Why do Christians fast?

Why Do We Fast? 

I read a story of a man from Ebonyi state Nigeria, that fasted for 41 days and nights. In the photographs of him which I saw, he was looking skinny, almost all his bones were visible as though he is a living skeleton. He lay on the mat with his Bible opened as he seemed to be reading it. Obviously, he was looking like someone who was already dying. And report has it that he has beaten the record of Christ who fasted for 40 days and nights.

When I read stories like this, many things come to mind. One of which is the length of time it will really take to correct so many wrong teachings people pass across in the name of Christianity. 

People are made to fast for 21 days for the intention of attracting life partners. People fast for 30 days so as to break what they call generational curses. Christians even use fasting to threaten people whom they consider their enemies, claiming that if they fast with them in mind, they will die. And during Lent, some Catholics fast to make a show that they are holy and faithful to the church's teachings.

In summary, we can say categorically that Christian fasting has been greatly abused to the extent that we have lost the essence of fasting.

As such, we must at this point ask ourselves this very important question: why do Christians fast?

As humans, we are made up of body and spirit. As Christians, we aim at having a relationship with God. Unfortunately, God is not bodily, rather, he is Spirit. We can not sincerely reach the spirit unless we make ourselves spirits. And as St John even clarified in John 4:24, "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

What does it mean?

For example, if knowledge is immaterial, it therefore means that to attain knowledge we must make ourselves immaterial. And if God is Spirit, to really have a deeper relationship with him, we must make ourselves spirits.

This is where fasting comes to play. In fasting, what we are simply doing is to make our spirit-self more active by playing down on the bodily part of us. So, we deny ourselves of bodily desires (things that we cherish most which might not be bad in themselves) so that we could gradually have a connection to our spirit self and invariably relate with God who is Spirit.

It is like an app, I can't send you anything through the app called Xender unless you have the same Xender on your phone and it is active. I can't use Bluetooth to send you messages on WhatsApp. It has to be WhatsApp to WhatsApp. Bluetooth to Bluetooth. Etc.

Fasting is not just about deciding not to eat. There is a consciousness in fasting, the consciousness of connecting with the Divine. And of course, some are still able to connect even without fasting from food. But the point is, one necessarily has to suspend so many bodily desires if the person is interested in having a deeper union with a being that is not bodily.

For Catholics, when fasting, a person is permitted to eat one full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together are not equal to a full meal.

Fasting is not a suicide mission or a goal to achieve a certain number of days without food. Some people fast to lose weight. You can Google the name, Angus Barbieri. Reportedly, he went without food for 382 days just to reduce his weight. Check also, Dennis Galer Goodwin. He went without food for 385 days to prove his innocence over a rape allegation. There are hungry people in my parish who only eat once a day, do we call that fasting because they usually don't see food to eat sometimes until it is 2 pm or 4 pm?

Fasting helps us to connect quickly with the Divine. It is exactly what Christ told John's disciples in Matthew 9:15, that his disciples will have no need of fasting as long as the bridegroom is still with them. In essence, he was saying, why will they struggle to connect with me when I am already here in body with them? Maybe once I leave, they will.

Dear friends, 

It is not fasting that brings you life partners. It is not by fasting that you get a job or your business will flourish. Fasting does not kill those you consider your enemy. 

When you fast, spend time to connect with the Divine in silence and develop that sweet union with him in which both of you could deeply talk and listen to each other just like how friends do. Stop this parade of showing off how spiritual you are because you fast.

Some of the things some of you do and call it Christian fasting could be better-called starvation. It will be better if you just go and eat instead of deceiving yourself.

#FacebookTelevision