Fasting is just one spiritual discipline. Spiritual disciplines are practices that we engage in to help us more deeply engage with our spiritual life. Examples of spiritual disciplines include prayer, fasting,
simplicity, solitude, and silence, among others.
Fasting Guidelines
Preparation:
- Write down when you will begin your fast and when you will end it.
- Write down when you will carve out time to pray during the day/s.
- Write down what you will pray for during your fast.
- Contact at least one person you will pray with during your fast.
When Breaking Your Fast:
- Do thank God.
- Do make smart food choices.
- Do share with someone the things you sensed from God.
- Do obey and make a plan to continue to obey anything you sensed from God.
- Do plan your next time to fast and pray.
- Do not gorge yourself on your favorite foods.
- Do not talk about how horrible fasting was.
- Do not expect anything in your life to instantaneously change
Recommended Reading
Bill Bright
This handy reference guide will help make your time with the Lord more spiritually rewarding. It provides simple steps for beginning and ending your fast, suggest a practical plan for prayer, and offers practical information about how to fast.
John Piper
Do you have a hunger for God? There is an appetite for God. And it can be awakened. Piper invites us to turn from the dulling effects of food and the dangers of idolatry, and to say with a simple fast: "This much, O God, I want you."
Richard Foster
Foster shows how areas of Discipline contribute to a balanced spiritual life. The inward Disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, and study offer avenues of personal examination and change. Click below for the chapter on Fasting.
