For Whom?

Week 30, Thursday

Liz Traylor

When you fasted . . . did you really fast for Me—for Me? Zechariah 7:5 (nkjv)

Sunday school that morning in Texas began with prayer request time. One member asked us to join her in fasting and praying for her daughter to make the cheerleading squad. As ignorant as I was about biblical fasting at the time, that just didn’t sound right to me. Now I know why.

Fasting is not to influence God to give me what I want, but to give God what He wants from me—worship, praise, and surrender.

The Israelites had been fasting in the fifth and seventh months for seventy years of exile (see Zechariah 7:5). But why were they fasting? Because that’s what they had been taught to do. Fast to pacify God Almighty—even when they had been terribly disobedient. Fast to get Him to relinquish His vengeance against their sin.

The Lord of hosts sent the prophet Zechariah to the children of Israel with the accusing query: “Did you really fast for Me—for Me?”

Sadly, they failed to fast in repentance or in devotion to the Lord. They fasted as a ritual and completely negated the effectiveness of the experience. My approach to the discipline has been no different at times, I confess. But I learned my lesson when the chairman of a ladies’ retreat asked all the leaders to fast before we came to teach. So I told God to show me what to say and didn’t eat for a day.

I didn’t pray either, or seek His direction for my conference, or anything remotely spiritual. I just went without food and proceeded through my daily routine—very hungry. At dinnertime, the Lord asked me the Zechariah question: Did you really fast for Me?

I asked His forgiveness and never wasted a fast again.

You see, I can fast until the proverbial cows come home, but unless I fast with a genuine spiritual objective, seeking the guidance of God, it is just personal deprivation. Kind of like a manipulative hunger strike or a petulant child who refuses to eat his veggies unless he gets his way. “Gimme,” God!

Beware. It is very easy to lose sight of the original intention of a fast, but don’t. Fast for God, with God.

Father, at the end of any fast, may I be able to say I fasted for You. Amen.