The Lord has been speaking to me a lot lately about fasting. He's led me to the book of Joel and I've been reading John Piper's "A Hunger for God." Recently, through a time of fasting, the Lord gave me the clarity I've been seeking since I returned home from Africa. And it's all summed up right here. The Lord gave us Isaiah 58 going into the fast, and now He is giving it on the way out as well. Once again, He is proven faithful!
by John Piper, "A Hunger for God",
what the Lord taught me from chapter 6:
"Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke,to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house;when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, 'Here I am.'If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong;and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in." Isaiah 58.6-12
"Fasting is, as much as lies in us, an imitation of the angels, a contemning of things present, a school of prayer, a nourishment of the soul, a bridle of the mouth, an abatement of concupiscence: it mollifies rage, it appeases anger, it calms the tempests of nature, it excites reason, it clears the mind, it dis-burdens the flesh, it chases away night-pollutions, it freas from head-ache. By fasting, a man gets composed behavior, free utterance of his tongue, right apprehensions of his mind." Chrysostom, AD 407
"So God comes to them and says, The fast that I choose is not that you religiosly make yourselves hungry and afflicted, but that you make the poor less hungry and afflicted. If you want to fight sin by taking bread away from your own mouth, then put it in the mouth of the poor. Then we will see if you are really fasting for righteousness' sake. . . Go without bread for the sake of the poor. That's the fast I choose."
"Against this backdrop of the pervasive contemporary American consumerism, the fasting of Isaiah 58 begins to have a sharper point. That a lifestyle of serving the poor rather than consuming another commodity should be called a "fast" is not so strange after all. Most of our life is a gorging of one artifically inflamed appetite after another. Any alteration of this pattern for the sake of ministry is a "fast"--and one that would please God more than a hundred skipped lunches with a view to more pizza at supper."
"God will not allow me to content myself with severe discipline that does not attack the oblivion in which most comfortable middle-class Americans live. He says that fasting is meant to awaken us to the hunger of the world, not just to our own hunger."
"It is one of God's many paradoxes that there is more light in the dark places of the world for those who go there to serve. And there is more darkness in the glitz of great malls for those who go there to escape."
"The guidance of God is not meant for the bright paths of the garden of ease, but for the dark places of pain where we have few answers and paths have never been cut."
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