by Lindsay Hamby
I’m not sure exactly at what age the obsessive thoughts and sneaking food began, but growing up in a big family on a tight grocery budget, I didn’t have much chance to overindulge at home without someone raising an eyebrow.
However, once I moved off to college without the safety net of my family around me, my struggle with food began to surge. I endured a normal amount of stress and emotional turmoil for late teen and young adult years, but resolved all those feelings with the comfort of food. The campus cafeteria at my university was an all-you-can-eat buffet, open 7 am to 7 pm, and the meal plan allowed me to partake as many times a day as I wanted. I could eat lunch with one group of friends, go to class, and come back for a second lunch with a different group of friends and nobody would know.
I was also a resident assistant in the dorms, and for at least half of my time on campus I had my own room, which really just meant I had no accountability for how much, how often, or what I consumed in my own bedroom. I felt so much shame and guilt all the time, and despite being consistent with exercise, I began to gain weight.
It was during my college years that I also encountered the Holy Spirit and discovered the power of fasting and prayer. I was desperate for more of Jesus and I would try fasting often. As I did, I would experience conviction about my unhealthy relationship with food, but the minute the fast was over I would immediately slip back into stuffing my face with all manner of junk food. In the midst of experiencing tremendous spiritual renewal, leading multiple ministries, and campus wide prayer initiatives, I secretly fell into a vicious cycle of binging and fasting. I was deeply embarrassed, and I even wished that I struggled with a different kind of sin. At least if my battle was against something like alcohol or drugs or porn, I naively reasoned, I could just walk away and completely cut off the addiction forever. But since food is obviously essential to survival, sorting out the issue felt so much more complicated. In my despair, it even felt impossible to overcome. I was uncomfortable in my own skin and constantly stepping on the scale to weigh myself.
Meanwhile, I mentored a girl in my dorm who was extremely anorexic and oppressed by demons. Although my own struggle was nowhere nearly as desperate as hers, the experience shook me enough to get me in the door of the campus counselor’s office a few times. But it only helped a little. By the time I graduated, I had gained forty pounds.
After college, I moved to Kansas City to join a thriving young church community in the inner city. I lived with other believers and the proximity of our lives was the landing strip I needed for the love of God to change my life. I encountered men and women who were honest and vulnerable about their emotional health, who made space to really know me, and who weren’t afraid to ask me hard questions. One of the women who discipled me invited me to go on runs with her and asked me to help in her garden. When we would meet for prayer and discussion, she would feed me kale smoothies and roasted veggies with eggs. Through her vulnerability with me, sharing openly and honestly about the Lord’s work in her own life, I began to see that my unhealthy relationship with food was just a symptom of a broken, sinful heart. When I was anxious or distressed, food was my friend instead of Jesus. Diets wouldn’t change me; rules wouldn’t change me. I needed a heart transformation. Slowly but surely, immersed in a vibrant community of faith, I began to grow emotionally whole and to be healed by Holy Spirit from the inside out. Little by little the college weight began to disappear as my emotional health increased.
For my first few years in Kansas City, I shied away from fasting, distrusting my motives and fearful of getting sucked back into the vicious cycle. Eventually, I felt the Lord lead me to commit to a six month Daniel fast. I was a part of a ministry team that was inviting students all over the nation to a year of unbroken prayer, and as part of my devotion to the Lord, I gave up all refined sugar and flour, all animal products and processed foods. For SIX MONTHS. That experience forever changed the trajectory of my life. For one thing, I learned an entirely new way to cook. I learned to enjoy vegetables I had never even tried. My cravings changed. My taste buds changed. I felt energetic and better than I’d ever felt. The last of the weight finally slipped off. But even more than all this, I experienced internal freedom. The fast had been long enough for me to become convinced that another way of life was actually possible. No longer was I daily consumed by intrusive thoughts about food. No longer did I feel the need to sneak or binge.
Once the fast ended, I found a new normal. Although I was no longer abiding by all the strict rules of the fast, my everyday choices were far, far healthier. I didn’t have to count calories and try to control my weight. I could freely eat and be satisfied because what I was eating was truly nourishing. My emotional well-being was no longer dependent on what I ate. I was no longer distracted and derailed by food. I was motivated to make good choices because I felt good.
That was 14 years ago. There are still some ebbs and flows in my diet, but they’ve become more like small ripples compared to my former life of turbulence, and I praise God that the overall freedom has lasted the test of time! In particularly stressful seasons, I might realize I’m more frequently reaching for comfort foods that don’t normally tempt me any more. When I’m needing sweets everyday to the point that I’m going out of my way to find a treat, when I start wanting a glass of wine every weekend instead of the seldom special occasion, if my pants feel snug, if I begin experiencing fatigue or my joints start aching, I know right away that sugar addiction has crept its way back into my life and is causing inflammation in my body.
And even though a sugar addiction is perfectly socially acceptable, the truth is that sugar actually has a similar effect on the brain as illicit drugs and that sugar can be every bit as addictive as cocaine. No wonder my struggle has felt so intense! In my experience the Church has long read that bit of information as a scientific fact rather than a spiritual indictment. I hear the Church unapologetically call God’s people to live their lives free of alcoholism, drug abuse, and sexual addictions, but go totally silent on sugar addictions. We’ve unwittingly bought the half-truths and flat-out lies that the food industry sells us in its ceaseless marketing. At this point, many of us don’t even know what is actually good for us anymore. Meanwhile, heart disease, cancer, liver disease, and diabetes are all top causes of death in our nation, and sugar feeds them all. We will weep over loss of life, pray for healing from disease, mourn over suicide, and yet never think twice about the slow poison so many of us are enslaved to.
Through the years I’ve learned that when my everyday choices begin to slide in the direction of overconsumption, that it’s time to re-surrender my heart and my body to the Lord Jesus and take up another extended type of fast. I’ve done raw food only, juice cleanses, Whole30, and a variety of other fasts. “Aren’t these just diets?,” you might ask. My personal belief is that motivation separates a fast from simply a diet. While there are plenty of people who make changes in their diet motivated by better health, if my motivation is a deeper surrender to the Lord Jesus, I believe it is a fast. If there’s a few pounds I want to lose, I commit to not stepping on the scale at all during a fast, because I don’t want even a day of my motivation to be my weight, but only a greater measure of His Presence. Am I often also motivated by my health? Yes, of course, and praise God, I have been able to overcome several debilitating health issues by means of natural nourishment, but my health and energy are unto His glory!
A fasted lifestyle is a way of living that constantly asks, “Is there anything I am consuming that I feel like I have to have to be ok? Is there anything in my life that is taking a toll on my body and hindering me from having optimal strength and energy to serve the Lord wholeheartedly? Is there anything distracting me from being fully present to the Holy Spirit and to the people around me?”
A fasted lifestyle is a way of living that is not afraid to indefinitely or permanently cut things out. In our home, we’ve chosen to not own a television. After a few long breaks from social media, I realized I personally just needed to delete my accounts and remove the temptation altogether. I am not offering a descriptive list of rules for every Christian; I am simply sharing that I’ve come to grips with my own weakness and propensity to sin, and I’ve come to know what I can live without and what I can’t live without - namely, the unhindered presence and power of God in my life.
Daniel and his friends believed that eating the luxurious foods from the pagan king’s table would defile them before God. Their willingness to reject what everyone else was doing set them apart. I mean, really far apart. They were not only the strongest physically among their peers, but they became the wisest men in the land with unparalleled favor and influence. They could interpret dreams and explain mysteries that confounded all the other brilliant minds of the time. More than that, they had strength to remain firm in their worship of the true God in the face of certain death. Daniel was tossed to hungry lions and his three friends were tossed in a blazing furnace. They all experienced supernatural rescues that caused the proud pagan kings to melt before the Lord Almighty, and their enemies to be scattered. All this wild success began with a commitment to live a fasted lifestyle.
Can what we eat defile us? The Lord actually had a LOT to say to His people about how they ate and cared for their bodies in the Old Testament. And, yes, while it is true that we now live under New Testament grace, it doesn’t mean that the Lord is no longer concerned about the manner in which we treat our bodies. If the Lord had a standard for the men and women who could only hope to see a glimpse of His Presence in the Temple made of stone and wood, how much more of a standard ought there be for those of us who, because of the righteousness that Jesus so graciously bestowed upon us, have been made into living temples?
My encouragement to each of you as we end this beautiful time of corporate consecration is to take a full account of what you are accustomed to intaking - be it food, drink, any other substance, media or leisure - and ask the Holy Spirit, “What is hindering me from a life of abundance in You?” And then make a plan to let it go. I promise it will be worth it.
May you receive strength in body, mind, and spirit!
Author’s Note: If you are considering extending your food fast, I highly recommend the Whole30 program, which has both a plant-based and omnivore option. The guidelines are accessible for free online, and it is a simple, whole food approach to eliminating cravings and addictions eating only the foods God provided us with. Although it is a secular program, I believe it can be a helpful tool for Christians seeking to live a fasted lifestyle. (And, no, I do not receive any financial incentives for telling you that!).