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4

Fasting as feasting (part 2)…the Daniel fast

By
Luke
– April 4, 2012Posted in: Spiritual Disciplines

I mentioned in this first post that some friends and I were fasting together. Fasting is a lost spiritual discipline for much of American Christianity. I believe fasting with prayer will be more and more important for Jesus’ followers as our culture becomes more and more driven by bodily impulses and consumption. A few of us are doing the Daniel fast for various periods of time and I thought I’d share some of the resources I’ve used.

A Daniel fast is like a hyper-vegan fast. It’s a partial fast (you don’t fast all food) and is modeled after the ways Daniel fasted in Daniel 1 and 10. This page has a good description of what the fast is about. In this fast, you only eat whole foods (not processed white flour/rice products) that come from the ground and only drink water.

The Daniel fast is good for times that you need energy and can’t fast from all food. The downside is that it doesn’t free up time for prayer like a normal fast. You have to be intentional and set aside time for prayer. I also try to use the extra time prepping food to pray. And when I find myself craving a certain food, I pray a simple breath prayer like “Father, I want your will to be my food.” Or “Lord, have mercy.”

Prayer and fasting are a dynamic duo.

Here are some tips from my experience with Daniel fasting…

  1. Select a start and end date. This is especially important for your first time. It will help you when you want to stop.
  2. Before your start day, make a meal plan for the first few days and go shopping. Otherwise you’ll start, not know what to eat, and want to give up.
  3. Get used to reading ingredient labels. If a label has a bunch of weird stuff added, don’t eat it.  This will take some getting used to. You’ll be amazed what you learn! Some ingredients like Citric Acid and some chlorides (salts) are OK….they are natural ingredients.
  4. Eating out is just plain tricky. Subway is easy…just get salad. At other restaurants, ask the server for a salad with nothing but veggies. Bring your own homemade salad dressing.
  5. Make a plan for time spent in prayer and listening. Invite some others over for group prayer.
  6. Don’t get hung up on the details. It’s better to fast for the first time and not it get it all right than to not try at all. Fasting is a skill you have to learn by doing.

Here is a list of helpful sites for recipe ideas:

We have a few lists on our fridge that are helpful reminders of what to eat for a snack or what to put on a salad.

Salads: Lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, red onions, carrots, broccoli, celery, black beans, garbanzo beans, tortilla chips, corn, peanuts, walnuts, almonds, sunflower seeds, avocado, raisins and homemade dressing.

Snacks: Apples (with peanut butter), pears, bananas (with peanuts), grapes, oranges, raisins (with peanuts), popcorn (made on stove), chips and salsa, sunflower seeds, blueberries, carrots, rice cakes (with peanut butter, raisins or banana), homemade flatbread with oil and red wine vinegar dip.

I’ve really enjoyed fasting in community One of our friends suggested that we make larger quantities of food and share with each other. That was a great idea!

Do you have other tips on Daniel fasting?  Could you see yourself trying a Daniel fast?

(Fruits and veggies stand pic from nialkennedy’s photostream. Creative Commons.)

3

Fasting as feasting (part 1)…beyond dieting to fasting

By
Luke
– March 18, 2012Posted in: Church, Spiritual Disciplines

About three years ago, I realized that I had absolutely no experience with fasting. I grew up in an evangelical bible church and fasting was associated too closely with legalism and was just not taught or practiced. It wasn’t until I came across other Christian traditions in college that I met people who actually fasted. My African-American friends were shocked that Christians from evangelical traditions NEVER fasted. They would often point to the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said “when you fast…” not “IF you fast…” I thought that saying was cute…but never took them seriously.

Until about three years ago. I’m not exactly sure what changed. I think that part of the shift was reading Dallas Willard’s Spirit of the Disciplines. Willard has a radical perspective on spiritual disciplines and spiritual growth: Perhaps we simply cannot follow the teachings of Jesus without also following his practices like prayer, fasting, solitude and silence. This is deep, very deep. And the rabbit hole goes deeper if you apply that to ministry practices as well. But I digress.

My wife and I also were processing ministry vision shifts…we sensed God moving us into a new season of life, but weren’t sure what to do about it. It seemed that fasting would be a good start.

So I started with simple fasts…fasting pop and desserts for lent, a day food fast, a weekend food fast. I found an older missionary to mentor me over email…she pointed to resources and also helped me process what was happening. I was able to work up to a long fast…close to 40 days. (I’m not a legalist or literalist :).  I was hoping to only drink water, but I needed energy to play with my two energetic boys! So I juiced instead. Last summer I tried a Daniel fast…only eating foods naturally from the ground and only drinking water.

One of the most important insights I have learned is that fasting and prayer should be married together. Fasting by itself is just a diet. Many folks I see fasting during lent are dieting from something, not fasting. Fasting is like a house’s foundation, prayer the house itself. Fasting holds up and focuses both prayer and worship.

Willard writes, “fasting confirms our utter dependence of God by finding in him a sustenance beyond food. Through it we learn by experience that God’s word to us is a life substance, that it is not  food (“bread”) alone that gives life, but also the words that proceed from the mouth of God (Matt 4:4)…Fasting unto our Lord is therefore feasting – feasting on him and on doing his will.”

A very simple way to do this is to replace the time freed up by fasting to pray. This works well for full food fasts. With partial fasts like a Daniel fast or other fasts, you have to be more proactive…intentionally leaving more time for prayer and listening during the day.

Some friends and I have been planning fasts together. Over the next week or two,  I’ll write more specifically about different kinds of fasts I’ve experienced and helpful resources.

I’d love to hear others’ experiences with fasting too…especially if you have insights about how to keep a fast from becoming just a diet.

One thing I’m sure of…fasting will need to be a common practice for contrast communities trying to live out both the teachings AND practices of Jesus in our do-what-feels-good culture.

(“A Table” image by toastforbrekkie. This fine photographer has no idea what I’m writing here… I’m just using the pic under the Creative Commons License. :)