Several years ago, God started speaking to me about fasting. Although I had fasted for spiritual growth before, they were pretty basic fasts. It had never been very thoughtful or intentional. However, God was leading me to make it a regular part of my spiritual life. He’s continued to speak that to me ever since. I had been going through a relatively dry time in my personal study and journaling. In my mind (and in my immaturity) it was because I needed to be more holy. Therefore I reasoned to become more holy I needed more discipline.

At the same time, I didn’t want to “perform” for God. I didn’t want to simply undertake a discipline just because it made me more holy. I wanted to more fully understand fasting. In fact, what I really wanted was to draw closer to God…to have a more enriched fellowship with Christ. I didn’t want fasting to become a point of manipulation for me just trying to get my way.

You see, while more intimacy with God is a great thing, God was also working on my heart about something else…performing. He was teaching me not to perform for Him, or anyone else for that matter. Instead I was to cultivate relationships out of love.

Learning About Fasting

To understand fasting more, I picked up the book Fasting by Scot McKnight. In it, one of his first big ideas that struck me is that we should not fast as a way to get a response or reward from God, but we should instead fast out of recognition of a grievous sacred moment.

“If one wants to see the full Christian understanding of fasting, one must begin with (A) a grievous sacred moment.  That sacred moment generates a response (B), in this case fasting.  Only then, only when the sacred moment is given its full power does the response of fasting generate results (C) — and then not always, if truth be told.” (p. xix)

In the book, McKnight states, “I have come to this conclusion about fasting: when the grievous sacred moment is neglected and instead we focus on the results, fasting becomes a manipulative device instead of a genuine, Christian spiritual discipline. Far too much conversation today about fasting is about what we can get and not enough about the serious and severe sacred moments that prompt fasting.”

So what are “sacred moments”?

There are many things that can make up sacred moments:

• A wedding
• A funeral
• A baptism
• Salvation
• Celebrations
• Victories
• Recognition of the grace and mercy of God
• Recognition of sin in our lives

Really, sacred moments are anything that requires a response in celebration or in grief, or just in realization of something holy. So when McKnight talks specifically about “grievous” sacred moments, he is referring to those times when we are in severe pain, suffering or sorrow because of a realization of our sin, or a loss of some sort. Of course, there are other scenarios where this applies as well.

What are grievous sacred moments?

McKnight refers to: Sin; Death; Impending disaster or disaster relief; The lack of holiness and love and compassion; The impoverishment of others; The sacred presence of God; The absence of justice, peace, and love.

He goes on to make a point that we are too busy and too inattentive in our lives these days to recognize these sacred moments. Fasting as a discipline is fine, and there are times it should be pursued as a way to train our body, but fasting in response to something we’ve recognized in our lives that needs to be corrected…a sin we’ve been made aware of, a blessing we haven’t recognized, a conversion or a healing we’ve experienced, is maybe a more appropriate use of the discipline.

Recognizing & responding to sacred moments takes attentiveness and intentionality

We need to be on the lookout for sacred moments. Some sacred moments call for celebration. Still other sacred moments require submission. Submission can look like fasting.

Won’t you pray with me for God to give us eyes to see the sacred at work in our lives? Seeing the sacred takes work, takes our attention and takes our time. In order to recognize the divine in our lives we must learn to slow down and seek God in all situations…to let him speak to us about every area of our life so that he can purify the areas he sees fit to burn away.

Father, I come to you today to say thank you for sacred moments, moments that will change our lives if we learn to recognize them and pay attention to the things you are trying to show us through them. Help us learn to pay attention and submit to your correction. Help us to know that fasting is not a way to get a response or a reward from you, but instead is a way of submitting to your Lordship over our life.

We trust your love for us, God. We trust your direction for our life and ask you to open our eyes and reveal to us our next step in moving closer to you in our daily walk. Our desire is to walk more closely with you. Help us to be attentive to your Holy Spirit, Lord. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen!