Transform Your Life Day by Day

Harnessing the Power of Everyday Fasting

Getting Beyond the Baby Steps of Prayer Paired with Fasting – Part 4

I designed this message to appeal to people who find prayer to be unappealing, especially the exercise of fasting paired with prayer. There are many who find that process unattractive, unappealing, and it should not be that way. This exercise should be, however, very exciting, very encouraging, and very appealing. To be honest with you, this practice should be anticipated because of the results that it gives. You may not know this, and if you do I probably need to reassure you that God is a producer of results. Anything that is connected with God produces results, it is fruitful. That word fruitful means result producing. Anytime results are produced that’s the fruitfulness, or the ability of God working through that person. By the way, anyone connected to Him produces as much and those who are disconnected from Him produce very little to no fruit. ^[1]

You are already fasting regularly, but you don’t realize it. Each night as you lie down for sleep, every time you go to bed, you go on a fasting regimen. Here’s the problem: one, you don’t realize it and two, you don’t take advantage of it.

A Default-Fast Built In
Each day you participate in some type of fasting effort which is interesting. Allow me to take a moment to help you visualize it. Fasting is giving up a meal or giving up some activity that we can in turn increase our spiritual awareness or spiritual nature, in other words connect with God. Every night, we eliminate meals when we go to sleep. We don’t eat and the noise, the distractions, are eliminated from our being.

We have allowed society to rob us of this knowledge. The thing is, when we wake up and have our first meal of the day, that first meal is evidence that we have a default-fast built into our daily habits. That first meal is called “breakfast.” It is made up of two words: break and fast. It is breaking the night’s fast. That’s what “break-fast” represents. The question is: are you taking advantage of this, not only physical activity and making it spiritual, or are you just going through the physical act of sleeping only? The question is: are you taking advantage of the default fast that’s been given to you as a gift from God? You have to admit that is pretty powerful right there.

Because we fast each day, it’s built it, it’s baked it, we have a regimen of lying down for our body to shut off, disconnect from the world, and be connected to God. It is like that caterpillar becoming a butterfly. Remember our previous message which talked about the progressions of prayer paired with fasting using the example of the lifecycle of a caterpillar.

First, you prepare your cocoon.
Secondly, you get into your cocoon.
Lastly, you emerge from your cocoon as something new.

That’s what should happen to you every night. You should prepare for your time to sleep and to rest so that you can get the best sleep and the best fast that you possibly can. Make sure you prepare your environment for this activity to get the most out of it. Get into that cocoon and when you get up in the morning emerge something brand new, something different.

For example, God inspired me with a story. I’m going to tell you about a great king whose name was Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar was king in the times of Daniel. You should remember Daniel who is known for surviving King Nebuchadnezzar’s lions’ den. The king’s attention was turned to Daniel, one of the wise men of that day, to explain his dream.

Now, let me paint a picture for you for just a moment. The scripture says that as he, King Nebuchadnezzar, was lying on his bed, that the king was wandering about the future. So, in his process of getting ready to go into his daily default-fast, the king laid down and pondered about the future. This preparation prior to his daily-fast gave way to the king having this dream that in turn would give him the answer to the future he was pondering. That’s what he was taken into his cocoon and as he slept, God gave him a dream in response to the thing he was preparing for, before he dozed off and fell asleep. When he emerged (awakened from his sleep), this great King emerged inspired. He was so inspired that he was willing to destroy or have killed every Wiseman, every prophet, and all those who were gifted at interpreting dreams because they couldn’t tell him his and give him the interpretation. King Nebuchadnezzar went to sleep one way, but came out another. King Nebuchadnezzar, so to speak, went in as a caterpillar and came out as a butterfly. As he was coming out of his fast, he didn’t want to break it because he wanted to connect with God. He wanted to understand what was being mentioned to him during his cocoon stage. Therefore, he needed Daniel to interpret it. ^[2]

Add Prayer to Your Default-Fast
Now here’s the thing. When you wake up in the morning, you have a couple of choices: (1) you can go about your normal day or (2) you can add prayer to your default-fasting practice. You can either do like every other normal person on the planet who rises and go about one’s normal day, or you can emerge from your cocoon and become a butterfly by simply adding some prayer to your fasting. That’s what this great king did. When you add prayer to it, it becomes something totally different.

It…your day
It…your life
It…your resources
It…your mission in life
It…how you will perform on the next test
It…the vision and the dream you’re trying to accomplish
It…that book you’re trying to write
It…that family you’re trying to create or correct
It…your life and everything that pertains to it is going to be different.

No different than King Nebuchadnezzar as he knew that once he got the revelation of his dream, he and everyone around him would be totally different.

Think about this. The point I want to make is not to get you so caught up in King Nebuchadnezzar, but get you caught up in your own world and in your life. Each day God has given you a gift to fast without Him even asking your permission to. It has been baked into your life. The question is: are you going to make the most of it? Is your sleep going to be just a normal routine like everyone else or are you going to use this time to transform each day from you being a caterpillar into rising as a butterfly? Are you going to lay down with old-you and come up with new-you or will you be that person that lays down old-you and wakes up old-you? You have an opportunity to transform your life day-by-day. Let me remind you of this daily ritual, this daily practice, and before you have your first meal and break your fast for the day, think about what you can offer up to God in prayer. If you wake up every day like that, yesterday’s caterpillar is today’s butterfly. Your life will go to the Next level for sure.

Question: Are you going to add a little prayer to make your daily fast worthwhile?

[1] John 15:1-8 NLT‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬, Bible.com, accessed July 21, 2023, https://www.bible.com/bible/116/JHN.15.1-8.NLT
[2] Daniel 2:27-30 NLT, Bible.com, accessed July 21, 2023, https://www.bible.com/bible/116/DAN.2.27-30.NLT

All Scripture references used by permission, see our Scripture copyrights.