No Food for Thought
Growl. Here again is our most unwelcome visitor.
He makes a habit of stopping by, yet his arrival is always unexpected, like the guests of Bilbo Baggins' fateful party. There is a demand to drop what we are doing to make this admission: “I am starving!”
With each rumble, we fret over his nagging. How can we keep him occupied? What will send him away?
Look no further than how we treat our hunger to see that we are a society built on instant gratification. Our consumerist culture trains us to squash hunger with efficiency and speed. Whether it's fast-food chains, check-out line “impulse items," or protein-loaded shakes, we aim to kill hunger and keep moving. Daily, we face the secular catechesis that there is something fundamentally wrong with hunger.
Good food is one of life’s greatest pleasures, a common grace I am often grateful for. But our three-meals-a-day and snack-as-we-wish mentality can become so automatic that we miss the joy found in fasting. At its root, the often-ignored spiritual discipline of fasting is choosing hunger in the place of food. I have leaned more into this spiritual discipline over the past few months, and as I do, I grow more convinced that hunger is a misunderstood friend, not an unsolicited enemy.
A physical fast can actually help us feast the way we were meant to.
THE GOODNESS OF BEING HUNGRY
We can stave off hunger, but it never goes away entirely. Built into the design of our bodies is the regular reminder that we need to be filled. We feel our need for satisfaction. But this is more than biology—this is theology.
Hunger is not a product of man’s fall. God made trees bearing fruit that were “good for food” before Adam and Eve ever fell into sin (Gen. 2:9). There is nothing sinful about hunger itself; the trouble comes when we satisfy that hunger with the wrong thing, as Adam and Eve ultimately did (Gen. 3:1–7).
As we move into the rest of the Old Testament, we see God use hunger to serve as spiritual lessons for his people. Exodus 16 offers us a significant example. After delivering his people from the clutches of the Egyptian powers (Ex. 14:30–31), Moses and the Israelites found themselves traversing the wilderness without any food. They were angry about the visit that hunger was paying them. They complained to Moses (and ultimately to God, see Ex. 16:8), feeling as if they were brought to a desolate place to starve to death (Ex. 16:3).
God responds to their plight by providing miraculous bread from heaven. But the whole event is an occasion for God to test his people (Ex. 16:4). Through their hunger and God's plan for providing manna, God teaches his people to see that their true sustenance and rest is in God himself (Ex. 16:23). The people needed to feel their emptiness, not only before the manna rained down but also as a continued reminder to look toward an ongoing rest in God.
As we get into the New Testament, fasting is presented as a common discipline (Mt. 6:16; Lk. 2:37, 18:12; Acts 13:2, 14:23). In arguably the most important New Testament passage on fasting, Jesus delivers a powerful defense for fasting:
The disciples of John came to [Jesus], saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “The attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.” (Matt. 9:14–15)
A couple of observations are important. First, there is no debate about what is meant by “fasting” here. It’s related to food. There was no “media fast” or anything of the sort in the first century. That is significant, as we will soon see.
Second, Jesus does not use optional language when he speaks of the disciples fasting. He emphasizes, “they will fast.” Jesus did not come to unhinge God’s people from the practice of fasting. In fact, if anything, Jesus came to establish fasting as an ongoing pattern of his followers, from when he ascended until he returns.
HOW THEN SHOULD WE FAST?
What can we learn from the biblical teaching on fasting? Is fasting from food an ancient practice we no longer need? Or does the New Testament encourage us today to give ourselves to fasting?
We have tried to modernize the practice to the point where we don’t have to fast from food. I am reminded of a recent church-wide fast my wife and I participated in. Every time fasting from food was mentioned, it was dismissed as a joke. It was a laughable concept to go without food for any extended period of time. But Jesus and his disciples did not seem to share a lighthearted attitude toward food fasts.
Fasting can be more than abstaining from hunger (as I’ve written about here), but I don’t believe it can adequately be less. Of course, there is nuance here. Those who have faced eating disorders may need to adjust how they practice physical fasting. Or, as recently in my wife’s case, a nursing mother cannot give up food for a long period of time. But for a good amount of us, the problem is that we do not want to go without food. Instead of turning a focused attention to our hunger, we take comfort in food again and again.
In his book A Hunger for God, John Piper expresses the necessity of Christian fasting with precision: "Fasting poses the question: do we miss [Jesus]? How hungry are we for him to come?” When we make no effort to fast, we communicate our answer: we are satisfied with the world as it is. We are content with the physical chasm between us and God; we are not eager to see the glories of the new heaven and new earth revealed anytime soon.
As Piper concludes, “The absence of fasting is the measure of our contentment with the absence of Christ." Fasting is a tangible way for us to confess that we miss our Bridegroom and long for his presence again.
This is where a physical fast from food has its advantages. It is one thing to fast from social media, for example. But if many of us are being honest, dropping social media is pretty simple. We delete the apps or unplug the television and we are able to manage without too much of a withdrawal. In my experience, however, it’s much harder to choose hunger.
I’ve undergone “digital fasts” and “physical fasts,” and the latter has better engaged my heart with being "filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:19). This is because I cannot escape the physical reminder of hunger. Through fasting from food, we have an opportunity to viscerally feel longing. The goal is not mere asceticism. In the end, the point of fasting is to help us rightly feast. It is to enlarge our belief that Jesus is "the Bread of Life” (Jn. 6:35).
FEELING LENT
As Lent approaches, there will be no shortage of encouragements to find something worth fasting from. My personal encouragement would be that if you’re going to partake in Lent, aim to physically feel the longing. I’m not prescribing a forty-day fast from all food here. Maybe you fast from food one day a week. You could fast from certain foods that you usually “cope” with, such as dessert, carbs, or fast food.
Whatever we do, the point is to make Christ alone what we crave. If it is unthinkable for you to give up food for a day, or even a meal, it could be that you have stumbled upon your real source of comfort and security.
When we fast from food, we confess that we cannot live by bread alone and that only the Bread of Life can truly satisfy us. We remind ourselves of the Great Feast of rich food that awaits us, which puts all of our best meals to shame. We pray with more urgency and a deeper sense of our dependence. We experience the Maranatha! cry in a fresh way. We trust that God knows we are spiritually hungry, and he will bring the bread in his time.
Let us sing out the truths of Psalm 73 with felt experience:
Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is nothing upon earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever (Ps. 73:25–26).
Zach Barnhart currently serves as Student Pastor of Northlake Church in Lago Vista, TX. He holds a Bachelor of Science from Middle Tennessee State University and is currently studying at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, seeking a Master of Theological Studies degree. He is married to his wife, Hannah. You can follow Zach on Twitter @zachbarnhart or check out his personal blog, Cultivated.