About a month ago, I decided to add a component to the health journey that I’ve been on. Its called intermittent fasting. Back in February, I made a choice to try something new with my eating plan. I cut out tons of foods like carbs, gluten and dairy as well as a few others, and began walking a lot and continued with drinking a gallon or more of water a day. Things have been going great and I have seen a huge change in my appearance as well as how I feel overall. The reason for adding the fasting was more to shake things up for me and to move past the plateau I had landed on weight wise.

I went with the 16:8 fasting plan. All of my meals are eaten between the hours of 12:00 pm and 8:00 pm, and I fast for the other 16 hours. As I suspected, I was able to move past my plateau and I once again began shedding pounds. Being healthy is a great feeling!

As I continued with this new plan, I began seeing another benefit to this new way of eating, but it had nothing to do with my physical health. During those hours that I would normally be eating breakfast, I found that I had a deeper awareness of spiritual things. My prayer life became more intense and I began to hear God’s voice more clearly than I have in a long time. This led me to start studying the practice of prayer and fasting.

Did you know that throughout the Bible, fasting is actually mentioned more times than baptism? When looking deeper, I found that God’s people fasted for a variety of reasons:

• they were facing a crisis
• they were seeking God’s protection and deliverance
• they had been called to repentance and renewal
• they were humbling themselves in worship
• Moses fasted before being given the Ten Commandments
• Daniel fasted when seeking wisdom from God
• Nehemiah fasted before beginning a major building project
• Jesus fasted during His victory over temptation

Some might argue that fasting is an outdated practice that was only observed during Bible times. I don’t think so. Jesus gives a sermon in Matthew chapter 6 about prayer and about giving. He uses phrases such as, “WHEN you pray, WHEN you give and WHEN you fast.” Jesus is assuming that those listening WILL pray, WILL give and WILL fast. These things are not optional! I would venture to say that most Christians pray and most Christians give, but why don’t we hear more about Christians fasting?

I think one of the biggest reasons here in America would be materialism. Sadly, this is true even within the church. G. Jeffery MacDonald says, “The church has become the handmaiden of desire,” giving people what they want rather than holding up a vision of what God knows we need. We are living in a largely consumer-absorbed society that is filled with with the love for perishable things. This “me-first” culture will find it hard to voluntarily give up an amenity such as food. The truth is, compared to the rest of the world, our western society lives in luxury simply because most of us know where our next meal is coming from. Perhaps experiencing hunger would birth empathy amidst a culture that pushes entitlement over compassion.

Another reason for a lack of fasting, could simply be ignorance of what God’s Word has to say about this subject. We as Christians do a disservice to ourselves when we don’t seek to learn about something we don’t fully understand in the Bible. If you don’t understand the spiritual discipline of fasting, then you need to see what the Scripture has to say about it or at least read the works of scholars who do.

Understanding God’s Word should be a practice in personal discipline just as fasting should be. You will never be able to fully understand everything that is written in the Bible, just as you will never be able to stop eating completely. On either front, though, you should still press forward. Make the effort to deny your natural needs in order to pull closer to our supernatural God.

Our lives are to be a “living sacrifice” as it says in Romans 12:1. Fasting requires a certain amount of self-sacrifice. When we deny ourselves of the basic necessity of food in order to draw closer to God, we open up our hearts and minds to experience a different kind of need – a hunger and thirst for a deeper relationship with our heavenly Father, and the knowledge that we are completely dependent on Him.

When we talk about the discipline of fasting, it is almost always coupled together with prayer. It is possible to fast without praying just as we often pray without fasting. It is when these two disciplines are combined, however, that they will reach their full effectiveness. Far too often, the focus of prayer and fasting is on the abstaining from food instead of where is should be, which is to take our eyes off the things of this world and focus on prayer and fellowship with God.

In the book of Ephesians, Paul talks about the six pieces of spiritual armor. The last piece, the sword of the spirit, is often looked at as the only weapon mentioned. What many fail to see, however, is another weapon that is just as powerful, possibly even more so at times. He talks about it in Ephesians 6:18-20. In these verses, Paul writes about prayer. He says, “Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.”

The fact that Paul writes about prayer immediately following the list of other spiritual weapons serves to prove an important point – that prayer is vitally important to spiritual warfare. In these verses, he shows us several ways to use prayer effectively.

• He says to pray at all times. He mentions this again in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 when he says, “pray without ceasing.” This doesn’t mean that we have to be on our knees 24/7, but that we are to always maintain an attitude of prayer.
• We are to pray “in the Spirit”. Remember our other weapon here: The Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. I would think, then, that this implies that to some degree our prayers should be based on the Bible. If we are using His very words to pray to Him, then we can be certain that we are praying according to His will.
• He says that we are to bring our requests to Him (“with all prayer and supplication”). While it is true that God is all-knowing, He still desires us to humble ourselves and ask Him for what we want or need.
• We need to persevere in our prayers. To be persistent, even repetitious in praying for something is not because God doesn’t hear us, but because there is spiritual warfare going on and sometimes, perseverance in prayer is required for our prayers to get through. If you read Daniel 10:11-21, we see that Daniel had prayed 3 times a day for 21 days for a particular request. He finally gets a reply and it is brought to him by an angel that tells him that God heard him on the very first day, but that because of evil forces, the angel could not get through for 3 weeks. Battles aren’t won by swinging your sword once. We need to keep swinging. Keep fighting. Keep praying.
• We are to pray for others. More specifically, we are to pray for other Christians. We should focus less on praying for ourselves, and more on the body of Christ.

Suffice it to say, I have learned a lot over the last few weeks, and God has brought about a wonderful ministry as a result. In one of my prayer times, He made it abundantly clear that I was to hold a women’s day of fasting and prayer. I will admit, there was a lot of hesitation on my part and I doubted my ability to lead something like that, but God gave me a willing heart and brought me to a place where I was able to simply pray, “Lord, use me however You want to.”

That event was so amazing! There were roughly 2 dozen women fasting and praying together either in person or virtually. We had wonderful times of worship and prayer, and the weather that day was truly a gift from God. It was very clear to all of us that God’s presence was among us. When we finally broke our fast together at the end of the day, we all agreed that this should not be a singular event.

Since that time, God has continued to burden my heart with the great need for fasting and prayer. Our nation is on a downward spiral and we as Americans have turned our backs on God. We are in desperate need of revival in our country and it can only come about by God’s people falling on their faces before God and pleading for His mercy.

The women’s prayer and fasting ministry is just beginning to take off. I have launched a Facebook group where we will be taking one day a week to fast with a designated prayer focus. I also plan to host several all day events over the next few months. In less than 48 hours, over 40 women have committed to join. Some of these ladies are in different states across America. My desire is that this ministry will continue to grow by leaps and bounds, and that all across our country, women will be on the front lines of the spiritual battle that is waging all around us.

If you wish to be a part of this ministry, please contact me and I will add you to our page. If you are not on Facebook, you can e-mail me and I will add you to the prayer and fasting e-mail updates list.

I count it an honor to be used by God in this way, and my prayer going forth from here is, “Lord, here I am, use me as You will.” Ladies, let’s get ready for battle!