Walking With Christ

Not to over simplify it, but prayer is nothing more than our conversation with God. The Lord’s prayer gives us instructions as to how this conversation should take place because we don’t want to become dull or numbed to the magnitude of the conversation. We don’t want to become flippant either.

Fasting is a whole different beast. Fasting is something that is mentioned in the bible quite often. The purpose of fasting is to deny ourselves in some way (usually food) for a given time or until an answer on a specific subject is received.

There are a lot of great places in the bible that speak of someone fasting in preparation for something. Fasting always comes before something that God does. Three famous examples of this would be the obvious forty day fast of Jesus in Matthew 4, the national fast called by Esther to prevent the destruction of Israel, and then there is the Daniel fast in Daniel 10.

Daniel fasted for twenty-one days. He did not eat any delicacies, meat, or drink wine for twenty-one days. He replaced his meal times with prayer. Every time he had a desire for something that he would normally have to eat or drink he would instead pray. Jump down to verse 12 to read what it says.

Daniel 10:12-14 Then he said to me, “Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. 13 The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia, 14 and came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days. For the vision is for days yet to come.”(ESV)

God heard from day one and sent someone immediately. The enemy withstood this messenger and blocked the path for twenty-one days before Michael, you know, the archangel, was sent to clear the way.

God hears your every prayer. He often begins working before we ask because He knows that we are going to ask. The answer may not come right away. The enemy wants to block the path just long enough to make sure that we do not hear the answer or position ourselves in a place where the answer would no longer be beneficial.

I could go on for days about prayer and fasting. The things that I know the Lord has done because of prayer and fasting. I’ve seen healing, repentance, conversion, salvation, strongholds torn down, marriages restored, and life spoken into so many countless situations, all because of prayer and fasting.