I’ve been wanting to get healed from a few things for a while. Recently I’ve been listening to Andrew Wommack, a pastor in America. He has been helping me a lot.
I think the reason that my healing hasn’t been physically manifest is because of ‘natural unbelief’. This means that my earthly body and five senses are resisting the fact that I have been healed. What I therefore need to do is fast and pray.
I have never fasted before. I am naturally very thin and have a constant appetite and high metabolism. I am also quite active and run a lot. I have a race coming up soon I am training for. But I really would like to fast.
By fasting, does it mean I need to quit ALL food? How long for? Or can I quit certain types of food- for instance, snacks, sugary food, unnecessary food? Can fasting be relevant if it isn’t food-related at all, for instance no media?
Fasting isn’t all that complicated, it depends on what you are fasting from and for how long.
If it is a food fast, I would suggest still drinking juice (especially if it is your first fast, and if it is a long fast too).
Most fasting these days is eating one meal a day. You don’t want to literally starve yourself.
It depends on what your heart is telling you after prayer. If you have a race coming up, and your heart is telling you “don’t fast from food” - then don’t fast from food.
Yes, you can fast from media, and it is relevant. You can fast from certain snacks, sugary food, any sort of “denying the flesh” is a fast in my humble opinion, because the goal is ultimately to weaken the flesh so the spirit is clearer.
I am not good at discerning God’s voice, if I’ve ever heard it (something I’ll be working on) but I ‘feel’ that I should do a fast until Easter abstaining from all unnecessary food- chocolate, cakes, snacks.
I am a healthy eater but I absolutely LOVE food and know that it will be pretty torturous for me to abstain from snacks and stick to three plain meals a day. Eating cake with a cup of tea is such a joy for me.
I’m considering only having breakfast on Good Friday but I’ll see how it goes.
I’m also going to quit all media except Christian-related.
I think, where I’m at right now, this should help me somewhat.
Fasting isn’t about you getting healed. While it is true that Jesus’ disciples failed to heal a father’s lunatic son, and that Jesus said that this kind cannot but by prayer and fasting, fasting isn’t a means to an end to healing specifically.
What fasting does is prepare you spiritually to be used of God to minister to someone else. You are denying yourself of a certain pleasure for a time in order to afflict you soul toward God. It is a measure to bring one humbly before God, focusing on God and on other’s needs, as you experience a certain need yourself. As you draw close to God in this manner, your heart will begin to be filled with compassion as the love of God, through the Spirit of God, is able to operate in your life to bring about the kind of expression toward others necessary to enact healing. You cannot heal yourself, for that puts the desire back on you.
The disciples couldn’t heal the boy because their hearts weren’t prepared to heal. There is something with prayer and fasting that brings out the faith, motivated by the love of God, that will be effective in healing. Christ, of course, was in constant communion with God the Father, and the outflow of that communion is what was able to bring the healing. Jesus operating under the power of the the Holy Spirit, relying of the Holy Spirit to flow through Him, as an example of the Spirit can operate in our life. I do not believe that Jesus did anything under His own natural power, but through the Spirit of God in so far as His relationship with God was active.
I recommend that you read Isaiah 58. And I also recommend that if you do any long term fasting, consult with your doctor.
Thank you so much for your insight Dondi. Where did you find this out? Is it personal experience or did you learn it from somewhere else?
From what I can understand, Andrew Wommack believes that fasting cures your unbelief by forcing your body to submit to the spiritual. So it will know that, although it is feeling pain and thinks it needs to eat, actually it doesn’t, it can still survive. But I am fairly new to this, I haven’t heard any opposing views or actually listened to anyone else at ALL yet.
My fast hasn’t gone off to a good start, applied for a job with chocolate today and got given some! Although I do want to fast to get closer to God and to help others, right now my focus is on overcoming whatever is the barrier to seeing my healing manifest. It troubles me that despite my faith in God and my belief that He has already borne my sicknesses, I am not seeing it. I must be doing something wrong, and I want to find out what. ‘Natural unbelief’, due to my senses etc., seems to make sense to me, but then how can I overcome it? Or perhaps it is something else- opposing forces, an unconfessed sin. I have absolutely no idea.
I just want to re-assure you that not all sickness is due to unbelief or sin. You may not be doing anything wrong. The New Testament records saints who had to carry their sicknesses through this earthly life. No amount of prayer would cure their illnesses. Jesus’ disciples also thought that a certain blind-man’s affliction was because either he or his parents had sinned. Jesus put them straight on that idea and said it was nothing to do with his or his parents’ sin.
It is true that Jesus can and does heal but not in every case. I don’t know of any christians who have survived the past 2000 years without their earthly bodies giving out. St Paul realised that the weakness that afflicted him was a blessing in disguise.
Please note that I am not saying you will not be healed, but I think it is wrong to blame yourself if healing doesn’t occur immediately. Many people are healed who have no faith at all.
I myself carry a severe illness and I would love to be free of it, but at the same time, I know that God has taught me much through my illness and I believe that I am a better person for having this affliction.
Treeflower, I believe that the power of fasting is especially found in the extra time invested in prayer and worship. Considering your metabolism and desire to exercise and do the marathon, I encourage you to fast things that eat up your time, and give that time to God in prayer and worship. It’s not just the doing without, but what is put in its place.
Fasting food for me has been very helpful many times, but ultimately it was the constant abiding in prayer that was needed for me to be able to fast that was the greatest benefit, I believe.
Anyhow, I commend you for your passion for God! You go girl!
Much I got out of Isaiah 58 and found that practicing fasting tended to produce the results I’ve just described. Not in any healings, mind you, but see God work in others lives and my life. I tended find myself to having more compassion to those in need.
“Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD? Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy reward. Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day:” - Isaiah 58:5-10
I did indeed feel closer to God and fely His presence more acutely.
Wommack seems to be of the Word of Faith movement. I don’t really buy into much of what the Word of Faith teaches, particularly in guarenteeing health and wealth. From personal experience, I’ve seen too many people get disillusioned from that circle.
Start out slow. I would recommend that you first fast from the time you wake up until about 4:00 pm. Drink lots of water, though. As time goes by, try to extend the time until you can fast a whole day.
Hello Treeflower,
I read your posts here and I got really sad. When i was a boy my mom died of cancer. Her immediate family was listening to a faith healer and claimed that my mother was going to be healed. I was only 8, and since my mom had been sick with cancer off and on for my whole life, and paralyzed/hospitalized for the previous year, the understanding that she was going to be healed was electrifying! I was so excited. One night my dad took us to the hospital to visit my mom and I asked her if she was able to move yet. She wiggled a toe on one of her feet! I was so excited because we had moved to a new apartment and my mom hadn’t seen our new place yet. She was going to be coming home soon to our new home! The next week my dad took us to see her and she was sitting up in a wheelchair! Up until that point she had only been laying down on a bed for the previous several months. She looked so good and had a big smile on her face when she greeted us. I can still remember her saying, in her southern way, “Come give your Mama some sugar!” **She died the next day. **
I was devastated even more than I should have been. Then, to make matters worse, my mom’s family (my aunts, uncle, and grandma) all blamed my dad for my mother’s death because they say that he didn’t have enough faith. She would have lived, they said, if my dad would have had the faith. After that, my mom’s side of the family wouldn’t speak with my dad because they blamed him for my mom’s death. I secretly held onto this shame because, I thought, I didn’t have enough faith. I remember believing that my mom was going to be well, but having those little doubts. Yes, that was it, it was those doubts that caused my mom to die. It must have been my fault! My dad told us the truth and said that God could heal my mom, but I had focused on what my grandma said. I wanted it so bad.
Treeflower, can you see how that kind of thinking (if only you have enough faith) is toxic and dangerous? I thought I killed my mother from lack of belief! That’s a heavy burden for a boy to carry. That’s a heavy burden for ANY person to carry, for NO man is responsible for the health, life, or death of a another based on their faith. Complete healing does not come until heaven when He “will wipe away every tear” and when there will be “no more pain” :
*1 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”[a] for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” ****
God can and will heal, but it is up to Him and only Him. He doesn’t promise us healing and those who say He does are selling something. Furthermore, they are harming many people’s faith and placing burden’s on them they were never meant to carry. I’m sorry if I’m being a bit strong on that, but I hope you can see why.
