Best with non-edible fasting

Dr. Jarlath Uche Opara
Jarlathuche@gmail.com

Fourty days journey just begun, five days gone . The euphoria still fresh and the expectation for a better spiritual resurgence after it is done and dusted very exhilarating. Fasting is good both spiritually and health wise.

It creates a balance in both ways and makes one very sound, strong and much alert to commune with the Holy Spirit and gets result very fast, reducing calories, clear blocked vein’ path ways for an efficient flow of blood and better functioning of the heart.

Few days into this lenten exercise, the gear of acceleration may be malfunctioning already and the sound of engine for a smooth movement very cranky. The journey still far and challenges on the road to the destination point plenty. This isn’t time to loose guard. It is not either a time to dull and backslide.

It is a time to pull one by ones shoe-strings , navigating the many road-blocks, the slippery spots, the pot-holes, the ditches to get to the destination point regardless, though not without bruises, wounds and other discomforting experience.

Jesus didn’t find it easy, yours may afterall not be easy if it must be done with the sincerity of heart. He fasted with food and drink, he equally fasted on pride, on passion and material craves.

Fasting without a perfect combination of the things that go into one which of course do not defile and those that come from the inside which defile, makes ones fasting very unbalanced.

From experience it is far easier to fast from those things that go into ones system ( Food, drink etc) than to fast from those things that are generated from the heart( pride, lust, anger, gossip, obsessions, arrogance, self control etc) It is easier to fast from food from 6am to 6pm than to fast from being prideful, arrogant, being angry, thinking lustfully etc for same duration.

It is easier to fast from taking ones favorite drinks either alchol or non alcoholic drinks for fourty days than to fast for 48 hours from strolling on the street of social media platforms aimlessly looking for nothing exactly.

Let our fast be more on those things that come from the heart. Those things that corrupt the mind and make the spirit of God in us very redundant. Fast from your phone, fast from that blockbusters you won’t do without. Fast from that seasonal movies that keep you wide awake in the wee hours of the night. Fast from being prideful with a condecending body gesture . Fast from speaking ill about people. Fast from getting angry needlessly. Fast from hatred.

Until ones heart is purified and made a decent abode of the Holy Spirit, whatever fasting one does on food and drink, may afterall be at best a show with no concrete spiritual benefits.

Fasting on food and drink on a heart that is clogged and saturated with the fruit of the flesh is one fasting that sounds like hunger strike.

Let your fast be one that would minimize the works of the flesh in your life and maximize the works of the spirit , sharpening the antenna of ones spiritual spirits. Fast from food and drinks if you can but at best fast from those issues that come from the heart