Search
Guidance for a Weekend Fast
On Thursdays we want to engage our hearts to love Jesus more. This is often done through a spiritual discipline, an activity to apply the gospel to your life. Today, we learn how fasting causes us to trust Jesus more.
Fasting is the most common spiritual discipline associated with Lent. When we fast, we give up something indulgent or possibly essential as a way of reminding of us our weakness and need for God. Fasting lends to all sorts of expressions depending on the situation of the person. One could fast from something like coffee or desserts, or one could fast from all meals during the daylight hours. It is less about what we fast from and more about what fasting is doing in us.
Fasting is not a spiritual discipline that most of us practice on a regular basis. Because of this, we encourage you to try a weekend fast as a starting point and see what the Holy Spirit does and puts on your heart from there. Aaron Damiani offers the following questions to wrestle with as you think about preparing for a weekend fast:
- What cravings have a hold on me?
- What would be truly liberating to leave behind?
- Short of an addiction, have I become dependent on a particular food, drink, substance, or activity?
- What would be truly challenging to give up for Lent?
- What is Jesus asking of me?
As you reflect on these questions, the Holy Spirit will lay something on your heart to fast from for the weekend. Fasting provides value in its difficulty and not your perfection. If you give up coffee when you’re not a coffee drinker, then fasting won’t provide any value because it was not a challenge. If you attempt to give up coffee, and fail to maintain your fast, there is still value because you learn how frail and entangled you are, which will help you see your need and thankfulness for Jesus.
We would encourage you to try fasting this weekend and hopefully for the other weekends of Lent.