Fasting for Spiritual Breakthrough: A Guide to Nine Biblical Fasts (17 page)

Step 2: Recognize Your Own Blessings

Most Christians in this country are far better off than the poor of this world. Yet most of us find it easier to complain than to rejoice. Often we do not recognize how fortunate we are until we see others in greater need. A Bible student once complained he had only bread and jam to eat, until he learned of another student who had only crackers. The poorest in North America would be considered extremely wealthy in many parts of the world. Instead of complaining about not being able to purchase an expensive dessert with our restaurant meal, we should rejoice in God’s provision of food for us. Many people in the world cannot count on a single meal consisting of a bowl of beans, rice or other cooked grain.

Step 3: Use Some of Your Grocery Money

The purpose of the Widow’s Fast is to help release your giving to meet the needs of others by using resources that would normally be consumed for yourself. As a faithful steward of the resources entrusted to you by God, you can fast to economize your own food budget. The money you save will enable you to have more to share with the hungry. It is not possible to bring foreign famine victims to your dinner table each week, but it is possible for your family to fast through dinner so that a family in one of the famine regions can eat.

Step 4: Fast and Pray for Guidance

One person cannot meet the needs of every hurting person. Therefore, ask God for wisdom to determine the extent to which you should be involved in a specific humanitarian project. Rather than giving up in frustration because you are not able to feed all the hungry people in the world, ask God to burden you with a manageable portion of need.

Perhaps your family could provide food for a hungry family by fasting one day a week. Another family may designate the money saved
through their Widow’s Fast to purchase Christmas toys for poor children. Other families may contribute to a food bank, home for pregnant teenage girls or a local drug or alcohol rehabilitation center. Your fast will take on greater significance if you identify specific ways you can participate in the solution to the much larger problem.

Step 5: Pray for Those You Help

After you have identified the specific need of your Widow’s Fast, set aside special times—perhaps mealtimes—to pray for the needy who will directly benefit from your Widow’s Fast gift. When Jesus received the gift of five barley loaves and two small fishes from a young boy, He gave thanks before distributing it to the hungry.

Step 6: Identify with Others’ Suffering

If you find it difficult to endure the afternoon without a candy bar, think of those who must survive the day or week on a small bowl of rice. Some families who fast together break their Widow’s Fast with a simple meal of rice and beans, the staple diet of many people throughout the world, or a native dish of the people for whom they are fasting. Humanitarian agencies are often able to provide information to help prepare these dishes.

Step 7: Consider a Long-Term Investment

As you incorporate the Widow’s Fast into your personal discipline of fasting, begin thinking of extending your involvement to the relief of human suffering. Consider making significant lifestyle changes that would enable you to continue contributing to others.

Many doctors encourage their fasting patients to develop healthier post-fast eating habits. Eliminating excessive sugars and salt from your diet could be translated into savings for the ongoing support of needy people. You may choose to fast a meal or day each week to extend your ministry to people in need.

The following are suggestions for extending the value of the Widow’s Fast.

Learn to identify other specific human needs
. The widow of Zarephath decided to abstain from eating for Elijah’s benefit. Likewise, the boy who
sacrificed his lunch saw it used specifically to feed the hungry multitude when he decided to fast. The Widow’s Fast can sensitize you to people you may be able to help in other specific ways.

Learn the monetary value of the food you would consume in a typical day
. This amount can be determined in one of two ways. You could lay out a daily typical menu estimating the cost of each meal, including between-meal snacks and morning coffee and doughnut purchases.

If your family is observing the Widow’s Fast for a day, it may be easier to divide the family food budget by seven to estimate the savings realized by a typical day of fasting. If a family spends $140 a week on groceries and other food purchases, that family will save $20 in a one-day Widow’s Fast. In this way you not only help feed the hungry, but you also get a better grasp of your own food budget.

Note the value of spending the money to meet the need before you begin fasting
. The widow of Zarephath gave her food to Elijah before she fed herself and her son. The widow who gave two mites in the Temple and the boy who provided his lunch to feed 5,000 hungry people also gave before concluding their fasts. Giving first will help you identify the priority of your fast and eliminate the tendency to break your fast by spending your humanitarian gift on food for yourself.

Set specific goals
. Set a goal of how much you would like to contribute to a specific humanitarian project. Then determine how long you should fast to save the amount you intend to give to this project. Most people will find it easier to fast one day a week for several weeks than to observe a longer fast. Some may choose to fast regularly, adopting a new project each month or two.

Learn to identify with those you serve
. When you break your fast, do so with a meal that will remind you of the people for whom you are fasting. A bowl of cooked grain such as oatmeal, rice or grits is not unlike the daily meals of many people in the world. If you are fasting for people in a tropical climate, you may wish to break your fast with a banana or other serving of fruit.

Look for specific ways to reduce your personal cost of living to enable you to contribute more to meeting the needs of others
. Many Christians in North America have so incorporated nonessentials into their personal lifestyles that they are now viewed as essentials. Our luxuries have become our necessities. A Widow’s Fast can help us recognize nonessentials that may be eliminated to produce significant long-term savings. Many Christians
have chosen to live simple lifestyles so they can give more to missions and meet the needs of others.

A
MINISTERIAL STUDENT FASTED ABOUT ACCEPTING A POSITION AS
associate pastor in a large, prominent church. Like Saint Paul on the Damascus road, the student needed God’s guidance. During the fast, God removed the student’s desire for that church position.

A month later the senior pastor resigned; consequently all staff members were also asked to resign. Prior to his Saint Paul Fast, the student was flattered by the prospect of ministering in that prominent church. But when he retreated into a quiet place and fasted for the will of God, the guidance he received proved to be providential.

Because life will present all of us with major decisions, we can all benefit from the Saint Paul Fast at some time. Decisions can redirect our entire lives and destinies. A decision about whom to marry, for example, can make us or break us.

If we knew the future, it would be easier to make decisions. But we don’t, so God promises that the fast He desires will cause His “light [to] break forth like the morning” (Isa. 58:8). This implies that if we focus on God’s will instead of our own when we face major decisions, He will
provide us with clearer perspective and the insight we need to make crucial decisions.

The apostle Paul (formerly Saul—persecutor of Christ and His followers) was confronted with a life-changing decision, a fast and a revelation of God’s light on the Damascus road. After being struck down by the Lord, Saul was blind for three days, “and neither ate nor drank” (Acts 9:9). Having dedicated himself to persecuting Christians, he must have been stunned and “in the dark” about Christ and his future with Christ. It was only after Saul went without food and drink that he “saw the light.” God sent the Christian Ananias to the house where Paul was staying. Ananias placed his hands on Saul the former persecutor, and he received the vision to become Paul the apostle.

If we could talk to someone who knows the dangers, the rewards and the heartaches of the future, decisions would be easy. Jesus Christ is that someone.

Those who know Jesus Christ have an advantage in decision making. He knows the future because He is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. Jesus is God; therefore, He is timeless and limitless. He stands on the other side of our decisions and knows what will happen to us. Thus, we ought to ask the Lord to help us make our decisions. God speaks to us through His Son Jesus Christ.

The Lord may not speak audibly to us as some heard Him in Scripture, but He will help us make our decisions. First, the Lord has given us principles for living in the Word of God. For example, we don’t have to pray about whether to marry an unsaved person (see 2 Cor. 6:14), nor do we have to pray about whether to have sex outside of marriage (see Exod. 20:14).

Most of our decisions are not black and white. We often stand in the dimness of twilight, which is neither bright nor dark. Like driving at dusk, twilight makes it difficult to see people on the roadside. We miss important warning signs. There is always danger that we might lose our way or lose our lives. Life-changing decisions can make us feel as though we are driving through life in twilight.

In addition to the guidance He supplies through His Word, God has provided many other resources for decision making.

• He directs us by counsel with friends (see Prov. 11:14).

• He sovereignly guides (see Rom. 8:28).

• He directs us inwardly (see Acts 16:6; Rom. 8:14).

• He directs us by opportunities (see 1 Cor. 16:9).

• He directs us when we have a yielded spirit (see Rom. 12:1,2).

• He directs us through our spiritual gifts (see 1 Cor. 7:7).

• He directs us through our common sense (see Prov. 16:9).

• He guides us through prayer.

• Most importantly, God directs us through fasting.

The Saint Paul Fast involves focusing on our choices instead of our foods, and praying our decisions through to successful conclusions.

Decisions can be so threatening or obscure that we go through the previous checklist and still don’t know what to do. What can we do to help us make the really big decisions?