Lord, Teach Me To Pray: Prayer and Fasting
Mothers of Nations, once you enroll in the “School of the Holy Spirit,” it seems as though He teaches one thing over and over until you learn it well, and then you move on to the next lesson. As I shared about last week, travail was just a part of the entire world of prayer that I was discovering. Next came lessons on fasting and prayer. Psalm 35: 13 says, “I will humble myself with fastings.” James 4: 10 reminds us, “Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up.”
I recall that my first big step in learning about prayer and fasting was a three-day fast on liquids. Eventually I tried longer fasts and more difficult ones. Along the way I started studying fasting in Scripture. I learned that fasting is essential during times of crisis, times of need, or times of warfare and deliverance. Esther went on a fast when her country and people were facing a major danger of annihilation. Daniel fasted and received insight and revelation in time of need. Ezra sought God for repentance in the land, David for a dying child, and Nehemiah for a city that had lost its purpose and protection.
Isaiah 58: 6-14 tells us that when fasting for the right reasons, God brings light in so we can see as He sees. Health springs forth, His glory comes, guidance appears, our hearts are satisfied, and restoration occurs. In the final verses of Isaiah 58 God says we will delight ourselves in the Lord.
Isaiah 58: 6-14 (NKJV)
6 Is this not the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; when you see the naked, that you cover him, and not hide yourself from your own flesh?
8 Then your light shall break forth like the morning, your healing shall spring forth speedily, and your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. 9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and He will say, Here I am. If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, 10 if you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall dawn in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones; you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. 12 Those from among you shall build the old waste places; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, The Restorer of Streets to Dwell In.
13 If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, 14 then you shall delight yourself in the Lord; and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the Lord has spoken.
My husband has always been good about fasting, especially when we needed a breakthrough with either of our children. One time in prayer I saw a dark black cloud coming near our family. The Lord said to me that it was the spirit of death, hovering over us. I told my children to be careful who they were with that week, and my husband and I went into prayer and fasting.
Within seven days our daughter was shot in a drive-by shooting, with a bullet slicing across her face. Just a few seconds before the bullet came through the windshield of the car in which she was riding, she had turned her head to look into the back seat. That single turn saved her life.
We believe it was the fasting and prayer that created the circumstances that spared her. Today she has no scars, no marks, or any remaining problems on her cheekbone. There is just a little indentation that looks like a cross. She says the mark is a reminder to her every time she looks in the mirror that God protected her.
Mothers of Nations, I know beyond a doubt that there is great power in prayer and fasting!
Dr. Sharon Predovich
