Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the house of Jacob their sins. For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them.
‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’ “Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying on sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD ?
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter - when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness [a] will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and 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.
The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
Isaiah 58:1-11 (NIV)
We closed our book study of Red Letters last week with several in our book study group agreeing to fast on Fridays (from sunrise to sunset, or between breakfast and dinner as each of us sees fit). I read Red Letters for the first time about 8 months ago. I had already read Fields of the Fatherless by Tom Davis, Dangerous Surrender by Kay Warren, and a few other books that turned my heart toward scripture in a new effort to follow Christ’s instructions regarding “the least of these”. I was feeling a need to do more to engage in the fight against extreme poverty and to seek the Lord’s specific plan for the action that I was to take. I began fasting on Fridays. I had fasted before, but I always came away from it feeling like I had made a sacrifice, but didn’t really feel I had grown as a result of it. I didn’t even realize that my focus was on what fasting would produce in my own life instead of a focus on love and obedience to my Lord.
When I began fasting with a heart broken for the widow, the orphan, and those living in extreme poverty, and with a desire to know God’s heart in regard to them, everything changed. Suddenly, my fast days were filled with promptings to think about how things changed when I was hungry. I noticed that it was harder for me to be patient and loving toward my kids when I was hungry. How does hunger effect the families that live with it every day? It was also harder to have the energy to work. Fridays are also our heavy cleaning and cooking day in preparation for our Saturday rest day. How would it feel to be walking 3 miles for water on an empty stomach? I began to think about how hunger even effected my early bonding with Feven and Nati. How does hunger effect a mother and her newborn baby that her body can’t produce enough to satisfy? How would it feel to be hungry and know that it was not a matter of choice, and that no food was close at hand to end the hunger? These questions made me pray with a new emotion and fervency. I felt drawn to God’s heart and my desire to in some small way alleviate some of the suffering that His heart must feel. For the first time in my life the fast wasn’t about me at all, and for the first time I actually felt drawn in to Him on those days.
I welcome you to join me in fasting on Fridays, and I look forward to hearing your stories of drawing closer to God.
