).

Although the discipline of fasting is not specifically mentioned here, the spirit of their giving is consistent with that of those who use the Widow’s Fast to sacrificially give to meet the needs of others. Like the widow who gave her two mites, the Macedonian Christians gave out of their poverty to provide for others.

(The citations in this section all come from Christian writers from the period immediately after the New Testament era.)

Fasting may or may not have been involved in these previous examples of giving to meet human needs; however, fasting to meet such needs quickly became part of church life in the postapostolic age. Fasting is mentioned often in the writings of the “Church fathers,” and usually in the context of what we are calling the Widow’s Fast. By the second century, fasting was practiced by Christians twice weekly—Wednesdays and Fridays. The discipline of fasting was considered better than prayer (see 2 Clement 16:4). The
Shepherd of Hermas
describes the practice of eating
only bread and water during a fast, and designating the money otherwise spent on food for charitable pursuits.

The relationship between fasting and giving to charitable causes continued for some time in the Early Church. Saint Leo described fasting as a “praesidium”—a protection for the spirit against the control of the body. He advocated fasting to keep the body disciplined. Disciplining the body enabled the spirit to receive direction from God, such as a call to take the gospel to the unreached people of that day.

Leo insisted that the discipline of liberally giving to humanitarian causes always accompany fasting. According to the
Apology of Aristides
, when a Christian did not have enough money to help a poor fellow believer, the Christian would customarily fast for two or three days to raise the needed funds.

Throughout the Middle Ages, a modified form of the Widow’s Fast was practiced by the early monks. Fasting in monasteries became part of an ascetic lifestyle before it later ended. Strong evidence suggests that the discipline of fasting was first practiced as part of an economy responsible for sending missionaries to the unreached world.

In the sixth century
A.D
., Saint Columba and other Irish monks were sent on evangelistic missions throughout Great Britain and northern Europe. These missions were possible because the limited resources of the monastery were given to missions rather than to provide an abundance of food and other luxuries. Similarly, the early Moravians and other pietist groups adopted a simple communal lifestyle that included the discipline of fasting. Their sacrificial living enabled them to release their limited resources to meet needs and to support outreach ministries.

The Widow’s Fast was also a part of the personal discipline of many revivalists and revivalistic movements. The example of the Moravians has already been mentioned. John Wesley and other Methodist leaders in the Evangelical Revival adopted a simple lifestyle that included regular periods of fasting, and they encouraged others to do the same. Money that might have been spent on food for themselves funded a number of humanitarian projects, including the care of widows and orphans, the liberation of slaves and prison reform.

In
chapter 1
we mentioned that hundreds of Christians skipped their lunches during the Layman’s Prayer Revival in 1859. This enabled many to save money that would have been spent on meals to instead assist others directly suffering the effects of the bank collapse that occurred about
the time the revival peaked. Although the purpose of the prayer meetings was not to fast, because people prayed through their lunch hours, fasting was the logical outcome.

Even today, many Christians in North America practice the discipline of fasting in the context of giving to humanitarian projects. Many churches and community groups have sponsored a “Thirty-Hour Famine” to raise funds for famine relief. Others have conducted church banquets featuring a menu of rice and beans reminding people of the world’s underprivileged populations. They often donate money that would otherwise have funded a banquet, to feed the hungry. The Widow’s Fast is also practiced by Christians in the emerging nations of the world.

A variation of the Widow’s Fast is regularly practiced by Christians in the state of Mizoram, India. This is the poorest state in India, but Christians from that region have developed a unique strategy to raise money for foreign missions. When the women of Mizoram prepare the daily rice for their families, they remove one cup of uncooked rice from the total amount that would normally be prepared. This rice is set aside as a gift to missions. The women give this rice to their churches, who then resell it to their church members. Funds raised through recycling rice are used to send out missionaries to other provinces of India and neighboring countries.

The humanitarian emphasis of the Widow’s Fast also appeals to those who do not identify themselves as Christians. Mahatma Gandhi believed people should live an “eternal, compulsory fast” to adequately meet the needs of others. Gandhi practiced fasting personally, and urged his followers to do the same. His simple lifestyle was apparently motivated by his concern for the needy. Surely Christians, who are to be characterized by their love for others, should be concerned for those who lack basic necessities (see John 13:34,35).

Before practicing the discipline of fasting in the context of the Widow’s Fast, take time to prepare yourself adequately. Although it is possible to forfeit one or two meals to make a financial contribution to international relief projects, the experience of the Widow’s Fast can be much more meaningful if you are prepared for it. Allow your fast to minister to you as you seek to minister to others.

Step 1: Become Others Oriented

Develop sensitivity to the problems of others by researching the needs of the underprivileged living in close proximity to you. One of the disadvantages of living in an “information age” is that we hear about so many hurting people that we easily become desensitized to their needs. We can overcome this natural tendency by proactively cultivating empathy and sensitivity for people who are enduring difficult circumstances.