Fasting Q&A with Wilson Green of Life Action Ministries

Wilson Green is a pastor and family revivalist for Life Action Ministries, based in Michigan. Fasting has been a part of his spiritual discipline for more than a deca

You’re involved in revival ministries, obviously. Have you ever done any kind of fasting for revival?
Oh, yes. The team I lead, we fast once a week for that purpose. We just cry out to God for His grace to come to us individually because, of course, we can’t teach or preach or expect revival in other people if we’re not experiencing it ourselves. We ask that the Lord would just cleanse our hands and our hearts through a consistent fast. Sometimes it might just be a meal, sometimes it’s actually a whole day. Sometimes we’ll fast from just food, or sometimes we’ll do a complete fast where we don’t drink or eat anything.

How do you tie fasting to prayer?
Everybody spends in a day’s time probably somewhere between 45 minutes and an hour to actually eat. When you don’t have to eat, then that frees up an hour of time. You are able to give that hour to the Lord and to speak with Him. As you look in the Scripture, many times the Scripture ties fasting with prayer. The disciples came to Jesus one time and they couldn’t exorcise a demon out of a person and the Lord said, “This type only comes out by prayer and fasting,” and so the Lord himself ties prayer with fasting.

What has been your experience in terms of hunger or temptation to break a fast?
There will be, especially if it’s a short fast, temptation to eat. If I get to lunch and I’m fasting, I can really tell I want to eat. It’s at those points that you cry out for God’s grace. God gives us grace in times of need whenever we have a real difficult situation or something that’s really testing our patience—a circumstance, a person. All that means is, “Help Lord, I need You.” It’s what we call flare prayers. It’s kind of a 911 sent to the Lord and He sends the grace ambulance to our aid. He helps us with His desire and power. He’ll get your mind off the thought of the food. I find with my own heart, though, that really the time of greatest temptation after I’ve gone through the entire day is that night. Maybe there’s some down time, some relaxing time with the family and then the rest of the family is snacking. When you fast, the senses are heightened so what you may not be excited about normally really smells good to you. That’s where once again, you cry out to the Lord, say, “Lord, if You want me to continue this fast, I need Your help now.” I have just actually gone to bed then so I can stop the temptation. That’s the central thing of why fasting works. You say, “Lord, I love You even more than my necessary food.” What we say is, “Lord, I’m going to honor You by absenting myself of this sustenance for this 24-hour period and Lord, I’m going to do it even when it hurts.” A lot of times I think what the Lord wants to see from us is that there’s some cost involved, there’s denial of our self.

What goes into determining what kind of fast you’re going to go on?
The Holy Spirit is the one Who puts it on my heart to just deny myself my necessary provision of food, or water or drink, and to give myself a time of specialized focus. I notice that when I do fast, there’s a heightened sensitivity to the Lord’s Spirit. it just seems like the Scripture leaps off the page at me. I don’t believe the Lord speaks in audible voices—at least, I’ll say it this way, I’ve never heard an audible voice—but I do believe He leads in strong impressions on the heart. I believe that’s the guidance of the Spirit. Let’s say that (someone is) completely thinking about something totally different and their whole train of thought’s on something else and then all of a sudden, boom, this sort of aberrant thought comes into their mind and it’s of a spiritual nature, like the Lord says, “I want you to fast, I want you to give up food for a day about this.” People say, “Well, that might just be demonic.” Well, no, the enemy doesn’t want us to do anything that gets us closer to Christ. When I talk about a strong impression of the heart, the Lord puts something on our heart, lays it on there and it comes to mind several times. You can’t get away from the thought.

Types of Fasts

Normal fast: No food, but water’s OK. Example: Jesus in the wilderness (Luke 4:2).

Absolute fast: No food or water. Examples: Ezra mourning over intermarriage among Israelites (Ezra 10:6); Esther preparing to gain an audience with the king (Esther 4:16); Saul after the Lord appeared to him (Acts 9:9).
Supernatural fast: No food or water for extended period of time. Example: Moses receiving the commandments (Deuteronomy 9:9,18).

Partial fast: Restriction of diet to certain foods. Examples: Daniel and three others eating only vegetables and drinking only water for 10 days (Daniel 1); Daniel refraining from “delicacies,” meat and wine for three weeks (Daniel 10); John the Baptist eating only locusts and honey (Matthew 3:4).

from God’s Chosen Fast: A Spiritual and Practical Guide to Fasting by Arthur Wallis