Fast Day 2: True Hunger

Fasting is a spiritual discipline that you might not have tried before. I have done a forty day sugar fast every January for three years. I can’t say it’s easy, but it does get easier. In this fast I still eat meat, fish, vegetables, fruit and nuts. I still eat. Whatever you decide to fast, while deepening your relationship with God, there will be no need for wearing a gloomy face (Matt 6:16), but I’m here to tell you that the Hangry Sugar Dragon is real, so, be prepared!

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after He had fasted for forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written: Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God.” Matthew 4: 1-4

The Gospels agree that Jesus did a forty day total food fast! It is not clear if He did drink water, but as He was fully human as well as fully divine, He probably did. We desperately need water after about 21 days. So as in any endeavor where God is sincerely sought and soon to be glorified, the devil shows up. He tempted Jesus to use His divine power to break His commitment to fast. Instead, Jesus answered with a powerful Scripture.

There are many places in the Bible that tell us our bodies are linked to our spiritual souls (1 Corinthians 6:19), so we know that hunger is not merely a physical state. Jesus describes His physical hunger as a pointer to a far more important hunger, a spiritual hunger for the word of God.

True hunger is a hunger for truth. There are many things that we accept as truths that are not specified in the Bible: Scientific truths, medical truths and electronic truths. But we are privileged to have the truths of being human, being spiritual, becoming more mature, transforming our lives and becoming His servant written down in the Bible and explained to us as we read and pray. He speaks to us and if we are truly hungry, we hear and we act.

Jesus did not turn stones into bread, so the devil tempted Him some more. And Jesus again responded with Scripture, with the bread of the words of God (Matthew 4: 7, 10). This is the true bread that satisfies fully.

You might try totally fasting for a whole day to get the feel of being truly hungry. Or maybe you have a good imagination. Most people feel an overwhelming focus on food and the need to be filled.

What emotions or thoughts might you expect to run through your head?

As you become more focused on God and your need to be filled with His words, not with the thing you are fasting, what might you do differently in your day?

How could this experience help you share His words and speak truth into the lives of people who don’t know that their soul hunger could be filled by Him?

Father God, help me to feel and feed my hunger for You. Fill me with Your words of truth and love in such a way that my soul overflows and feeds others in my life. Amen.