I have always felt like fasting is a way of starving the physical body and feeding the spiritual body with God's word and love. To me I don't see fasting as a food thing..someone please correct me if i;m wrong, but I believe that when one decides to fast they should refrain from things that they feel like plague their physical body. For example someone who struggles with an addiction should starve that addiction by using the time and energy they would typically exert into that habit and converting it into prayer. I'm not sure how many of you on here would agree with me, but I truly do not see how change and transformation can come from the lack of food or water. I do not mean to sound ignorant, so please forgive me if thats how i'm coming off as. I understand the obedience aspect of fasting, but when I fast I think about bad habits that I have and each time a form of temptation comes my way I look to God and pray for him to kill the need to fulfill whatever the habit may be, thus starving the physical and feeding the spiritual. I hope i'm making sense here...
Anyone care to add or give me their opinion on this?
There are indeed different kinds of fasting.
We frequently observe fasting from food in our Church, and you are right that if we ONLY give up foods and do nothing else at all, the outcome is not helpful. It is more likely to just inspire pride in having "kept the fast". However, we also should be careful, for example, to fast from unkind words, judgmental thoughts, etc. To remind us of this we are told such things as, "It is no benefit to abstain from food, if we eat our brother."
In the right frame of mind, fasting from food can be immensely helpful. It is one of the most basic and direct ways of disciplining the flesh. Not many hours can go by before it begins to infringe upon us. There is a reason fasts from food (of various kinds) are mentioned so frequently in Scripture, and in the NT we are not told "if you fast" but rather it says "WHEN you fast."
But there are different kinds, and health is paramount. For example, young children and pregnant women never fast from food, and there are exceptions made for elderly or infirm or various health restrictions. It's all a very personalized thing.
Fasting from other things can be valid as well, particularly if it's something we have too much affection for, or spend too much time on. Directing that time to prayer instead is a wonderful discipline.
The only danger is we need to be careful and perfectly honest with ourselves in choosing our own fasts. That puts us in control, and if we use that control to please ourselves, it can defeat the purpose. We need to be sure we do not do that, nor go too far in the other direction and become so strict on ourselves that it tempts us to pride.
The purpose is to weaken the flesh, strengthen the spirit, humble ourselves before God, increase our focus on Him, and recognize our dependence on Him. If it accomplishes some or all of these, it is helpful, IMO.
