Fasting
Elaine Poproski Download: Audio
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Scripture: Philippians 2:5-11
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus who, though he was in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. Read more…
Looking to Sunday
by Elaine Poproski
This Sunday I’m going to be talking about fasting. It may be a topic with which you’re familiar, but I suspect that for many of us, it’s not so familiar. We know people in the Bible sometimes fasted, and we have a vague idea that’s it’s about going without food, but when it comes to the question of why we fast, I suspect that topic is pretty murky for many of us.
If you google fasting, you’ll probably get a list of sites that talk about intermittent fasting. For at least the last few years, it’s been a popular weight loss or weight management tool. People make all sorts of claims about its efficacy, just like they do with every diet that comes along, and it may very well be that those claims are at least in part true. But we’ll be talking about fasting as a Spiritual Discipline. We’ll be talking about it as a proven practice for putting us in a position to meet and know God.
One of the frustrating things about how the Bible talks about fasting, is that it doesn’t really talk about fasting. It mentions fasting – we know Jesus and lots of others fasted – but if we’re hoping for some kind of biblical commentary on why we should fast or how we should fast, we’ll be disappointed. That’s because fasting has been a standard practice in most religions for most of history. It was assumed people knew why they did it and how to do it. So on Sunday we’re going to begin a conversation about the why and the how.
As you prepare for Sunday, perhaps spend some time thinking about fasting as a Spiritual Discipline. We’ve been talking about other disciplines since the beginning of the year, and most of them likely seem a bit more straightforward than fasting. We talked about all sorts of different aspects of prayer, for instance. Are there any similarities or parallels between prayer and fasting? Last week we talked about confession. Are there any similarities between confession and fasting? Do you have experience with fasting? How would you describe that experience? Did you notice a connection between your fasting and your relationship with God? If you’ve never tried fasting, what are some of the things you assume about the practice? Is it something you want to try? Why or why not?