"So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes."
Within our culture many liturgical churches practice the observance of Lent the 40 days prior to Easter which is a time when people do without something as a symbol of a fast. Some do eat meat. Some don’t participate in a personal pleasure in preparation of the Holy Season. Many practice a personal discipline and use that time to meditate on God and pray.
In a previous church, we had a fast designed to identify with the hungry of the world and gave the money normally spent for our food that day to World Relief. I was reminded when I was hungry, I could go in a few hours to my refrigerator and stop the discomfort, but many in our world had no place to go to stop their hunger. That fasting experience made me thankful and praiseful for the blessings God gave me. It also made me more seriously aware of the poor who need more than our nickels and dimes. They need our prayers and witness to meet physical needs as well as spiritual hunger in their lostness for eternity.
David Smith, a British author, wrote a book called, Fasting, a Neglected Discipline.
His definition of a Biblical fast is as follows: “Fasting is an age-old practice, common in most religions which involved the cessation of eating for an agreed time, but required the drinking of water at least, unless extreme circumstances deemed otherwise. The practice was commanded by God in the O.T. times, in order that men might have an annual reminder of their sinful nature and was assumed, by Jesus, to be a spiritual duty to which believers would sometimes resort. When practiced by Christians there is no ulterior motive, since the glory of God alone is the object in view.
To a Christian, fasting involved the whole man and symbolizes total discipline. Except on special civic, or local church , days of penitence, Christian fasting is of necessity private and secret. To the Christian fasting is not a ritual to be indulged in regularly, but source of intimate delight even though it may involved heart searching and sorrow; for the value of this discipline lies not in its immediate effect, but in the results which flow from its practice, and the gradual effect which it has upon the individual believer.” Pg. 25.
