In the family that is spiritual disciplines, fasting plays the role of quirky second cousin. Unlike its more consistent counterparts—prayer, worship, Scripture reading, church participation and so forth—fasting has a way of showing up sporadically, and then often it arrives obnoxiously, dressed like a fad diet. The other disciplines have their obvious functions and significance: they focus our attention on God, they help us commune with Him, they imprint His story in our hearts, they unite us with other believers. But what does fasting do, anyway?
Fasting belongs—if we’ve missed seeing this, it’s because we’ve seen only half of what the discipline is. There’s the obvious part, which is the denying of self and the giving-up of things. This is fasting from, as in, “What are you fasting from for Lent this year?” But the second half of fasting is where the meaning happens. This is fasting to—it’s a purpose, an opportunity. "To" is a space reserved so God can use and fill it, and the miracle of fasting is that He does. In the process, He transforms our simple discipline into something not only spiritual but deeply desirable too.
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