Prayer and Fasting

Here are some tips to help you pray!

• Commit to a specific time each day to devote to prayer. Find a place where you can be free of distractions and be alone with God.

• Use the prayer point and scripture  provided each day to focus and fuel your praying. Write the Scripture and prayer point on a card and carry it with you, post it on your social media, make it the lock the screen on your phone—whatever you can think of to keep these prompts in front of you. Use them throughout the day and invite others to join you in praying.

• You can take it a step further by journaling your prayers each day, simply writing out your prayers to God. It’s a great opportunity to hide God’s Word in your heart, working to memorize the verses as you meditate and pray.

• In addition, you may consider ways to pray with others during this season. Set up a Zoom call with friends (is that still a thing?) or members of your community group. Pray together as a family. Invite others to join you on this journey.

• Memorize – Over the next 28 days commit more time to memorizing scripture, here are a few options in how you could do that:
  • Memorize 1-2 verses each week- Choose verses that are particularly applicable to you during this season of life. You could choose from our focus passages from each week.
  • Pace yourself. Continue to review each day as you add more verses to your memory.

Why do we fast?

Fasting is a way to deepen our hunger for God and to grow in holiness and hunger for God.

More than any other discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us. (Richard Foster) And so it confronts us with our need to surrender to God. It is not a way to manipulate God or coerce him to hear and answer our prayers, but rather it acknowledges our complete dependence on him. It humbles us and awakens us to our great need for and reliance on God.

As you consider fasting, we want to encourage you to listen to the Holy Spirit. Ask God to lead you in this time of seeking his face. Whether you choose to fast for one day, several days, or the entire 28 days, the point is to humble yourself in a new way and draw near to God. Here are some ideas of what you could choose. Please consider your relationship with food and health when making a decision.

• You might choose a selective fast, eliminating certain things from your diet. Eating only fruits and vegetables, what some might call a “Daniel fast,” is an example of this type of fasting.

• Another option is a partial fast, which is refraining from eating for a set period of time each day. You could choose to fast from a single meal or from sunup to sundown.

• Some of you may feel led to engage in a complete fast, refraining from eating and only drinking liquids for particular days or even an extended period of time.

• If, for some reason, fasting from food is not possible for you, you may want to consider other ways to capture time in this season to focus and pray. While abstaining from things like social media and television are not the same as fasting from food, they might allow you some dedicated time to pray.

Hey, Parents!

If you haven’t already read our guide to prayer and fasting, take a minute and see what this habit means to us as a church family.

As we think about the best ways to “turn from our physical appetites and recognize our greater hunger and need for God,” we want to be intentional about bringing our kids into the conversation. Building habits of grace into the lives of our kids can be a joyfully difficult task—and we believe it’s worth it! Consider explaining to your kids that your family will be fasting from an item or activity, and instead, praying together as a family during some or all of that time. Here are some practical ideas for how that could work in your home:

• Sweets and Treats – This one is of our top recommendations because it foregoes something that kids love, but that doesn’t completely ruin daily routines. Take a break from candy and dessert for a week, and instead, pray together as a family when you would normally enjoy that sweetness!
• Toy Time – Guide your kids to pick one toy (or video game) that they will refrain from playing with or using for two weeks. Tell them that when they feel the urge to play with that particular item, instead, they should come to you, and together, you can sit still for a second and tell God that we love him even more than our things.
• Delayed Mealtime – Instead of forcing our kids to miss a mealtime, what if you pushed lunch or dinner back an hour? When hunger starts to set in, join together as a family and tell God that you need him even more than our bodies need food.

It won’t be perfect, but your intentional effort to show our spiritual need through fasting can be an amazing experience for your family. Let’s not underestimate what God can do in the lives of our kids when we recognize that need for God together. Please know that our Redemption Kids team is ready and willing to help in any way we can as you pursue this aspect of family discipleship in your home.

If you would like more information and help on fasting, read these articles from cru.org:

• Seven Basic Steps to Successful Fasting and Prayer
• Six Ingredients That Will Help You Fast From Technology

This sermon by John Mark Comer might be helpful in your understanding and practice of fasting and prayer.

Consider reading these books on prayer:

• Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Tim Keller

• Going Higher with God in Prayer: Cultivating a Lifelong Dialogue by A.W. Tozer

• Just Ask: The Joy of Confident, Bold, Patient, Relentless, Shameless, Dependent, Grateful, Powerful, Expectant Prayer by J.D. Greear