40 Day Fast: a collection of all the posts

Several people have asked me recently about my 40 day fast (a juice fast, meaning no food, just water and fruit juices) from the summer before last. I thought it might be good to make a post that would show you where you could find information about my experience during those 40 days.

I've put some notes by the posts I think are most interesting if you don't want to read 40 days of "Wow, I'm really tired and I keep forgetting stuff and I'm really tired. Also let me repeat a story I told you yesterday."


MY MOTIVATION: 40 day fast: Why would you do that?

BEFORE YOU FAST, READ THIS: Some excellent reasons not to fast.

Day 32 has a bibliography that you may find useful, as well.

Day 1.

2

3 When you're fasting but sitting in on communal meals.

4

5

6

7 Seems like I was getting a little irritable after a week of no food.

8 Don't necessarily expect a bush to catch on fire and God to speak out of it just because you're fasting.

9

10 Food God.

11

12 Processed vs. organic theology

13

14

15

16

17 Gauging your emotions: overreacting while fasting.

18

19

20 Halfway there!

21

22

23 In which I mess up trying to take a day with the Lord.

24 The true purpose of fasting.

25

26

27 Here's an honest post about how bad you feel during the fast sometimes.

28

29

30

31 Is there a big decision on the horizon?

32 A HELPFUL BIBLIOGRAPHY of fasting books and resources (with notes on each book).

33

34

35

36 Fasting together in community.

37 The discipline of God's presence.

38 "After 40 days he was hungry." Some thoughts about Jesus fasting in the wilderness.

39

40  Meeting with God on the last day of the fast at Mt. St. Helens. Also, Bigfoot. No, really.

And, for a "last laugh": A year and a half later and I can't fit into my "fasting pants."

Fasting Day 467: Twice the Man I used to be

You may recall last summer when I wrote about my forty day fast. Earlier this week I had a special moment that reminded me of my fast.

Dramatic re-enactment. 

I went to exercise before going in to work, so I threw on my workout clothes and grabbed some clothes out of the closet. After my work out I took a shower, dried off and went to put my clothes on and discovered... that I had grabbed the jeans I bought when I was fasting because all my regular clothes had become too large.

Pants meant for me when I was about forty pounds lighter.

So. It was either wear my work out clothes or find a way into those pants.

I'm happy to report that with correct breathing, impressive upper body strength to pull the button and button hole toward one another and a minimum amount of discomfort I was able to put those pants on. I looked like a rock star with painted on jeans.

Fasting Day Forty: Break-fast

 So, here we are. The end of the road.

I got up this morning and packed some juice and water and headed for Mount St. Helen's. I've been up there once before when I was spending a day in prayer and found it to be a place where I could get away from the rest of the world for a bit.

Krista and Nurse Shasta were both concerned that I was going off into the wilderness when I had almost fainted yesterday and both bound me with bold promises to make sure that I would text often to fill them in on where I was and how things were going. Much to my chagrin, I discovered that my cell service disappeared at about the same time that I passed the Sasquatch. Yes, there is a Bigfoot "Museum" near Mt. St. Helen's. Supposedly there have been some great sightings of the elusive beast in the area. All I saw was this giant statue, but you can bet I kept my eyes peeled for a real one.

One of the things that I experience at Mt. St. Helen's is a reminder of the scale of things in life. For one thing, the mountain itself used to look like this:

Mt. St. Helens the day before the eruption in 1980.

In May of 1980, the volcano erupted like so:

It erupted at about 8:30 in the morning, and ash from the plume reached Idaho by noon. It varied from 12 to 16 miles above sea level, and continued to erupt for over nine hours. Although most people had been evacuated, there were some who remained nearby who died in the aftermath of the eruption. Trees for miles around were destroyed by the eruption, the mud flows or the superheated ash. Many of them were essentially instantly petrified because there wasn't enough oxygen in the air for them to catch fire. At one ranger station I went to, they had a tree section that had been well over 1,200 years old that was uprooted in the explosion. That really struck me. A tree that outlived my ancestors, brought low by the volcano.

I took this pic the last day of my fast.

Now if you look at the volcano from the North side, this is what you see. It completely blew off the top of the mountain, and the North side of the mountain was largely destroyed. As you drive toward it, you can actually see where the edge of the tree line is, where the trees were destroyed and are coming back to life... the entire forest in that area is the same age. Now life is returning to the area and there are deer and elk and beavers and all sorts of woodland creatures making their way back to normal life near the volcano. Interestingly, the explosion creates very rich soil, so although the destruction was intense, the returning life is lush and vibrant.

I felt almost overwhelmed with the possible spiritual metaphors in the midst of all this. The grandeur and glory and might of God. The destructive power inherent in the volcano, the slow process of life's return to the once barren land, the increased fruitfulness of the new life, the people who ignored warnings about the mountain and paid the price, the fleeting nature of life, the length of a tree's life outweighing that of a human being by far.

I stopped and took some time to sketch the mountain, and though I'm not a great artist, it helped me to stop and really look at the details, to see it more carefully than I might have otherwise.

And in the midst of all this, I was waiting to hear from God.

He spoke to me in all of this... about change, and transformation and power and preparation for things to come. No great specifics, nothing that a skeptic would hear and say, "You're right that must be God." But I'll tell you this... I felt his presence throughout the day, like he was alongside me, like he was with me and speaking to me throughout, the same way that I would experience another of my friends who had come along for the day. He did say a few specific things, but they're a little personal for sharing here... suffice it to say that I heard from God, and that it was a meaningful and powerful time.

I drove home and met Krista and she and I went into Portland, and I shared with her some of the things God had said to me, and we talked about what it might mean and talked a bit about the fast and how it had gone. We went to a Thai restaurant and I ordered a salad roll... basically a Thai salad wrapped up in a rice wrapper. I don't care for them, but I knew I had a chance of this sitting well as my first meal. I have never tasted anything so good. After we had prayed and I took my last bite, I nearly started to cry. I am so happy to be eating again, and so thankful that the fast is over.

Was it worth it? God didn't say anything to me that he couldn't have said while I devoured an entire pizza. But I will say this... I wanted to hear from him more passionately than I have in a long time. He certainly had my full attention at the end. It was hard, and there were days when I hated it. But it was worth it, yes.

Now it's time to re-enter the real world. and I have to admit there is some fear and trepidation in that, too. But it's time to leave the wilderness and enter the cities of human companionship again. I look forward to sitting with you and eating a meal, and talking about it together.

Fasting Day 32: Bibliography

I read a lot of books about fasting during my fast. If you're interested, here are a few of them and a couple of thoughts on each.

Baab, Lynne M. Fasting: Spiritual Freedom Beyond Our Appetites. Downer’s Grove, IL, InterVarsity Press 2006.
An interesting book with a broad variety of good information… Ms. Baab walks thought a Christian history of fasting, medical issues in fasting, and fasting as a way to get freedom and deeper connection with God. Her definition of fasting is not related to food only, but in giving up anything for a limited time for a spiritual purpose.

Wimmer, Joseph F. Fasting in the New Testament. Ramsey, NJ, Paulist Press. 1982. This book had some really interesting insights into a variety of new testament passages, especially the 40 days in the desert for Christ. Mr. Wimmer spent a good amount of time focused on discovering the “original” text of scripture (i.e. the Q document and so on), so might be a little much for people who put a higher theological weight on the idea of the Bible being completely authentic (for instance, one of his big questions is, “Did Jesus actually historically go out into the desert and do a 40 day fast or is that just a story told for teaching purposes?”) I didn't walk away on board with everything the man thinks or even liking some of his questions, but he made some surprising connections and definitely provided "food for thought" ha ha ha ha ha ha. Pun intended.

Towns, Elmer L. Fasting for Spiritual Breakthrough. Ventura, CA, Regal Books, 1996. Essentially, Towns sees fasting as a tool to break various spiritual issues in life, and lists nine different Biblical examples of this and what he sees each “type” of fast entailing. I didn't find the book particularly convincing, honestly, because it doesn't match my experience or what I understand to be happening in the scriptures he looks at. It's a popular book and a popular point of view, though, and may be worth your time.

Bright, Bill. Your Personal Guide to Fasting and Prayer.  This entire booklet is available at the link on the title. This is probably the most practical, brief and straightforward of the fasting books I read. It's designed to help people who are actually fasting, rather than learning about the theology or history of fasting. And it's free, and written by someone who did a lot of fasting, not just study about fasting.

Piper, John. A Hunger for God. Wheaton, IL. 1997. Crossway Books. A good, Christ-centered book on the power of fasting to help us reawaken and refocus ourselves toward God. It shows how fasting is a spiritual tool that allows us to desire God more in our lives. And, coincedentally, it's the inspiration for my own title on my own never-to-be-published book on fasting, Hungry For God and Cheeseburgers.

Foster, Richard. Celebration of Discipline. Only one chapter of this discussion of spiritual disciplines is actually about fasting, but it's a great, compact discussion of the potential positives in fasting and how to use fasting as a tool to grow closer to Christ.

McKnight, Scot. Fasting: The Ancient Practices. McKnight's book is probably my favorite new read during this fast. He focuses on fasting as a response to sacred moments in life, not as a tool to "get" anything from God. So, it might be that fasting comes about as a result of overwhelming grief or because one experiences God's presence in an overwhelming way (or desires to) but not because it moves God in any way. In fact, he argues that fasting is our "natural" response to sacred moments and it's not something we need to practice or prepare for, but will be our natural response in certain situations. I'm simplifying and no doubt doing violence to his argument, but this is one I would gladly recommend.

Day Twenty-Nine: No good reason to fast other than obedience

Today at the office, Bethany and Jesse asked if I was dieting or something. I told them about the fast and they asked the dreaded "why" question. I told them that I had “no good reason other than God told me” to fast. Which is true. I can't imagine a good reason to do this other than obedience.

I'm so tired... just making these notes of the fast seems like a monumental task.

I’m starting to wonder if anything of any real significance will come out of this time (i.e. a change, something different, God speaking more than he would speak on an ordinary day of interaction…). We’re running out of days. Tomorrow will be THREE FOURTHS of the way through. Crazy.

Fasting Day Twenty-Seven: Losing Hope

Starting to re-think the
"fruit juice only"diet.

Reminder: these posts aren't in real time. My fast is over, all is well, I am healthy and doing fine. But that's not how I felt on day 27 of the fast....

Today was the worst I've felt in a long, long time. I felt terrible today. Nothing felt good. I woke up feeling unpleasant, and was immediately unhappy with the people around me (which meant, of course, my family). I lacked any strength whatsoever, and the thought of taking an extra step or reaching across a table made me feel a fatigue bordering on despair. 

On the way to school the kids and I basically inherited a little lost kitten, which in some ways made the day better in that I stayed home trying to find the kitten’s home instead of going to work. But I slept HARD when the baby went down for her nap and woke not feeling well.

I told Krista tonight that I had felt awful all day and she said, “you look awful” and that I was starting to look “a little bony.” We’re headed into that unhealthy look now… and almost two weeks still to go. Fasting doesn't feel like something helpful, or spiritually enhancing, or healthy or useful today. It feels like something dangerous. It feels like lying still in bed and wondering what it would be like to never have to get up.

Fasting Day Twenty-Four: Do Over

Yesterday, in my attempt to get time alone with God, I found myself sucked into business and what was meant to be a day with God turned into a few hours of reflection. This is not too big a surprise... this happens often enough. So today, I started over and tried again.

I started the day off by driving up to WSU Vancouver, where I sat in the library and read Isaiah 58, where God talks about what fasting really should be.  It’s not about getting God’s attention or even about trying to get close to him. God says “they seem eager to be know my ways” and “day after day they seek me out” and are baffled why they’re not getting an answer, not getting what they want. And it turns out it’s because fasting and prayer doesn't counter-balance the fact that they’re interested in living their lives their own way. They want to keep mistreating other people and one another and they aren’t interested in doing what is right. And God says, that the best thing to do as part of a fast is to destroy injustice, to break enslaving yokes, to provide for those less fortunate than yourself. It made me think of people like Gandhi and Cesar Chavez, and how for them fasting was a tool to try to bring about justice on the earth. And it made me think that here I am, more than 3 weeks into a fast and I am still doing whatever I want. Thinking about myself, focused on my needs, doing wrong things because I like doing them.

Overall, it was a great day of reflection and prayer, with lots of interesting topics to consider.I spent a good amount of time looking at the story of Jesus' 40 day fast and comparing it to the 40 years in the wilderness for the people of Israel. If you compare the story of Christ's fast with Deuteronomy 6-8 all sorts of strange things come out... for instance, the first temptation to "turn the stones to bread" leads us to "man does not live by bread alone"... Jesus trusts that God will provide in a way that the Israelites did not. Some of the books I read said that we should see Jesus as a "new Israel"... if he can overcome the temptations set before him then he will be allowed to take us all into a new promised land. I'll put up a bibliography soon with some of the books I've been reading. I will say that one of the books (by John Piper) was called (like yesterday's post) "Hungry for God." I think if I ever wrote a book about fasting it would have to be called HUNGRY FOR GOD (AND CHEESEBURGERS).

I ended the day by meeting with Pastor Jim, the executive pastor of our church here in Portland, who said that for him fasting is like speaking in tongues… if God gifts him with it or tells him he has to do it, he’ll do it, but otherwise he’s content to let others do it. That's not all he said, but we had a good time together and it was a nice way to end my day with the Lord. I felt like God met with me and I learned a lot, and I was pleased that the day had gone well and without distraction.

40 Day Fast Day Ten: Food God

25% done! If I can just do this three more times, I'll be done. That's a nice thought. Krista made me laugh today when she said, "I feel silly saying this to you... but I've been so hungry lately!" I've been cold lately (blood pressure drops during a fast), and tired. Even though I had a full day of sleep last night, I took an hour and a half nap today!

I actually spent a bit more time focused on spiritual things today, too, and found comfort in Jesus' words that we should put down our own burdens and take on his, because his yoke is easy and his burden is light. 

If only these trees were edible!

Something I've been thinking about today is how food is not a necessity anymore for us. It's not something we wonder about having enough of, or even think of as a necessary thing to obtain because we've made an assumption that it will always be there. We open a packed pantry and say "there's nothing to eat." Our stomach growls and we say "I'm starving." We're completely divorced from what it means to be hungry. 

Now we eat as recreation. It's an obsession, it's a commercial product, it's an art form, it's a hobby. We have billboards advertising more food when we already have plenty. We have television shows (television networks) about food.  Because of this world of plenty, we don't see food as a necessity. We have to dress it up to make it interesting. We decorate it and try to find new techniques for it, we process it and modify it and keep enough on hand to stock a 1950s bunker.

This would make excellent communion bread.

It makes me wonder... do we do the same thing to God? Package him up? Do we get too much of him? Are we fat and flabby and sitting around hoarding? Do we have to advertise and innovate him so that we'll pay attention in the midst of too much Jesus? Have we forgotten that he's not just a luxury item or a hobby or a commercial product? Have we forgotten that, more than any of those things... he's a necessity?