A Slow Look at Fasting: Fasting as Submission

posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi
Jan. 6 - Intro
Jan 13 - Fasting in Faith
Jan 20 - Fasting seeking Answers
Jan 27 - Fasting as Submission
Feb 4 - Fasting for a Time

I thought my little acronym-plan would give me some structure to work with on this study, since I was basically just going on a rough idea. Finding words dealing with fasting that start w/the letters F, A, S and T was tricky, and today's word, submission may be the most difficult.

First, I need to delineate why fasting in submission is different than the 'fasting in faith' I wrote about on the first week. In some ways, it is not different at all...the fast is in response to a directive from authority. But the faith fasts...those specific extreme fasts...were individual fasts, called by God, for the individual to separate himself from *everything* else so as to deal directly with the supernatural. The authority is God, and He is calling individuals.

The fast of submission I want to look at today is the call to corporate fasting coming through humans in authority. Now, these folks are expected to be calling the fast in response to the leadership of God, but the majority of the folks who will be doing the fasting will not have heard that call themselves.

Sometimes the fast is also a fast that seeks answers, as in the fasting of Jehoshaphat and Judah that we looked at last week, but often this fast is called for alignment...a time for the people to reflect on their individual lives and see what needs to change in them. As individuals focus on lining up with God's purpose, the corporate body lines up with God's purpose and then we see what God can do with people who are in alignment...in agreement. This is the kind of fast we just came off of in our church.

So, what are the Biblical examples of this type of fasting? A declared fast, if you will?

The first declared fast that came to mind was the fast declared for the Day of Atonement; I remember years ago I had a Jewish acquaintance who told me that he had to fast on that day, so I decided I'd look for the instruction regarding fasting on the Day of Atonement in the Old Testament.

I discovered that the word used there, adab, is a word that implies more than just going without food. Some of the meanings given are abase, deal hardly with, humble (self), submit (self). Probably the best translation to get the idea of what is instructed is in the Amplified version:

It shall be a statute to you for ever that in the seventh month [nearly October], on the tenth day of that month, you shall afflict yourselves [by fasting with penitence and humiliation]; it is a statute forever. -- Lev. 16:29, AMP

That makes sense...fasting, introspection, repentance...all necessary for the nation to remain pure, set apart, in accordance with God's statutes.

The second declared fast that I thought of is no doubt due to the fact that one of my favorite CD's has a song titled 'Holy Visitation' that is very reminiscent of the call to national fasting in Joel:
Declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD.
"Even now," declares the LORD, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning."
Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.
Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly. Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing...Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber. Let the priests, who minister before the LORD, weep between the temple porch and the altar.... Joel 1:14, 2:12-13, 15-17a, NIV
A corporate fast of repentance...which, by implication, invokes the promise given in 2 Chron. 7:14 -- If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. (NIV)

The third fast that comes to mind almost is a different creature altogether...the people called the fast. In Nehemiah, when the walls of the city were built and Ezra the priest stood and read the Law in the assembly for the first time, many of the people were convicted and began weeping. Their response to the Word was to fast and grieve. Nehemiah, however, pointed out to them that this was a joyous time and instructed them that they were to 'eat the fat and drink the sweet' (I've a confession of my own...that verse always makes me smile just a little), and that there would be another day for fasting. About three weeks later, the people did come together: On the twenty-fourth day of that same month, the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and having dust on their heads. Those of Israelite descent had separated themselves from all foreigners. They stood in their places and confessed their sins and the wickedness of their fathers. They stood where they were and read from the Book of the Law of the LORD their God for a quarter of the day, and spent another quarter in confession and in worshiping the LORD their God. - Neh. 9:1 - 3 . Then the Israelites declared their intention to live by the decrees and statutes of God...spelling out what they would not do, and what they would be sure to do. They didn't keep their promises entirely, but it is historically true that Israel as a nation never again fell into the worship of foreign gods.

So what I am seeing in these declared fasts is that it was not a time to seek God's direction for an individual life...it was a time to inspect one's life in light of the community. Am I a stumbling block? Am I aligned with the direction God has declared to the body? This was not a time that leadership condemned the people; the people sought God as individuals and came together in corporate repentance. It was not only an exercise in submitting to the authority in participating in the fast, it was an exercise in submitting one's self to the whole body; being part of the corporate.

That may be elementary observation to some, but to me it is a revelation. I *haven't* treated the declared fasts as a time for me to submit to the body of Christ; I have been seeking direction for *me*, as an individual. So now I'm confessing before God and all my readers that that's selfish. Oh, I realize that my direction is connected with proper submission to the body, but I've got the cart before the horse. I think if I consider the body first...my part in it will be more obvious.

So, closing thoughts: What do I need to adjust in my thinking so that I am properly submitted to God, to the leadership He has placed over me, and to other members of His body? How can I train myself to recognize 'selfish' thinking, so that I don't fall into that habit? Even at home on a day-to-day basis, recognizing that the part of the body that I am most responsible to is my own family?

(ouch... ;) )