Lunch time – most in the office are gone. Now’s your chance to skip lunch (fast), slide away and pray.
Below you’ll find the song, Slide, by Chris Howland. It really expresses beautifully the core concept of The 1-Meal Fast — to slide away, get alone and hear from God. Text in italics are lyrics from the song. Enjoy the song here but then buy it and download it.
It’s lunch time and everyone in the office has either gone to the break room or headed out to one of the nearby restaurants. Everyone that is except you. Today, you slide away to the vacant spare office at the end of the hallway. The one with the lights out and the blinds drawn.
Fasting – the act of abstaining from food. Some do it solely based on the physical science and others do it as a religious practice. This one honestly doesn’t fall into the strict parameters of either. To be clear this is not the one-meal-a-day (OMAD) diet often referred to as the 23:1 intermittent fast (IF). It also isn’t the Daniel Fast, Jonah Fast, Ezra Fast or a 1,7, 10, 21 or 40 day fast – yep the kind Jesus did. This is, simply put, intentionally not eating 1 meal so that you can instead get alone for some quality time with God.
If you go to church with any regularity, you’ve likely heard the preacher talk about fasting. Theres a ton of scripture that can be cited and incredibly in-depth examinations of how to do it based on how people in the Bible did it. And, if you were to conduct an honest poll of people walking out of a Sunday morning sermon on fasting you’d likely find they are willing to try to fast but not confident they’ll really be able to do it.
A strategic pastor will schedule a 3-week sermon series right around the end of the year when you yourself already feel guilty about all the holiday overeating you’re doing. It’s a build up, a preparation, for a nicely timed all-church 21-day fast at the beginning of the new year, which coincidentally you may have been planning to do anyway as you join more than 64 million Americans who have a gym membership. The annual January pilgrimage to gyms is followed by the annual February Exodus from them. Gyms bank on it, regular gym members dread it. A sharp church preacher will capitalize on it with genuine hope that the fasting sermons and the fitness good intentions may actually result in you achieving at least some fresh spiritual gains and commitment. If the preacher goes easy on the congregation, you may get to choose the 1 thing instead of food from which you’ll fast. Like abstaining from social media for 21 days.
Sure, why not. Let’s at least try!
However while the much touted statistic/myth that in 21 days you can form a new habit may be true for some and certainly compelling to all of us (on average it’s actually 66 days – yikes!), making your faith in God a lifestyle requires something other than a 21-day group “we can do this”.
ALL OF THAT TO SAY: DO A 1-MEAL FAST
OK, so one of the primary reasons for fasting, from a Christian faith perspective, is to enrich your prayer time with God. In the below self-evaluation mentally check all that describe your prayer life:
✓ 1. I cry out to God or would try to cry out to God in an emergency (like right before an automobile impact)
✓ 2. I say a short prayer before I eat
✓ 3. I used to pray, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep”. Now, at least, I try to talk with God a bit before I fall to sleep.
✓ 4. When a group of people pray (like at church) I join along.
⊠ 5. I regularly get some quality time with God – AND God get’s some quality time with me.
Most of us can check 1-4. The last one, 5, not so much.
LET’S TALK SIMPLE STRATEGY TO FAST
Could you fast 1-meal once in a month? That’s maybe 30 minutes out of 720 hours in a month. Start simple to get started and then you can do more as you experience it. Breakfast, lunch or dinner? You decide but don’t cheat. Measure how much time you take for a meal and give your time with God at least that much time.
Let me slide away – oh let me clear my mind with you. Let me find a place just to spend a little time with you.
Where? Probably not in the break room, restaurant or home table. Identify in advance where that quite, undistracted and uninterrupted place will be. It is you ALONE with God or perhaps it is you and someone else alone with God. Look forward to that. No mobile phone, no texting, no emails, no waiting for a Zoom meeting to begin, NO INTERRUPTIONS.
What do you do? Focus on God. That might include some Bible reading, some praise and worship, some prayer (talking with God). But, it most certainly requires that you LISTEN to God – that is a skill that may take time to develop.
Communicate – ‘cause everytime you speak to me, you illuminate everything I need to see.
You might do several 1-meal fasts before you start to really get a sense of how you can listen to God and what you are hearing. When you commit to slow up you’ll find that you can’t get any better input/feedback or use of your time than with God. No one knows you better than the maker.
That’s it. It’s really that simple. Sure, if you need some water to drink while you’re doing you 1-meal fast then go for it but it’s unlikely that you’ll die of dehydration over this relatively short period of time.
SO WHAT’S THE POINT?
No, this fast isn’t going to help you loose weight. It isn’t really even intended to help you build discipline with your appetite although you might gain that as a possible additional outcome. And it’s not likely that you’ll have that biblically heroic moment that people talk about and go, “Wow, I wish I had that kind of faith.” But, the 1-meal fast is an intentional trade off of not eating so that you can capture some time and nurture commitment toward God. It lets you settle down and listen up.
PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL FITNESS BENEFITS
- Taking time in prayer can help reduce stress and nurture peace in you from God’s Spirit.
- Listening to God can guide you into being in God’s perfect will and plan for your life.
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