Some thoughts on fasting

I've been intrigued by the practice of fasting for a couple of months now. Both for the physical aspects as well as the spiritual aspects. Historically, fasting has been used by many cultures and there are some great examples of fasting in the bible, where fasting was practiced for various reasons.

I've fasted a couple of times in the past few months, in different ways, and for different lengths of times. In all cases, though, my purpose was to focus on my relationship with Jesus Christ. Spiritually, fasting is a great way to minimize the importance of things in our day-to-day lives that can distract us. When fasting, these things seem less important and the focus on Christ much more clear.

I have a desire to commit to a 30-day juice fast one of these days. I'm not quite sure if God is specifically calling me to do this, so I'm praying about whether it's the right thing to do or not. I'd like to do this because there's a big decision I'm thinking about right now, and I also want to lose some pounds. It might seem at first that these are competing reasons, but I've read that many times people begin fasting for physical reasons but God speaks to them through the fast and they end up getting a great deal of spiritual benefit from it also.

I think that if I do start the fast I'll post some regular updates here so you all can follow along with me, if you'd like. By the way, if you're interested in learning more about the physical AND spiritual aspects of fasting, there's a cool link on the right that you can check out (FreedomYou Fasting).