Fasting! Just the Word Makes You Hungry, Doesn't It?

Fasting! The word just immediately makes you hungry doesn’t it? I’ve been fasting since I was a little boy. Of course I also began preaching when I was only eleven years old. I guess I was just always an early starter.

A particular fast has always been indelibly planted in my mind. Not for what it did, but for what it ‘did not do’! I was a teenager and several of us young guys would travel to Gatlinburg, Tennessee from time to time just to hang out and enjoy the beauty of the mountains. Compared with other red blooded young guys, I had my eye out for pretty girls even though I was always too bashful to ask any of them for a date. Oh, and by the way, that proved to be my salvation over the years.

One of my friends at the time who would serve the Lord for a while and then ‘backslide’ told me something ridiculous on this particular trip. Frank, if you’ll just backslide we can have some real fun! Well I wasn’t about to do that and I just laughed him off!

A group of us had just gotten off the tramway and walking away when I noticed this beautiful young girl walking in the long direction. Man, she sure was pretty! Even her feet were pretty! My heart was racing and I wanted to go and say something to her, but just didn’t have the bravado to do it. So she walked away and I decided to do what I thought might do the trick. I came back home and began to fast and pray for God to bring her back into my life. At this time of my life, that is really funny! Why would I present God a request like that?

It seemed to be the hottest summer ever and I was working in construction as a carpenter’s helper. I’m doing what some call a supernatural fast because I was not eating or drinking during the fast. So each day I’m sweating out all my body fluids and begging God to set up an opportunity to meet this girl again. Four days went by and I didn’t drink any fluid or eat any food. It was funny because I would go and rinse my mouth out with water and I did this fairly often because my mouth was like cotton by now. One of the other workers said, “you must have really drunk a lot of beer last night” to be drinking this much water”.

I didn’t understand that statement either as I had never even tasted a beer. Oh well, so much for a ‘supernatural fast’. What is the lesson I learned? To fast as the Holy Spirit directed and to have a righteous outcome as your goal! You know it just may have been that ‘misdirected’ fast that God honored and kept me out of wrong relationships during my younger years. I have not had to carry all that baggage of wrong soul ties and other spiritual and emotional bondages that occur because of this kind of misdirected actions.

Who knows, but I may have received some credit because in a simple uneducated way I did in fact seek God to bring the girl to me instead of chasing after her on my own. And the sweetest thing of all is the wonderful woman I’m married to today, AiLing from Shenzhen China, is the true love of my life. She was a ‘priority delivery’ by God’s providential orchestration of events. I’m more in love with her today than ever.

On a more serious note, I have made fasting a systematic part of my walk with Jesus Christ. I am convinced I have received supernatural insight and strength for the trials and challenges of life. I would not have received these spiritual privileges if I had not chosen to deny my flesh and feed my spirit during the same process. It is very interesting and at the same time so rewarding how you can deny yourself food and be filled at the same time.

By Frank Blalock