Women Living Well Blog

Fasting is a Christian discipline that is rarely talked about in the Christian church, so I found the book, The Daniel Fast by Susan Gregory, to be refreshing and enlightening. America has been plagued by an epidemic of obesity - we love our food -and for some they love their food more than they love their God! Fasting was a part of the Jewish culture and great men and women of God through out the Bible, participated in fasting and prayer. Our ultimate example is Jesus our Savior, who went into the wilderness for 40 days to fast and pray.

Have you ever gone on a fast? In the last few years I have begun to practice this spiritual discipline. Sometimes it's been with my Good Morning Girls group, often it's with my husband and once with an old friend from high school who now lives in Texas! The support through out the day of emails, texts and prayers has gotten me through some rough days of fasting - (I do love my Diet Coke! I know for others giving up coffee is a struggle!)

What is so great about this book is it provides a step by step plan - including how to prepare, some recipes that follow the restrictions and daily devotions for doing a 21 day Daniel Fast. I have not done a fast that included food so this sparked my interest - maybe I can do this!

Susan Gregory says in The Daniel Fast, "The definition of a biblical fast is to restrict food for a spiritual purpose." Susan explains there are three types of fasts - an absolute fast, a normal fast, and a partial fast. The Daniel Fast is a partial fast - abstaining from some foods but not all. Daniel abstained from all foods except foods from the seed and water. So this book explains how to follow his example.

Do you wish you had the deep faith of Daniel? One that could lock the jaws of lions in a den? I think we all wish we could have that type of walk with God and yet are we willing to do what Daniel did in order to have what Daniel had? Fasting is not so you can impress God with your "super" Christian ways - but it is for you. It is done to draw us nearer to God and without the aspect of extra prayer and time in the word - it is just a diet.

Fasting was created by God as a tool to bring us into closer relationship with Him. If you are interested in doing a 1 day, 3 day, 7 day, 10 day or 21 day fast - go to Susan Gregory's website to learn more about the Daniel Fast here. You can also read a past post I wrote on fasting here.