fasting does not have to be abstaining from food. You can abstain from ANYTHING. As a medical professional, I would not recommend a food fast for ANY nursing or pregnant, nursing, and another one w/a serious health condition requiring medication.

Some examples could be:
TV/Favorite tv show
favorite drink/food
Internet
blogging-lol
Shopping—non essential shopping

Don’t get so caught up or legalistic thinking fasting has to be no food. Go before the Lord and ask Him what you can fast from.

All my past experiences with fasting have range from uninspiring to horrible. Save one, more recently, which gave me hope enough hope to continue pursuing it’s practice. More reading on the topic will help.

With regards to creating an oasis in the dessert. I’m seeing a connection between the “gift of tears” over personal sin that the Puritans sought so fervently, the brokenness Hunt speaks about in reference to Mary’s willingness to break the flask that the oil might be released and how those two heart attitudes increase our ability to be conduits of the Water of Life, that is Jesus, in places of dryness. My mind sees fountains in the tears and brokenness in the tears Then it wanders to repentance and humility, then how humility allows us to speak the truth in love which will help hurting people receive truth; the way dry earth receives water.

As excited as I am to be gaining a greater understanding about the Spiritual Disciplines that are means of grace to us, I am more deeply struck by the realization that being will always produce doing, but doing cannot create being, regardless of how practically applied the methodology may be.

For years I’ve been begging the older women (Sono, Dorrie, Gay, Aletha, Linda McW. . .) to tell me what to do and how to do it. They would speak in cryptic riddles about a cross and grace; always something about repentance and the power of the H.S. “No!” I would say in to myself, “Just tell me what to do!”

I think I’m starting to see that they were guiding me toward the inside-out approach, while I was obsessing with formulas, schedules and to-do lists. They were trying to help me see something infinitely more practical. The power of God.

Oh, God! Create in me a clean heart. Give me the gift of tears and cause me to will and and to do your good pleasure.

I have been curious how to maintain this discipline as a pregnant or nursing mom. I would imagine I could fast a meal a day without hurting my supply. Anyone else have experience with this?

In the past, our family used to fast either one meal or one day a week, and it was such a rewarding/refreshing time to spend with the Lord. Fasting really draws you nearer to the Lord, as every thought is turned to dependence upon Him, when you are weak (with hunger!). I found it was very fruitful for my prayer life as well. Every time I would feel hunger pains, I would focus on praying.

Maybe we can challenge one another to pursue this fruitful discipline!

The first is A Hunger for God, Desiring God Through Fasting and Prayer by John Piper. I just happened to open it to page 109, to a section entitled, “The Rediscovery of Fasting in Our Own Day.” John Piper says, “There is in our own day a growing sense among many that the rediscovery of fasting as a penitential heart-cry to God for revival might be the means God would use to awaken and reform his church.”

The other is Celebration of Discipline, The Path to Spiritual Growth by Richard Foster. In this book, Foster says that Jesus fasted Himself, and clearly expected His followers to fast after He was gone. However, Foster warns, “At times there is such stress upon the blessings and benefits of fasting that we would be tempted to believe that with a little fast we could have the world, including God, eating out of our hands.”

Foster also has directions on how to accustom the body to fasting so that one can fast up to forty days, and how to come off an extended fast. These are very general instructions — others may have resources that offer more complete ones.

Thank you, Madeleine, for this question. It has prompted me to consider not when, but how I will begin seeking more of God through the discipline of fasting again.

We have the freedom, because we have been redeemed, to turn from our self-centered perspective. And because God loves us, He will take us through the dry and sorrowful places to gently show us the strongholds and idols of our hearts, the lies we believe because they are comfortable, or because they keep us from taking responsibility for our own sin.

And it can be excruciating, to be given a glimpse of our own hearts. We set ourselves up, sometimes unknowingly, as not as sinful as another, but God does not let us stay there for long if we are truly Christ-followers. And what desperation, despair, and brokenness can follow that little glimpse. I love the quote from Elizabeth Prentiss on pg. 93: “… [M]y intellect is of no use to me when my heart is breaking. I must get down on my knees and own that I am less than nothing, seek God, not joy; consent to suffer, not cry for relief. And how transcendently good He is when He brings me down to that low place and there shows me that that self-renouncing, self-despairing spot is just the one where He will stoop to meet me!”

When one can turn from weeping in brokenness over one’s own sin to weeping in joy and gratitude for the goodness and mercy of God, there is nothing sweeter. Earlier in that same quote Elizabeth Prentiss says, “Who is so fitted to sing praises to Christ as he who has learned Him in hours of bereavement, disappointment and despair?”

To answer the first discussion question, Psalm 23 is such a familiar psalm and is quoted so often at funeral services and so forth, that it is in danger of losing its impact through its very familiarity. But it was crucial in my salvation experience many years ago and now in my current season of trial, it has become even more precious, especially the last verse, “Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.” Besides Psalm 84, Psalm 23 strikes me as sort of the quintessential pilgrim psalm. We are but strangers and pilgrims on the earth, dear sisters, but the goodness and mercy of God is always with us. Sometimes it doesn’t feel good, or that He is merciful, but He has promised that He will never leave us nor forsake us. And that promise is true no matter where we are on the pilgrim path.

In answer to the second question, Elizabeth Prentiss says on pg. 92, “How soon our dear Lord presses our experiences into His own service! How many lessons He teaches us in order to make us sons (or daughters) of consolation!” and II Cor. 1:3-4 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble , with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” God brings others in a similar situation into our lives. This can happen much sooner than we expect or want it to, or think we are prepared for it, but God’s timing is perfect. Sometimes we find ourselves being comforted as we comfort them.

The most practical thing we can do to turn our experiences into an oasis of comfort for others is to be open to God’s leading. God will make sure that the lessons He teaches us are not in vain.