Editor's note: Enjoy this devotion written for Devotionals Daily by Justin Whitmel Earley, author of The Body Teaches the Soul.
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How to Reclaim the Biblical Rhythms of Fasting, Feasting and Ordinary Fare
The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. — Genesis 2:9
When it comes to eating, for much of my life I’ve wrestled with indulgence and guilt. Like many others, I often live like a pendulum. I swing to one side and consume too much, and then I swing back to the other side and feel shame.
Many of us have moments from childhood where we realize something is not quite right in our relationship to food. I remember one such moment. I must have been 13 or 14. I was home alone after school, and I found myself alone with a box of vanilla wafers. I remember being unable — in the true sense of the word — to stop eating them. I finished the whole box and then hid it in the trash. I remember not just the guilt of my greed, but something deeper that bothered me. I sensed that when it came to food, I wasn’t in control.
It would be decades before I would see how the Bible speaks into this.
The Gospel is always good news. And the Bible has good things to teach us about how we eat and why.
The Two Purposes of Food: Dependence and Delight
Genesis 2:9 is a fascinating verse, because it shows us two of the core purposes of food.
The first is dependence. The trees were “good for food.” This implies we have a need that God is fulfilling in His creation. It is a feature, not a flaw, that we need food in order to sustain us. This is a humbling reality. God is all-sufficient, but we are not. We are dependent creatures, and God is a generous giver.
- Part of the gift of food is God getting to show us, many times a day, that He provides for our needs through an abundant creation.
But there is more, because food does not just nourish us, it delights us! The trees were also good to look at. Consider that the desire to take pictures of your food and share them goes back to the garden of Eden, because God built us to take joy in the beauty and goodness of creation. There is a reason we want to arrange our charcuterie boards, decorate cakes, and arrange it all on a plate just right.
Because food is more than good for food, it is pleasing to the eye. So God made food to help us experience dependence on Him and delight in Him. And yet…
The Two Twists of Food: Indulgence and Shame
Sometimes I forget that the first sin was over food. Sin is always in some way saying I will depend on something else and find delight in something else. And indeed, in a fallen world, food is often at the core of our broken desires.
If you are like me, you live in moments like the box of vanilla wafers — indulging in something you don’t need, and then hiding in shame because of what you’ve done. This is Adam and Eve with the fruit all over again. We turn dependence to indulgence and delight to shame.
How the Body Reflects the Fall: Dopamine and Food
In researching The Body Teaches the Sou, I learned that this is not just true on a theological level, it’s also true on a biochemical level.
When we indulge in foods, especially highly processed foods that are high in sugar and refined carbs, our brain experiences unusually high dopamine spikes. This is the chemical that creates the sense of indulgent pleasure we associate with rich foods.
The problem is, our brain desires homeostasis, so whenever there is an abnormally high dopamine spike, the brain then jumps on the other end of the seesaw and actually creates the feeling of pain. (Anna Lembke’s book Dopamine Nation is a great read if you want to know more about this.)
The point is, even at a brain level, we experience the imbalance of indulgence and shame, and unless we invite God into our rhythms of eating, we live in a cursed world where dependence turns to indulgence and delight to shame.
The Gifts of the Bread of Life: Fasting and Feasting
Praise God for the gift of Jesus, who shows us how to live. Two of the foremost rhythms in Jesus’ life were fasting and feasting. Matthew 6:16 begins “When you fast…” and Luke 14:12 begins “When you feast…” Jesus was known for fasting in the desert (Matthew 4), and He was also often accused of eating and drinking too much because He attended so many feasts.
How Fasting Helps Us Recover Dependence
The life of Jesus is instructive, for fasting is the way we recover dependence on God. I personally recommend trying to fast at least once a month, perhaps from one meal, or from a whole day of food. There are many ways to fast, but fasting is the way we give an embodied spiritual reminder to our souls that we live not by bread alone but are dependent on God. My suggestion is to substitute each meal with Scripture readings or a prayer walk.
Feasting Helps Us Reclaim Delight
But the story of the Bible does not end in fasting; it actually ends with feasting! The goal of all creation is to commune with God and the people of God. That is the picture of the communion table, and a picture of eternity (Revelation 3:20).
So, I heartily recommend you feast. And I recommend you do it much more often than fasting. The important thing to remember is that feasting is necessarily communal. This is not me with the vanilla wafers — that is indulgence.
Feasting is preparing and enjoying a beautiful meal with people. This is where our sense of delight finds its fulfillment, as we give thanks to God for His gifts of good food and good people, and enjoy both to His glory.
Living on Ordinary Fare in Between Fasting and Feasting
These Biblical rhythms do not work very well if you do not honor the Biblical ethic of simplicity in between them. That means having a normal diet that is not too much, and not too little. Healthy enough to depend on God, and delicious enough to delight in his providence. But we must avoid careless diets that hack our dopamine cycles, because the Christian must not be “mastered by anything” (1 Corinthians 6:12).
If you are wondering what rhythms of fasting, feasting, and ordinary fare might look like, The Body Teaches the Soul along with the Study Guide give lots of resources to help you develop good rhythms of fasting, feasting, and ordinary fare.
But the best news is that Jesus, the Bread of Life, has come so that we might feast on Him and find our ultimate delight in Him. That means that
our eating habits won’t change God’s love for us. But God’s love for us should change our eating habits.
Written for Devotionals Daily by Justin Whitmel Earley, author of The Body Teaches the Soul
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Your Turn
It’s the beginning of a new year… a perfect time to reorient your fasting and feasting to honor God and benefit the body He gave you! Kick the shame to the curb and lean into right habits. You’ll be glad you did! ~ Devotionals Daily