a Pharisees Guide to Fasting

Our church has recently concluded a season called 21 days of prayer and fasting.
Listed below is instructions on how to approach our fast, sent from our teaching pastor Ed Noble who champions these occasions.

We will follow the format of our usual one day fasts - begin when you  wake up, break it at dinner. Drink whatever this is a fast from solid  food. I know most of us will be working on Wednesday, just allow your 
hunger to direct your attention to the Lord for a moment. If possible  spend a few extra minutes you would be eating in prayer.

Yet when I am fasting sometimes I think it would be so much easier to approach fasting as like a Pharisee.

So here is a Pharisees guide to fasting in three simple steps:

Learn to manipulate time zones:

Have you heard the cliché “it is 12 noon somewhere in the world”  So for those who need it spelled out in greater details.  Start your fast on Hawaii time (2 hours behind PST) and end your fast on EST.  Please show some decency and stay within U.S. time zones.  This shortens your fasting by five hours.

Learn to broaden your definition of what is constituted as a liquid:

As most fast include liquids our natural tendency to think water or juice.  Here is one online definition of liquid, “Flowing freely like water; fluid; not solid.”  Did you catch the end of the definition “not solid?”  That leaves a lot of room for interpretation.  This could mean almost anything ... smoothies, latte’s, shakes, soups – you get the picture.

Learn to be creative in letting people know you are fasting, without letting using the word fasting.

See my next post "How to tweet you are fasting without saying fasting" for details.