God Gets Your Attention

Announce a time of fasting; call the people together for a solemn meeting. Bring the leaders and all the people into the Temple of the Lord your God, and cry out to him there. Joel 1:14

Fasting is almost a lost discipline. Either people treat it as some legalistic strong-arm technique to get God to grant their petition, or it is connected only to health issues like purifying one’s body.

The most encouraging benefit of fasting is sometimes overlooked because it is so simple. Fasting changes my pace, my focus, and my heart so I can have more time and fewer distractions. A fast buys me quality time with God.

In Greater Health God’s Way, author Stormie Omartian notes that over eighty verses in the Bible refer to fasting. One particularly interesting to me is, “The kind of fasting I want calls you to free those who are wrongly imprisoned and to stop oppressing those who work for you” (Isaiah 58:6).

When Jesus sent out the disciples two by two, they came back frustrated that they couldn’t achieve the miracles that people needed in order to set them free. Jesus gently reminded them that “these come with prayer and fasting.”

Fasting has a strong side benefit: God gets your attention. Most of the kings of Israel proclaimed a fast for one reason or another:

• He remained faithful to the Lord in everything, and he carefully obeyed all the commands the Lord had given Moses. (2 Kings 18:6)
• Jehoshaphat was alarmed by this news and sought the Lord for guidance. He also gave orders that everyone throughout Judah should observe a fast. (2 Chronicles 20:3)
• And there by the Ahava Canal, I gave orders for all of us to fast and humble ourselves before our God. We prayed that he would give us a safe journey and protect us, our children, and our goods as we traveled. (Ezra 8:21)

If you need more direction or need to repent or draw close to God, try fasting, and God will get your attention.