I briefly mentioned the idea of fasting on the blog before the conference this past fall. I think that fasting is one the disciplines from the Scriptures that we discuss very rarely or only at the beginning of a new year, but it can transform our walk with God.
All throughout the Bible there are instances of leaders fasting in pivotal moments. Moses fasted for 40 days when he went up to the mountain to receive the 10 commandments. Esther fasted when she heard about the plot to kill all the Jews in Persia. Nehemiah fasted when he heard that the wall of Jerusalem had been destroyed. And Jesus fasted for 40 days in the wilderness right before He began His ministry.
My first experience with fasting was doing the 30 Hour Famine in high school. I always forgot the morning that it started and ate breakfast, thus turning it into something more like a 24 Hour Famine. While that time of playing games and watching movies for hours on end in a church basement was fun, it wasn’t exactly a picture of Biblical fasting.
During my time in college a couple friends and I decided to fast for 40 days. We decided we would only eat after 9 PM. It was definitely a challenging time, but as we took that time we would have used eating meals to pray, read our Bibles, and seek God all of us grew significantly in our walks with Him. As we went through the fast we decided to give up even more things like playing video games and watching television.
Fasting isn’t easy, but choosing to do it as a group gave us the strength and encouragement we needed. It also helped us to grow closer as friends and built community amongst us that transferred over to our BASIC group. I think challenging your group to fast together for set periods of time can build community and deepen student’s relationships with the Lord. Making this a regular scheduled part of your yearly plan could be really beneficial as well.
One word of caution I would offer with fasting (other than the typical warnings of health awareness) is to avoid getting overly religious about it. During that time of fasting in college I regret that we grew apart from one unsaved friend who we may have had the chance to impact because we stopped spending as much time with him due to our lack of recreational activities.
Have you done any extended periods of fasting? Have you done any corporate fasting with your group?