A Different Kind of Fasting

Scripture Reading: Isaiah 58:1-12

God inspired the prophet Isaiah to pen what might be considered a play on words. The Holy Spirit expressed a beautiful paradox in these verses. Careful meditation brings two themes to the surface—themes that seem to be virtually opposite concepts.

Theme 1 (v.6): "The kind of fasting [God] has chosen."

Theme 2 (v.11): "[The Lord] will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land."

While fasting speaks of emptiness, satisfaction speaks of fullness. How does God bring both concepts together? He promises that those who empty themselves of other pleasures will have themselves filled by something only He can give.

Now look at the words of verse 10: "If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday." If we pour out our lives to satisfy the needs of the oppressed, God will be faithful to satisfy our needs.

Let's reflect on this unique kind of fasting God has chosen. Usually we think of fasting as avoiding food for the purpose of prayer. The emptiness of our stomachs reminds us to pray. Although New Testament Scripture often speaks of fasting from food for the purpose of prayer, Isaiah 58 speaks of fasting I believe God may honor most of all. I've spent some time on this question, and I don't think it's an easy one to answer. What is God proposing we fast from? What do we have to give up or fast from to reach out to the oppressed?

God took me to the other side of the world to supply a few answers to these questions. In my two-week stay in India, these verses came to my mind more than any others. If you're looking for a fun little mission trip, keep India out of your travel plans. You never get away from its suffering. Pain follows you down the streets in the form of orphaned, filthy beggars. It penetrates your hotel room with the eerie sound of Hindu music played to appease three hundred million gods. Agony stings your eyes as you stare at the sea of poverty. It wretches in your throat when you smell the rotting flesh blocks away from the leper colony. When I returned, people asked me if I had a good time. No. I didn't have a good time. I had a profound time. I will never be the same. I can't forget what I saw.

What kind of fast did God require of me as He sent me to minister one-on-one to the oppressed? A fast from comfort. A fast from my pretty little world. A fast from rose-colored glasses. In Houston the freeways loop around the inner city to keep me from facing the poor. I can live days on end in my own neighborhood and choose to deal only with pretty problems that smell better. I can choose to fast from poverty and oppression. But if I do, I'll never have a heart like God's.

One of the purposes of a fast is for the emptiness to prompt us to a spiritual response. The emptiness in the people of India brought back vivid memories of my own at one time. So many things tore at my heart. The faces most engraved on my heart are those of the women. Heads covered. Meek. Many to the point of seeming shamed. I stood in a village with raw sewage running only a few feet from me and spoke to four women through an interpreter. I wasn't planning to. The Spirit just came over me. I touched their faces and told them they were so beautiful. I told them God saw them with great dignity and honor. Like princesses. Within a few moments four women turned into many. I still can't think about it without crying. They wept, held on to me, and were willing to do anything to receive such a Savior. They knew their circumstances might never change, but one day they would lay down this life and wake up in the splendor of God's presence. Do you know what God used to provoke a bond between these women and me? An acute memory of my own former emptiness and oppression.

We don't have to go to the other side of the world to reach out to the oppressed. Oh, how I pray we each will discover glorious satisfaction in Christ; but when it's the real thing, we must find a place to pour the overflow of our lives. Captives truly set free are the most compassionate people in the world. They don't see others as less than themselves, because they've lived a little of their own lives in the gutter too.

Our motivations for reaching out and serving others aren't always pure. My dear friend Kathy Troccoli, who ministers full-time, asked a critical question: "Am I ministering out of my need or out of the overflow of my own relationship with God?" We would be wise to ask ourselves the same question. Do we crave the affirmation of those we serve and do they help us feel important? Or do we serve because Jesus has so filled our hearts that we must find a place to pour the overflow? A ministry to the truly oppressed helps purify our serving motives. You see, they don't have much to give back. The satisfied soul is never a more beautiful display of God's splendor than when willing to empty self for the lives of others.

Lord, thank You for the calling me to spend myself on the needs of others. Thank You for letting my cup of satisfaction run dry when I've neglected to pour myself out. Please teach me more about this way of fasting. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

(Beth Moore)