Fasting is when we don’t eat food, and that makes our stomach church from a feeling of emptiness and hunger. Have you ever noticed that when you are deeply grieved and in anguish over something tragic that you feel this same churning in the pit of your stomach? It is very possible that fasting is a means whereby we bring our physical and emotional state into conformity with our spiritual state.
Fasting is an act of mourning. It is an act of grieving. David writes in the Psalms that when his enemies were sick, he fasted for their recovery:
“But I, when they were sick— I wore sackcloth; I afflicted myself with fasting; I prayed with head bowed on my chest.” (Psalm 35:13, ESV)
You’ll notice in this text that fasting is described as a means of “self-affliction.” It is a means whereby we, through self-affliction, strive to bring our physical state into conformity with our spiritual state.
