Fasting.

With the recent celebration of Ramadan by our Muslim neighbours, I've been thinking a lot about fasting.

Every year, I have friends who fast for the month of Ramadan, and I've always felt something akin to longing. Longing for that level of spiritual community and for their shared experience. My family views fasting as something kind of extreme and it was not a regular practice at my home church. As a result, the fasting of food never really crossed my mind as a serious thought.

In university, I encountered many Christians from different backgrounds with different traditions. One of these traditions included fasting for Lent. So last year, I decided to do a social media fast for the 6 weeks leading up to Easter. To be honest, it wasn't anything super revelatory or life-changing. I tried to dive deeper into His word during this time but things felt more or less the same for me.

That's why I was a bit hesitant to try it again this year. Every January, my church in Toronto does a 21-day prayer and fast. They do this to have a closer connection with God and start the year off immersed in His presence. I was debating whether to join in on it or ignore it. I decided that it would be too difficult to do while living on residence and needing to rearrange my mealtimes in the dining hall. I happened to be serving the first Sunday after they started and several people on my team were sharing about how they were doing with their fasting. Again, I felt that tug to join in - but I'd already missed the first week. I still thought it was more rational for me to not participate– so I shrugged the invitation off again.

I went home that Sunday and prayed hard about it. After praying, I went to ask for advice from my friends who had experience with fasting. They enthusiastically told me about how it strengthened their relationship with God. It helped them reset their priorities and have a clear focus on God. After hearing their experiences, I immediately jumped in and started fasting the next day.

I fasted food for 12 hours every day for the remaining two weeks of my church's 21-day fast. It was such an eye-opening experience and definitely brought me a lot closer to God. Fasting pushed me to look beyond my physical needs and to my spiritual needs. Every morning, I sat in God's presence to listen to His voice. Fasting gave me a sense of clarity. It removed the distractions from around me and helped me lean into His voice to hear what He had to say. I would read His words in the Scripture and allow that to fill my mind. Meditating on His words, I would pray and ask Him to sustain my body. The pangs of hunger and my longing for food were a constant reminder for our desperate need for God.

As bread feeds the body, so God's Spirit feeds the soul. Our spiritual need for God is just as great as our body's need for bread, if not greater. And our relationship with Him is not something to be put on the back-burner. Just as we feed ourselves with food daily, we need to be sustained by the Holy Spirit through spending quality time with Him every day. Apart from Him, we can do nothing, just like how our bodies would be without food.

"I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." John 15:5

So recently, I've been reflecting on my fasting experience. God has taught me so much through this experience. Although it was difficult, He used it to grow me spiritually in ways that I haven't before. From praying with my entire being to spending unhurried and uninterrupted time with Him, God has shown me what it means to be in an intimate relationship with Him. And He longs to be in that kind of a close relationship with us every day, regardless of whether or not we are fasting. The hunger that we have for Him should be greater than our hunger for food. For He not only sustains our life on Earth, but He is the provider of eternal life.

"Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you" John 6:27

I wanted to write this as an expression of my gratitude for God providing me with the obedience to participate in this and to experience this spiritual renewal.

"Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty" John 6:35