“Why is fasting so important and how do you make it work?” New Era, Sept. 1974, 14–15

“Why is fasting so important and how do you make it work?”

Many of us “repent” of the same sins again and again, but we don’t repent of sinning. For instance, we may be lazy or selfish or cowardly or prideful or bad tempered or impure or irreverent or whatever, and from time to time temporarily feel sorry and repentant over the unhappy consequences that follow, but these habits and tendencies may still persist. Unless we change our life-style by rooting out of our nature these deeply imbedded habits and dispositions, we will continue on in a self-deceiving, circular process of making and breaking resolutions to change and improve.

We simply can’t repent of our sins unless we repent of our sinning, unless we change our life-style, our basic habit patterns. In other words, we need to change our method of changing ourselves. We need a power source to help us, one that is stronger and more penetrating than the strength and depth of these habits.

The gospel is that power source, and fasting is one gospel practice that, I believe and have found for myself, helps immeasurably to open up and release those divine powers on our nature.

Why so, you ask?

I believe this happens in three ways. First, voluntarily going without food and water is very physical, very concrete. It represents a break in eating life-style itself. We take charge of our own appetites, which in my opinion is a first step in mastering our passions and in placing our own spirit under the direct influence of the Holy Spirit. After 40 days of fasting Christ’s own first temptation was to his appetites—then to his passions (pride, vanity) and ultimate desires and motives. The body is a good servant but a bad master. President McKay continually taught self-mastery as a characteristic of true spirituality—“Spirituality is a consciousness of victory over self. …”

Second, fasting humbles and subdues our spirit. We become aware of our limitations, our dependency on our Creator and his creations (food) for life itself. As the Holy Spirit works on us, we become more sensitive to the unseen realities; our awareness of our shortcomings and true spiritual nature enlarges; our sense of need for a Savior and faith in Christ as our Savior increases; our desire and ability to fully confess and repent deepens.

Third, these spiritual endeavors will focus and unify our thinking and feeling so we can renew our covenant relationship with the Lord. When our minds are truly made up, we keep the promises we make. The sacrament is the ordained, divine channel to express these promises and commitments—to renew our covenants. We witness or promise to take upon ourselves his name and to keep his commandments, which would include both his general commandments given through his prophets, ancient and modern, and his personal commandments given through his Holy Spirit to our conscience.

As we promise or covenant, the Lord covenants. He promises us his Spirit, which is the key to every good thing in time and in eternity. Such a releasing of the powers of godliness into our lives through faith in Christ, repentance through his power, and covenant making with him will enable us to overcome deeply imbedded habits and dispositions and to gradually become a partaker of the divine nature.

I believe that just as the Lord told his disciples that certain spiritual blessings can only come by a faith born of both prayer and fasting (see Matt. 17:14–21), so also certain malignant sinful dispositions and cancerous habit patterns can only be broken by a faith and faithfulness inspired by both prayer and fasting.

Just as we can be, in one sense, active in the Church without being active in the gospel, so also can we fast and not receive the above-mentioned benefits. I offer four suggestions regarding how to fast.

1. Divine purpose and spirit. Prepare to fast. Pray for the true spirit of fasting. Think about your spiritual needs and/or about others’ physical and spiritual needs. Fast in order to come unto Him; to be more like Him. Fast from worldliness as well as food, from anything that causes static in your spirit.

2. Prayer. This means two-way communication. Listen as well as express. Be very open and receptive to the still, small voice. Dialogue. Don’t counsel the Lord how to bless you as much as desiring to take counsel from him.

3. Feast. Feast (savor, treasure, meditate, adore, worship) on His love and His word. Prayerfully ponder the scriptures when you otherwise would be eating, or at other appropriate times.

4. Serve. In various ways get outside yourself in love. (Study Isa. 58.) Give of yourself. Pay your fast offerings (cost of two missed meals minimum) to the poor through His priesthood channel. Bear testimony at fast and testimony meeting. Express love and appreciation to your loved ones, leaders, and teachers. Forgive. Make reconciliation with any offended or offenders.

Remember—getting bogged down in a lot of introspective self-analysis will serve to undermine the spirit of resolute and devoted service.

Two cautions:

1. Avoid extremism in fasting. Sometimes it’s easier to try to work on our relationship with God through fasting, prayer, and scripture study than to love and serve his other children or to repair broken human relations. Just as we can sometimes avoid confronting our real spiritual need to change and repent by intellectualizing about gospel principles, so also can we escape dealing with pulsating spiritual needs and service hungers by theatrical and/or excessive fasting. Unless otherwise directed by the Spirit to fast more frequently, we can gain the blessings of fasting by following the Church practice of fasting for two consecutive meals once a month on the designated fast Sunday.

2. Don’t take fasting lightly. Fasting and prayer with the Spirit can literally release the powers of heaven in our lives. We shouldn’t toy and play games with it or it will turn to our condemnation, and then we will harden to the principle.

When we really want to change or to undertake any worthy project requiring fasting and prayer for God’s help, we’d better be prepared for things to happen according to our needs and his will in his time rather than our wants and our will in our time. We may be given very difficult and trying experiences, but if we stay true and faithful, all things will work together for our good, and we will come to a divine perspective and see how the Lord was fashioning us to his service, was making us “fishers of men”.

Finally, let us remember that any time we break our addiction to anything, whether it be drugs, certain foods, or habits, we will go through a certain painful withdrawal process. For instance, when we fast, we may experience headaches caused by withdrawing from certain foods to which we have become addicted. We then may become edgy and irritable and lose the whole spirit of the fast. But if we are aware of the forces at play and “stick with it,” we can experience a degree of physical cleansing and breaking of the food addiction in addition to conquering a naturally bad temper.

These physical illustrations have many spiritual parallels in my opinion. Never abort second birth processes because of the labor pains.