January 7
Fasting As Resistance
“But Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself with the king’s choice food or with the wine which he drank.”
Daniel 1:8a
Daniel did not have much that he could do. He had been taken captive from Jerusalem into Babylon. He had been forced into the service if King Nebuchadnezzar. He had even had his name changed by Babylonian officials. And he was powerless to do anything about these circumstances. But when the king’s food was placed before him, there was at last one act of resistance against the Babylonian Empire he could undertake, there was one way he could hold fast to his identity as a member of God’s covenant people: he could refuse to eat the king’s food. The Babylonians could not force him to eat. The familiar story of Daniel 1 tells us how God gave Daniel favor and blessed him because of the stand that he took. To be quite certain, what Daniel did here cannot properly be called a fast. However, Daniel’s actions show the importance of fasting in our lives. Like Daniel, we often find ourselves in situations that are utterly beyond our control. We find that our identity as the people of God is slowly being stripped away and there is nothing that we can do about it. Just like Daniel, though, there remains one area over which the world has no authority, one avenue of resistance that is available to all believers everywhere: fasting. When we fast, we are deliberately not participating in “normal” behavior that is taking place all around us. Even when restrictions on how we can live out our faith seem to be increasing, fasting is the one act that cannot be stopped. Surely, no one can force us to eat. Sometimes, fasting may be one of the only ways, if not the only way, we can demonstrate that we are indeed set apart as God’s people. When we fast, we resist the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places when we do that which cannot be stopped by any power on earth. More than another spiritual discipline, it is a form of spiritual warfare. We must be willing to be like Daniel and make up our minds that we will not allow our identity as God’s people to be stripped away from us. We will stand. We will resist. We will fast.
“But Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself with the king’s choice food or with the wine which he drank.”
Daniel 1:8a
Daniel did not have much that he could do. He had been taken captive from Jerusalem into Babylon. He had been forced into the service if King Nebuchadnezzar. He had even had his name changed by Babylonian officials. And he was powerless to do anything about these circumstances. But when the king’s food was placed before him, there was at last one act of resistance against the Babylonian Empire he could undertake, there was one way he could hold fast to his identity as a member of God’s covenant people: he could refuse to eat the king’s food. The Babylonians could not force him to eat. The familiar story of Daniel 1 tells us how God gave Daniel favor and blessed him because of the stand that he took. To be quite certain, what Daniel did here cannot properly be called a fast. However, Daniel’s actions show the importance of fasting in our lives. Like Daniel, we often find ourselves in situations that are utterly beyond our control. We find that our identity as the people of God is slowly being stripped away and there is nothing that we can do about it. Just like Daniel, though, there remains one area over which the world has no authority, one avenue of resistance that is available to all believers everywhere: fasting. When we fast, we are deliberately not participating in “normal” behavior that is taking place all around us. Even when restrictions on how we can live out our faith seem to be increasing, fasting is the one act that cannot be stopped. Surely, no one can force us to eat. Sometimes, fasting may be one of the only ways, if not the only way, we can demonstrate that we are indeed set apart as God’s people. When we fast, we resist the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places when we do that which cannot be stopped by any power on earth. More than another spiritual discipline, it is a form of spiritual warfare. We must be willing to be like Daniel and make up our minds that we will not allow our identity as God’s people to be stripped away from us. We will stand. We will resist. We will fast.
Written by Reverend Dustin Elder
Posted in 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting
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