What do you think of fasting?

I belong to a religion which requires fasting from sunrise to sunset for 19 days, each year. It's in March, so the days and nights are roughly equal length. There are exemptions for those who are sick, women who are pregnant or nursing children under 15, adults over 70.

I have found that the first couple of days can be tough, but after that
it gets easier. For me, thirst is worse than hunger, so I make sure
to drink at least a quart of water in the morning.

If you are talking about a 24 hour fast, I think that would be hard, and
I wouldn't want to do it more than one day at a time.

I forgot you asked about the traditional religious value of fasting.

For me, the 19-day fast (sunrise to sunset) helps me to remember
that material things are of secondary importance, and spiritual
things matter more. Fasting also helps me empathize, if only a little,
with those who are hungry all the time because they don't have enough food.

I believe that fasting, as a Christian, can be good and bad. I think you must look at the motives behind the act to truly decide if it is worthwhile or not. If you are fasting because you think you owe something to God, do not do it. We do not owe God anything but our hearts. I believe Jesus died on the cross so that our debts could be paid in full. The challenge now is to accept God's grace and follow God's will not because we feel we owe it to God for our sins, but because the Holy Spirit has fueled our hearts to please God.
Fasting, to me, is not necessary, but if it helps you feel a closeness to God, go for it. But I would not fast for more than a day, I'm sure can really wear your body out if you are not careful.

Fasting for 24 hours is a great way to cleanse the inards,,,,, once a month is recommended, (not fluids) just food.... Fasting for religious reasons is a matter of choice I guess, I wouldn't do it personally, but then I wouldn't stick ashes on my head, goats blood on my door, or pretty much any of the symbolic ritual requirments deemed necessary to go wherever one's religion promises they will go once they shed the mortal coil...

It's been ten years since I gave up a life of anorexia which involved many years of fasting or as I would call it now, starving. I remember going almost two months drinking only water and throwing in an occasional piece of bread. I lost almost 40 lbs in this time and lost my health as well. I spent days in bed too weak to even get up and get any food at the end of this "fast". Thank god for my mother who brought me soup or I'd probably died. I was still sick with anorexia but never again pulled off a "fast" like that again. My health was weakened and it took me several years to regain it. I can see no health or religious benefit that would justify starving oneself for weeks on end. That's just my humble opinion from witnessing the bad effects first hand. Good luck though and please be careful.

I'm not opposed to fasting for religious reasons, but I do believe if you're going to do it for an extended period of time you should get the advice of a doctor.

I don't believe in fasting for purposes of weight loss, because it's not an effective way to lose weight, long-term. I think the same way about liquid diets. People who do these things usually gain the weight back as soon as they go off the "fast." Losing weight is about changing the way you eat, not about quitting altogether.

I can see the benefit of fasting if it becomes a hangup in your life - something you want to give over to God. For example, I periodically have to give myself a time-out from AW because I can get too addicted to it, so I'll fast for several days - until I no longer feel the compulsion to return here all the time. I think as Christians anything can become a habit that takes our focus away from God. So if food is one of those things, giving it up for a bit to focus on God might be worthwhile. However, I think a 40-day fast is extreme. Jesus did it, but I don't think anyone else in the bible did and I don't remember God ever commanding a fast of more than a single day.

Personally - no, I have never fasted. I'm skinny and I get light-headed if I miss a single meal, so it's not a good idea. No, I take that back, I did a 24-hour fast once when I was a young teen, to raise money for starving people. But as an adult, I do not do it for religious reasons. I've never had an attachment to food - I'm one of those people who, if I could just take a magic pill once a day and never have to bother with eating, I'd totally do that.

I'm not opposed to fasting for religious reasons. I believe in Christ and follow him but do not follow any religious fasting at all.

Unfortunately now, I've lost 10 pounds in 2 weeks because I can't eat due to depression, but that's a different story altogether.

I don't think fasting to lose weight is good. What happens when you decide to eat again? You'll gain a lot of it back.

There can be great spiritual benefit to fasting. I have a friend who just did a week-long food fast before a missions trip. She felt it gave her clarity and helped her focus on God, His will, and not on the things of this world.

Moderator's Note: There's no point in having two threads debating the pros and cons of fasting. Prawn came here to ask if anyone with a religious perspective on fasting would be interested in posting in the other thread.

If you want to discuss fasting from a Christian perspective (or the perspective of some other religion), and are uncomfortable posting there, feel free to continue. However, discussion of the pros and cons of it from a physical perspective or expressions of concern for Prawn's health belong in the Conquering Challeges thread.

I have deleted a number of posts here as being inappropriate. If I've deleted one of yours and you would instead like it ported to the other thread, I'll be happy to do so. From this point, however, I will move inappropriate posts to the other thread.

Thank you.

My grandmother (lived to 83) fasted one day a week. This means, she took clear liquids only. I doubt she could start a day without a cup of black coffee! She claimed it helped her focus her prayer time on Wednesdays, and cleared her head. She said the physical challenges of fasting kept her attention on Christ.

I would love to fast one day a week to order my prayer life, but diabetes says no. I have abstained from certain foods when I'm praying fervently about something, but it just doesn't seem to hold the same punch.

The Bible says He fasted for 40 days, "and afterwards was hungry." That gives me an example of how it SHOULD go...not necessarily how it must.

Thoughts?

My thoughts for what they are worth.

When God has called me to fast I have no thoughts anything bad will happen and so far that has proved true. He has only asked me a couple of times and that was for me to get my eyes and ears all atuned for something big He was needing me to know at the time.

Whenever I have tried to fast for Him on my own....it has been strange. I start the fast and within like 3-4 hours I have my prayer answered. Usually I fast so I can clear out alllll of my world stuff. He nevers lets me go for more then a few hours. But I live a pretty fasted life to start with and I bet if I did without food for very long....I would vanish altogether. lol

We know what the Word says about fasting....and for those examples I would see no problem.

Most folks that I know that walk tight with God do some fasting. It might just be one meal or something like that. That time is usually spent in prayer before God getting down to some real nitty gritty stuff.

This is all my two cents.

The only fasts I have been involved with were "Planned Famines" that the church youth program conducted. The idea is to get the highschool aged kids locked into the church for 48 hours without food. There was plenty of fruit juice and sports drinks available -- just no food. Lots of activities (including bible studies) were organized to keep their minds off food. Its purpose was to show kids who had never been hungry in their lives what real hunger is like -- what much of the world experiences on a daily basis.

The first food they'd get after the famine was sharing in communion. You wouldn't believe how good plain white bread tastes!

Roger J Carlson said:

I have deleted a number of posts here as being inappropriate. If I've deleted one of yours and you would instead like it ported to the other thread, I'll be happy to do so. From this point, however, I will move inappropriate posts to the other thread.

Thank you.

Click to expand...

What did I say that was inappropriate? What is wrong with posting about fasting in a thread about fasting?

superman skivvies said:

What did I say that was inappropriate? What is wrong with posting about fasting in a thread about fasting?

Click to expand...

Moderator's Note: I'll explain again. Perhaps I was unclear.

The deletions were not meant as a punitive measure, but rather as a housekeeping one. There is no reason to have two threads devoted to the same issue, continuing the same debate.

Maybe "inappropriate" was the wrong term. Perhaps "off-topic" would be better. This thread was started by Prawn to ask if any regulars here wanted to weigh in on the religious aspects of fasting in the other thread, not to continue the debate here.

If you or anyone would like their posts un-deleted, I will be glad to do so AND move them to the other thread. (They will be inserted there based on the date and time of the post.) Please contact me via PM.

Continued discussion here is limited to the Christian/religious perspectives of the issue.

Thank you for your co-operation.

I am currently fasting. When I get hungry I read scripture to focus. Or I write.

I wanted to remember that people in this world hunger. I wanted to observe the growling of my stomach and understand the wants and needs of my body.

...


AMC

I've never fasted for spiritual reasons. If it was for any other reason it was unintentional as I only eat when I am hungry so I have gone a day without food but like I said it was unintentional.

I don't fast for spiritual reasons cause on some aspects I don't know how to keep quiet and I think I would end telling a lot of people that I'm fasting and why. People who don't need to know. (people I live would need to know so they don't ask me why I'm not eating). In the Bible (not a direct quote) it says when you fast to not make yourself look different or tell the whole world why you are fasting cause then you are really doing it for the wrong reasons. For the approval of man. So perhaps with me knowing this I wouldn't actually say anything but maybe I would knowing myself. I've never had a real reason to fast so I don't.

Prawn said:

Jesus did it, and my grandmother did it as well. Have any of you ever fasted?

I am fasting, and in another thread, I am being told how horrible it is. Can anyone weigh in with a perspective on the traditional religious value of fasting?

Prawn

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Horrible? Pretty harsh. I've never joined in a deliberate fast with others but I have fasted for a time to concentrate on reading the Bible and prayer. It was great. In the Bible fasts were for a purpose I think. Correct me if I'm wrong but people fasted, with prayer, when they really needed God's intervention in difficult matters or were waiting on God to answer a particular prayer.
For me the value of fasting is in what I AM doing, not what I'm NOT doing (eating). If I am engrossed in the Word and prayer and listening to gospel music, food is the farthest thing from my mind. I don't seem to even get hungry. Hunger returns once that time has ended.
I think fasting is a very personal thing. If it's something that would have spiritual meaning for me then I'd certainly fast. What I won't do is fast when someone else decides I should, but that's just me.
Linnea

I have undertaken three extended fasts in my life: 10 days in 1982; 7 days in 1983; and 11 days in 1998. My fasts were from all food except water and coffee, with non-dairy creamer since I can't drink it black. No fruit juice or any other type of nutritive fluids. The first two of these I did in Saudi Arabia, in June 1982 and July 1983, with day time temperatures of about 120 F. I have also had a number of fasts of 3 days, perhaps six or seven of those. I did several of these in Kuwait in 1988-90, when people who I supervised lost a loved one, and I fasted in sympathy with them. One of these was when a man who worked for me was killed in an auto accident.

I say that, not showing how great I am, but to indicate it can be done, successfully with only water. In each of these fasts, my spiritual awareness was heightened, and I felt closer to God than at most times in my life. I have been thinking of beginning to fast one day a week, hesitating only because of my type 2 diabetes (a mild case). Spurred on by this thread, I will think about it some more.

Congrats on your fast, Prawn. Follow His leading in it.

Best Regards,
NDG

Jewish fasting

I fast for 25 hours (no food, no water, no nothin') during Yom Kipper, the day of atonement. The whole point is not to suffer but to alter your consciousness. You spend hours in the synagogue, praying, chanting and confession to sins that some Jew, somewhere might have committed (as a tribal people, if one Jew did it, all Jews are to some extent, guilty.)

We also contemplate our own mortality. One prayer asks "Who shall live and who shall die, who by fire and who by water?" and then lists other ways we might die and how God is with us anyway. These prayers are said aloud over and over throughout the two days.

At the end of the second evening, you feel vulnerable, yet elated. It's a combination of things at work here that causes this. Of course, at the end, we have a party or, as my friends and I do, go out to a Chinese restaurant.

I have a Christian friend who fasts (liquid only) for 40 days, at least once a year. He does it to offer up his suffering to God to get something he wants. It's never selfish; health for a sick friend, etc. I think it's nuts. I don't think God wants people to suffer. Also, it's wrecked his health, although he won't admit it.

I figure that people who fast for religious reasons are similar to people who are suicidal. Those who are genuinely determined usually do it without telling anyone.

Sincerely,
Gehanna

It beat the heck out of slowing. All kidding aside, we had to do it back in the day for Lent. I've had friends fast and donate the money they would have spent on food to the hungry. I think the Big Guy in the Clouds might appreciate that kind of gesture.