2024_06_24 Insight Post- Kim Feld
This week’s reading- Esther 1-10
This week, we are focusing on Esther, one of the book’s main characters. There are many character traits of Esther that we can readily point out that are worth emulating – her courage, bravery, faithfulness, and obedience, to name a few. But I would like to draw us to something that caught my attention as I read: the emphasis on fasting to prepare for a significant undertaking. Let’s take a look:
15 Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: 16 “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.” Esther 4:15-16, NIV
Earlier in chapter 4 of Esther, the text also records the Jewish people fasting as a sign of mourning when they become aware of the king’s edict:
3 In every province to which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes. Esther 4:3, NIV
Fasting is a spiritual discipline that many practice today to get closer to God. In Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster (1998) says that fasting reveals what controls us. Fasting has also become popular for health reasons, but fasting for spiritual purposes goes beyond giving up food. It is a way of humbling ourselves before God to seek His guidance.
Fasting has never been a regular practice of mine, but there have been times when I felt God’s leading through it. Reading Esther’s story has encouraged me to rethink the role of fasting as a regular practice for myself. We typically think of fasting as abstaining from food, but it could also mean removing anything from our lives for a period of time. Would fasting, in some way, indeed reveal what’s controlling us?
Kim Feld
Executive Director of Education and Outreach
Reference: Foster, R. (1998). Celebration of Discipline. (3rd ed.). HarperOne.