Flexing Our Spiritual Muscles in Prayer

Lets talk about spiritual exercise for a moment. For an athlete to be fit and stay in shape he usually has a daily or weekly exercise routine that he follows. When there is an athletics event coming up like the “Comrades marathon” or he wants to work on certain parts of his body he would have a temporary more intense workout to prepare himself. Well this is similar for our spiritual well being where we pray and attend church services daily or weekly to feed our spiritual man and worship God. There are times though that require us to take it a notch higher and that is when we include fasting to our routine.

Fasting is voluntarily committing to abstaining from food and other activities for a spiritual purpose. Fasting can be hard on the body but has many benefits as well. It is the attitude of a heart diligently seeking the Lord to which He responds with blessing (Isaiah 58:8, Jeremiah 14:12, I Corinthians 8:8). You can do this as a pair with your prayer partner, a group in church or even individually. If you would like to try it out here are a few types of fasting you can consider:

Partial Fast – This type of fast generally refers to omitting a specific meal from your diet or refraining from certain types of foods for certain period of time while in prayer. Most of us siyangena ke kulena, it is great for beginners too. This type of fasting is popularly known as Daniels fasting. In Daniel 1:12, they restricted their diet to vegetables and water: “Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink.” Daniel 10:2-3 says, “At that time I, Daniel, mourned for three weeks. I ate no choice food; no meat or wine touched my lips; and I used no lotions at all until the three weeks were over.”

Regular Fast – A regular fast means refraining from eating all food for a pre-set period of time while in prayer. Most people still take liquids such as water or juice or tea during a regular fast.

Dry Fasting – These fasts are complete – no food and no drink for a longer pre-set period of time while in prayer. Acts 9:9 describes when Paul went on a full fast for three days following his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus: “For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.” When Jesus fasted in the desert, the Bible says, “After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.” Esther also called for this type of fast in Esther 4:15-16: “Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: ‘Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will fast as you do. ‘” It is recommended that this type of fast be done with extreme caution and not for extreme periods of time.