Why I Broke My Fast

Why I Broke My Fast

So here I go, embarking on a new fast of no food until at least 7:00pm, hopefully longer though, for three days. What was not considered, though, was that we were having a work-related, catered “Thanksgiving food” department lunch that I had completely forgotten about, and this was day one of my fast. I had been up since about 6:00am with no food of course, but this was completely unexpected.

I had thoughts like: “I don’t want to skip out on the big meeting,” “I don’t want to be the weird guy at the table who, though his stomach is growling, is not eating while everyone around me is chomping down on a laid out Thanksgiving menu,” and “I don’t want to try to make a plate and save it until after 7:00pm, as this would look a little weird and also cause uncomfortable temptation all day long.” Needless to say, I said “I’m sorry” to God, asked Him to “please forgive me,” and partook of the fixings.

How familiar does that, giving in to the temptation caused by your surroundings and asking for forgiveness, sound to everyday life as Christian in a secular world? Reflecting on the fasting example, I found some very important and interesting points that I’d like to share with you for consideration.

1. One of the biggest concerns with not eating was how I’d appear to the other people in the room. Jesus said that if you are ashamed of me (ashamed to follow what you are doing for Him), He will be ashamed of you before the Father (Luke 9:26). Yet in this example, how people would look at me was the greater concern. As Christians, we should always be more concerned with doing God’s will than with how others will look at us for doing it. Sometimes God will advise us to do some unconventional things. In the Bible (Mark 10:21), people were told to sell EVERYTHING they had and give it to the poor. That would sound ridiculous to many of us today, but if that is what God instructed, it would be better to obey it than to worry about how we’d look to people.
2. I wouldn’t have had to worry about how I’d appear as much if I weren’t so submerged in the environment that is going in a different flow than what God was leading me to do. Obviously sharing lunch together is not a bad or evil thing, but if God is saying to you to fast, it’s best to avoid that environment that would tempt you to do otherwise. The Bible teaches that you should flee sin and avoid even the appearance of it (1 Thessalonians 5:22), and while the particular thing may not be sin in and of itself (as in though it is typically a good thing, God told you to avoid it today), disobedience is. We are supposed to be in the world but not of it (John 17:15-16), meaning, though we are around things, we don’t follow the crowd in the stuff that is contradictory to what God has instructed us to do in His word and through His revelations to us.

Looking at these points, we must recognize and understand that we are constantly surrounded by influences, situations, and people that are doing things counter to what God is telling us to do. These are things that you see others enjoying tremendously, making you want to partake so you can have the same pleasurable enjoyment as well, but knowing deep down that it is not what God wants you to be doing. Then you have to face the pivotal point of what you will actually do.

The good thing is that most of the time you will not be in an unavoidable situation and can simply just not go to that place or around that person where you find weakness, though some times you may. But, when you do find yourself in one of those unavoidable situations that is tempting you to do something counter to God’s instruction to you, you have to make a choice: give in or follow God. It’s easy to say, but not always easy to do. In fact, it is often very difficult, and the more submerged you are within the environment the harder it will be to fight. You can still escape or overcome it through the power of Jesus for even He was tempted in the same way with food after 40 days of fasting, but man doesn’t live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds from the mouth of God, remaining faithful and trusting in that we shall not be tempted beyond what we can handle (1 Corinthians 10:13). May we as Christians, then, learn the lesson from breaking a fast, and avoid the temptations in our lives, and also keep each other lifted up in prayer and support.

Bless You!