Many people found it made a deep impact on their faith and was a new experience for those who had never fasted before. This year we will fast again in the lead-up to Easter and our Build New Hope capital campaign. Feel free to join us.

Coincidentally, this year the Muslim fast of Ramadan takes place at a similar time to Lent. My first experience of Ramadan was in 1990 in Istanbul, Turkey. During Ramadan, nothing should pass the lips between sunrise and sunset. To help the faithful achieve this, the Turks had a system. Every day, in the darkness before dawn, a man with a large drum would march up and down the streets banging loudly to wake people up to eat and drink. They would eat and drink as much as they could before sunrise, and when sundown came they would celebrate with a feast. Ramadan dates go back eleven days each year, so everyone longs for winter when the days are shorter. The drummer was not doing this out of kindness, as it turns out. In the middle of Ramadan he knocked on our door, his big drum on his chest. He was very proud of his work and wanted some financial gratitude for waking me each day at 3am. I smiled and said I would pay more than the neighbors if he didn’t bang his drum tomorrow. My humor was lost on him, however.

Denying ourselves food as a form of spiritual discipline may have some value, but it becomes much more powerful when our time without food and drink is used for feasting on God. I’m not talking about some form of spiritual cannibalism here. I am talking about taking things which sustain and feed us and putting God in their place—time with Him, space with Him, hearing from Him and seeking His presence. If, for a time, we don’t fill our hearts, our minds or our stomachs with the usual things, we can find more space for God. Rather than filling up with things that normally satisfy us, we can make room, make time and make God and His kingdom our focus, our feeding and our only priority.

Denial may be a river in Egypt, but it is also a choice and a direction. It is a decision to choose God before all else, to seek His kingdom and let everything else be added when and if He chooses.

Whatever you fast from, remember to feed on the Lord. Seek Him, wait for Him, draw near to Him and make Him your true nourishment—the bread from heaven we truly need.

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Chris Jones is the Global Outreach Director at New Hope Church. He longs for the unreached people of the world to experience the life-changing love of God and for people at New Hope Church to find fullness of joy by obeying the Great Commission.