Fasting and Intercession
Now, as I said on Monday, fasting can often be connected with intercession. If you're fasting on behalf of someone else so that you can stand in the gap and pray for them deeply, it will be a special spiritual time for you.
Fasting for Healing
In this book, The Power of Prayer and Fasting, Marilyn Hickey tells a story about a woman whose son became very sick. He lost so much weight and his skin went very yellow, and he went to many doctors who told him that he'd been poisoned in some way and that there was nothing that they could do for him. He was going to die in a short time.
So his mother went into a time of deep prayer and fasting. She said to her family, “don't ask me to come out of my room, I'm going to be fasting and praying”. So for seven days she did this, came out only once or twice to ask about his condition. At the end of the 7th day, the report came back. He was getting better. The doctors couldn't understand why. A few days later, she could fly him back home. When he got home, the doctors had a look at him and said whatever he'd gotten in Switzerland was gone. It was a miracle healing.
Examples of Intercession
And so this intercessory prayer linked to her fasting was powerful. David did the same thing in his life. The child that Bathsheba gave birth to was extremely sick, and David lay on the floor all day in prayer, didn't even eat. And on the 7th day the child died. And so he got up, went to the temple and worshipped, came home and ate. That's a great example of fasting and interceding.
Sometimes it doesn't work, but you do it anyway out of care for that person in their difficult situation. In fact, the early church did this a lot. In Acts chapter 10, Cornelius was fasting and praying, and it was at that time that God gave Peter a great vision that he was going to go to Cornelius and preach to him about Jesus. Cornelius's prayer was linked to Peter in an amazing way.
In Acts chapter 13, the church fasted and prayed and laid their hands on Barnabas and Saul before they sent him out to preach the gospel in order to empower these men as they were separated for this great task.
Aligning with God's Will
And so maybe there's somebody in your circle who desperately needs healing, desperately needs empowering. Would you consider fasting and praying for them?
Throughout history, it seems that prayer and fasting have a way of releasing God's hand to work supernatural things in people's lives. Do it, friends, do it. But remember that it's not that our prayer and fasting changes God's mind, but rather when we fast and we pray, we become participants in bringing heaven to earth. We get so much closer to God and our wills become aligned with his.
As the book says, our fasting and prayer do not conform God to our desires. Rather, our fasting and prayer conform us to God's desires for us. And so I hope again that you'll consider fasting and praying not just for yourself, but for others who need it.
