When you fast
Jesus, on hidden fasting
Notice that Jesus says when you fast, not if. He assumes his followers will fast, the way he assumes they will pray and give — it is simply part of the life. Yet fasting is the most neglected of the disciplines today, half-forgotten, vaguely associated with crash diets or extreme piety, rarely practiced by ordinary believers at all.
What Jesus warns against is not the fast but the performance of it. The hypocrites, he says, disfigure their faces to advertise their hunger and collect their admiration; they have their reward already. Instead, he says, wash your face, comb your hair, look perfectly ordinary, and fast unseen — to your Father who is in secret. Fasting is hunger pointed quietly at God, not at an audience.
At its heart, fasting is the body learning to say what the soul means. When we voluntarily go without food and feel the ache, we are training every lesser appetite to bow to a greater hunger, telling God with the whole body that we want him more than we want comfort. The empty stomach becomes a prayer that words alone could not make.
“But you, when you fast, anoint your head, and wash your face; that you are not seen by men to be fasting, but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.”
— Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount — Matthew 6:17-18 (WEB)
Recover fasting as Jesus assumed it — hunger turned quietly Godward in secret, teaching the body to say what the soul means.
“Yet even now, says the LORD, turn to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.”
We have dropped fasting from the Christian life and become a people who feed every appetite the instant it speaks, so the soul grows soft and ruled by its cravings. The interior work is to take up the discipline Jesus simply expected — voluntarily going without and turning the ache toward God — so that an appetite trained to bow to him at the table learns to bow to him everywhere, and to do it unseen rather than for an audience.
Fast one meal, or one day, this week — quietly, with a washed face and no announcement. Each time hunger speaks, turn it into a short prayer, letting the emptiness say to God that you want him more than comfort.
The flesh wants every craving fed the instant it speaks, so no appetite ever learns to bow, and it will gladly turn a fast into a show for the watching. But hunger turned Godward in secret teaches the whole self that God is more necessary than bread — and a body trained to say no for him can no longer rule the soul through its cravings.
We have quietly dropped fasting from the Christian life, and in doing so we have lost a discipline Jesus simply assumed we would keep. Part of the loss is that we are a people unpracticed at telling any appetite no. We feed every hunger the moment it speaks, and a soul that has never once made the body wait grows soft, ruled by its cravings rather than ruling them.
Fasting retrains that. Deliberately going without, and turning the felt emptiness Godward, teaches the whole self that God is more necessary than food — and an appetite that has learned to bow to him at the table will bow to him elsewhere too. Done in secret, as Jesus says, with a washed face and no audience, the hunger becomes a wordless prayer: this, Lord, is how much I want you. When did you last let your body say to God what your soul means?
- Have I quietly dropped a discipline Jesus simply assumed?
- Do I feed every appetite the instant it speaks?
- When did I last let my body say to God how much I want him?
Lord, I have let every appetite rule me and forgotten the fast you assumed I would keep. Teach me to turn hunger toward you in secret, until my whole body learns to say that I want you more than comfort, more than bread. Amen.