“Pastor, we started a 21-day Daniel’s fast in my church. Can you explain the meaning of Daniel’s fast?”

It’s basically the type of fasting most Christians do today; your regular fast where you skip two meals to break by 6:00PM. The only challenge is that most Christians do not understand why Daniel had to eat something during the fast. It’s weird to see a believer break his fast with heaps of Eba and all the meat he skipped for breakfast and lunch. Eating that volume of food to break a fast can as well mean restarting the journey the next day.

According to scriptures, Daniel deprived himself of pleasing food, meat and drink for 3 weeks. This tells me that during a fast, if you eat till you are pleased, then you’re not actually fasting. During the fast, you can eat and drink in minute volumes only when you need strenght to continue praying or doing what needs to be done. This means that if you still have strenght after 24 hours, you don’t have to eat or drink anything. Whoever told us that breaking the fast intermittently must be mistaken a medical fast and a spiritual fast.

That’s right! Doctors often advise patients with certain health conditions to skip two meals a day for a period of time. I also learnt that they can even tell you not to take water for about 2 days. Those are purely medical stuffs, not spiritual. Coincidentally, they also call it fasting. But in a spiritual fast, if you eat one full meal as they propose, you may lose the spiritual connection you fasted all day to establish. I’m sure you may have noticed it; you broke your fast with heavy food last night and suddenly became too weak to fast by the morning.

The spirit-man is the only driver of Daniel’s kind of fast. The moment you have plenty food in your stomach, you’d create a breech that would appear like weakness in your body. It’s a statement from your spirit that you lost the connection. So during a fast that isn’t dry fasting, eat as light as possible so that you don’t alter the passion and zeal in your spirit. If you eat light, you’d feel strong when you wake up in the morning. If you eat light, you won’t be too weak to pray in the night. Make no mistake, you’d feel weak if you eat heavy.

Let’s read Daniel’s experience from scripture:

Daniel 10:
1 In the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia, a secret was unfolded to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar; and the thing was true, even a hard work: and he had knowledge of it, and the vision was clear to him.
2 In those days I, Daniel, gave myself up to grief for three full weeks.
3 I had no pleasing food, no meat or wine came into my mouth, and I put no oil on my body till three full weeks were ended.

So here we see a type of fast where Daniel simply expressed his grievances in prayer. He was displeased about a situation, just as we normally can be displeased about certain situations around our lives, and because he needed God’s intervention, he deprived himself of pleasurable meals and drinks, he also did not use perfume on his body, until 21 days ended. If you’d recall in Daniel chapter 1, he and his 3 Hebrew friends did something similar when they refused to eat the king’s rich food. They resorted to taking vegetables and water for 10 days.

The purpose of eating wasn’t for pleasure, but for strenght. It’s unfortunate that some Christians subconsciously meditate on the kind of food they’d break their fast with later in the evening. That’s not fasting. The fasting exercise where you can still think of food isn’t fasting.

Something was eating up Daniel, and he needed to pray through until God intervened. But whenever it seemed as though he no longer had strenght, he’d quickly munch a few things and take water, then continue his prayer. That’s the very reason why it’s called prayer and fasting.

This also suffices for couples who ask if they could still have sex during fasting. Sex is for pleasure, and its primary purpose is to satisfy your flesh. Your focus during fasting is to energize your spirit man to receive the breakthrough you desire. And as we know, the flesh is continually an enemy of the spirit. If you have a urge to have sex during a fast, it’s most likely an attack. So, avoid anything that gives pleasure to your flesh. Moreover, where would you get the strenght to have sex when the little food you ate is just to push through in prayer? I perceive that people who ask this type of question are people who stuck up their stomach with food when they break their fast. A full stomach will definitely invite lust. However, just so the devil doesn’t take advantage of your marriage, If a couple have to fast, then let it be an agreement between the husband and wife.

As I conclude, except God is sponsoring you to do a dry fast like He did for Moses and Jesus after he was baptised, taking a spiritual journey like that would often require that you strengthen your body. In 1 Kings 19, we read how the angel of God gave Elijah cake and water because the journey was long. Yet, that meal strengthened Elijah for 40 days. Remember what I said earlier, that if you still have strenght after 24 hours, then you don’t have to eat nor drink anything. Like Daniel, let your focus be what is eating you up.

Daniel’s fast wasn’t a “skip two meals fast”, it was a fast that only took a meal when he needed strenght. This also means that if he doesn’t need strenght after 1 day or 3 days in the fast, he doesn’t have any business eating. Breaking in the evening or whatever time you’ve chosen isn’t compulsory. You can as well continue until you need strenght. During one of the 21-day fast that I did long ago, I think I skipped meal one evening and continued till the next day. I had strenght, so there was no need for food.

I hope this has brought enlightenment to someone.

Remain ever blessed, in Jesus precious name!

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