Is God Calling Us to Fast?
Phil Moore
When the British Isles stood on the brink of French invasion in the run-up to the Seven Years War, King George II did something rather remarkable. He proclaimed a solemn day of prayer and fasting in which he called his nation to petition God for deliverance. John Wesley records in his Journal for Friday 6th February 1756 that "The fast day was a glorious day, such as London has scarce seen since the Restoration. Every church in the city was more than full, and a solemn seriousness sat on every face. Surely God heareth prayer, and there will yet be a lengthening of our tranquillity.” John Wesley was right. The French invasion was averted and Britain would go on to win the war.
When the British Isles stood on the brink of French invasion in the run-up to the Seven Years War, King George II did something rather remarkable. He proclaimed a solemn day of prayer and fasting in which he called his nation to petition God for deliverance. John Wesley records in his Journal for Friday 6th February 1756 that "The fast day was a glorious day, such as London has scarce seen since the Restoration. Every church in the city was more than full, and a solemn seriousness sat on every face. Surely God heareth prayer, and there will yet be a lengthening of our tranquillity.” John Wesley was right. The French invasion was averted and Britain would go on to win the war.
A few years later, when the American colonists began their revolution against British rule, one of the first rulings of the Continental Congress was that the revolutionists ought to do the same. A national “day of public humiliation, fasting and prayer” on 20th July 1775 helped the ramshackle Continental Army to defeat a global superpower. Another similar day of prayer and fasting, called by Abraham Lincoln on 30th April 1863, helped to preserve the Union and to sound the death-knell for slavery.
So here’s my question. In our own moment of coronavirus crisis, is God calling us to fast? Few of us would doubt that God is calling us to pray, but is he also calling us to salt those prayers with fasting? I am not expecting Queen Elizabeth or Boris Johnson or Donald Trump to call a national day of prayer and fasting any time soon, but should we be taking the initiative ourselves? What is the biblical practice of fasting all about anyway, and what role ought it to play in our response to what is perhaps the greatest global crisis of our generation?
I know that talk of fasting is unfashionable these days. I know that it tends to be viewed among evangelicals as archaic, ascetic, outdated and unnecessary. But I also know that Jesus fasted, that the Apostles fasted, and that many of the people who have seen the greatest Gospel breakthroughs throughout Church history have been men and women who fasted too. I therefore want to reflect on this challenge seriously
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