Ernest Smith

Over the last couple posts, I have shared some insights I gained from a 19 day no-food fast.  The first discussion centered on persevering and the second post focused on having a hunger and thirst for God.

Although there are many insights that I learned over the time of fasting, I just want to share one more with you.  It is one that is probably the most crucial truth that I have been learning…

Make it Stick!

It’s easy to fast for 19 days.  Honestly, once you get past day 7 or 8, you don’t feel the hunger pains like you did at day 5 or 6.  As long as you don’t surround yourself with food, the fast actually gets easier as time goes on.  Therefore, as strange as it may sound, the most difficult part of a 19 day fast is not the actual fast, but rather what comes after the fast. 

Have you ever been on a mission trip or gone to a summer camp with your youth group?  If so, then you remember experiencing a deeper relationship with God, maybe even a depth that you had never experienced before.  You were on cloud 9, your spiritual life couldn’t get any better.  You were never going to be the same again.

Then, after you came back to “reality”, you were back to struggle with the same temptations and you had the same distractions hindering your walk with the Lord.

Well, that same experience is true with any significant spiritual experience and I would say that a 19 day fast was a significant spiritual experience for myself.  I know that I will be tempted to go back to the way things were.  I know it will be a challenge to maintain the passion and hunger for God’s presence.  I know it will be hard, but I want nothing more than to continue my current spiritual journey with God.  I want to make it stick.

So how do you “make it stick?”  You keep putting into practice the disciplines you learned or gained while on the fast.  For me, that means the depth of studying God’s Word and the freshness of my prayer life are the two most important disciplines I must keep consistent if I’m going to make it stick.

So, how about you?  Have you found your spiritual life waning lately?  If so, what disciplines were you living out when your spiritual life was at it’s height?  Study of Scripture?  Prayer?  Fasting?  Evangelism?  Accountability?  Whatever it was, get back to it.  The only way to make it stick is to remain consistent with those disciplines that are best for you and your spiritual journey.

What spiritual disciplines grow your relationship with God?