Why fast?
We need food to live but how much more do we need God? Oh, how we are slaves to our own bodies—within hours we are set searching for food!
When we feed ourselves regularly, in the very habit of it, we take it for granted. We forget in the mundane nature of eating how reliant we are upon it. Our habits spring from the needs, wants & desires of our flesh. True both physically & spiritually. When we don't think about it, we are prone to forget that we are slaves to it. We are slaves to our flesh. We become blinded to the spiritual, to the miracles and we forget how the Lord sustains us. Without Him—we would have no food. Without the One who holds our very cells together—we literally would not be.
I think about the Israelites—Oh, how we criticize them! They witnessed with their own eyes the parting of the Red Sea! They literally walked on dry ground as the water was 'piled up' on both sides of them! And yet just 2 months later, when their bodies became hungry, they complained that they should have stayed in Egypt! When their bodies became hungry, their flesh (to whom we are all slaves in the natural man) made them forget what the oppression was like in Egypt; it overshadowed their memory of their miraculous journey through the Red Sea! Our flesh is just so, so weak!
I fast & pray to remember that—to remember that I do not serve my flesh (it is not my God) but I serve El Shaddai, Adonai, Jesus, the Great I AM. I fast to remember that “though my flesh & my heart may fail; GOD is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Psalm 73:26) I fast to remember how quickly I forget—to see my own blindness and to realign my priorities with His. Today, He will be my food; He will be my portion; He will be my sustainer. I will hunger & thirst for righteousness and be filled with the Bread of life.
