A Fresh Look at the Ancient Practice of Fasting : Reward Sibanda

Full-Text Transcript

If you’ve ever had any questions, concerns, or reservations about the spiritual discipline of fasting, or if you’ve ever fasted in the past, then this is the conversation for you.

Jason Daye
In this episode, I’m joined by Reward Sibanda. Reward is a speaker, writer, and pastor at Saddleback Church, as well as a Senior Advisor for Church and Ministry Partnerships at World Vision. His newest book is entitled How to Fast. Together, Reward and I explore this ancient practice of fasting. Now, you might be surprised, but you’ll definitely be encouraged as Reward shares a refreshing approach to rediscovering this age-old spiritual discipline that’s been practiced by Christ’s followers around the world and across the centuries. Are you ready? Let’s go.

Jason Daye
Hey, friends, it’s a joy to be with you again this week. I’m your host, Jason Daye, and this is FrontStage BackStage. Each and every week, I have the blessing and privilege to sit down with a trusted ministry leader, and we dive into a conversation all in an effort to help you and ministry leaders just like you embrace healthy, sustainable rhythms so that you can thrive in your life and leadership. We are proud to be a part of Pastor Serve and the Pastor Serve Network. Not only do we have a conversation every week, but we also create an entire toolkit for you and for your ministry team so that you can dig more deeply into the topic and the conversation. You can find that at PastorServe.org/network. You can find that for this episode and every episode. In there, you’ll find a number of resources, including a Ministry Leaders Growth Guide. Now, in this growth guide, you’ll find insights that we’ve pulled out from this conversation, as well as questions to reflect upon so that you and your team can discuss this conversation and topic and see how it applies in your particular lives and in your context. So be sure to check that out at PastorServe.org/network. Now at Pastor Serve, we love walking alongside pastors and ministry leaders and if you’d like to learn more about how you might receive a complimentary coaching session, you can find that information at PastorServe.org/freesession. If you joining us on YouTube, please give us a thumbs up and drop your name in the name of your church in the comments below. We love getting to know our audience better. If, during this conversation, you have questions that pop up, be sure to drop those below as well. We love answering and engaging with those of you who are watching and listening along. Now, if you’re joining us on your favorite podcast platform, please be sure to follow or subscribe so you do not miss this. If you’re with us on YouTube, be sure to subscribe as well. We do not want you to miss out on any of these encouraging and insightful conversations. I’m very excited about today’s conversation. At this time, I’d like to welcome Reward Sibanda to the show. Reward, welcome

Reward Sibanda
Jason, thank you so much for having me. It’s such an honor to be here.

Jason Daye
Yes, it’s an honor to have you on the podcast. We are going to be talking about a topic that, I don’t know, it’s a mixed bag. Some people love this topic. Some people are scared to death of this topic. But it really is something that ties deeply to our soul care. It ties deeply to our experience with Christ. The topic is that of fasting. Reward, in your newest book, How to Fast, you mentioned early on that you sense that the church, the greater Church, has lost touch, to some degree, with the spiritual practice of fasting. Reward, help us unpack that. How do you feel that we’ve lost touch?

Reward Sibanda
Yeah, thank you so much for that. That’s a beautiful question, Jason. I think when it comes to the church, and I know this is broad strokes, right? But let me talk to the American or the Western Church specifically, which is exporting a lot of the culture of the church as we know it all around the world right now. Notice, when you look at the faith before it was the church, before the book of Acts, the very faith that God gifts to us as humanity, he contextualized it in a specific context, a specific community, and a specific people group, right? What he did was he took the tenants or the pillars of said faith, and he made them communal things that people would do together and do all of those particular things. So fasting was one of those, prayer was one of those, and all those particular things. So now fast forward to our modern day context, our day and age, and we notice that on the quest to building the church, on our quest to doing all these things, a lot of the things which are deeply entrenched, which are supposed to be entrenched culturally and socially in the orthopraxy of the church are just not there anymore. It’s almost like we’re going, Okay, what’s the bare minimum? What do I have to do? Okay, prayer got it. Let’s go. As a result, a lot of the practices that we embedded communally in the gifting context that were given, like the Sabbath, like generosity, and all those, it’s almost like they take a backseat to prayer because prayer is essentially power. It’s how we go and all these things. So yeah, I noticed that it wasn’t just fasting. It was just a lot of things. That’s why, as you’ve noticed in the book, in the beginning, the scriptural premise for it is that there’s a generation. It’s almost like the Bible is speaking to a generation that has lost rest in their soul, and he cautions them, he essentially diagnoses, and he says, Hey, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to look for and find the ancient paths and ask where the good way is, walk in it, and there you will find rest for your soul. So I feel like what God is doing in this day and age is restoring us back to the ancient paths and saying, How did the patriarchs have such a strong faith? Well, they did it in community. So, let’s pick up some of those practices and see how we can utilize them in our discipleship to Jesus.

Jason Daye
Yeah, I love that Reward. I love just your posture, your tenor, throughout the entire book because I’ll just be honest with you, I’ve had conversations with a lot of people about various spiritual disciplines, but with fasting in particular, you kind of run into some people who almost seem otherworldly, like almost detached from life in general, and they’re talking about fasting. It’s like that is something that doesn’t seem real in some ways. It’s unattainable. They’re kind of focusing. But you, Reward, are very approachable in how you talk about it. It’s very fresh. One of the things I love is you kind of, in the beginning, pretty soon in the book, pretty early in the book, share the fact that you don’t really like fasting.

Reward Sibanda
Yeah, absolutely.

Jason Daye
When I read that, I laughed because I was like, Okay, now, let’s talk, right? Because I think a lot of people resonate with that. Fasting seems so strange. In our day and time now, the idea of intermittent fasting, fasting for health, and those types of things are talked about more. But the idea from a spiritual practice of fasting, people still are kind of like, what? So, Reward, talk to us a little bit about the fact that you don’t really like fasting.

Reward Sibanda
No, absolutely. That’s a beautiful way that you’ve kind of brought it out and everything. The very first line in the book is that. It’s like, I hate fasting, and hate is a strong word. It really is. But that’s because the best way I can essentially talk about this is being a parent or being married. You can be in love with your kid. You can be in love with your wife. There are just some moments where you’re like, oh my goodness, I love you, but I don’t know if I really like you right now. Come back in five minutes, right? So, I feel like that’s the dynamic that I have with fasting. I love what it is, what it does, and the more revelation around it. I love that. But when it comes to it, I’m never going like, Yay, let’s fast again. It’s like, whatever. You know why? For multiple reasons. Number one, my history with fasting. See, I wasn’t introduced to fasting as a spiritual practice. I was introduced to fasting, as I mentioned in the book, as a cultural practice, right? We were taught to fast because of what fasting does to our physiology, right? How it gives you a sharp mind, how it cleanses your body if you’ve been eating a lot of trash, and how it keeps you younger. Even in the book, like when we go into the science of what’s happening. So, a lot of ancient cultures and contexts understand that, right? Asian cultures and contexts have been fasting long before it was contextualized within the parameters of religion, right? We see that even in Islam. Now, granted, Islam is in itself, the social and the religious are one in a specific sense, but they fast also primarily culturally before it’s kind of spiritual. So, being raised up in the Lemba tribe, in the Lemba tradition, my mother said, you fast because that’s how the body cleanses all these things. I used to hate it, right? Because growing up where I grew up, food was a limited resource anyway, so to take that away. So that’s the history that I have with fasting. The fact that we did it culturally and then there were no spiritual or tangible benefits. If you’re younger, you don’t feel it as much in your body because you have the energy, come on, you have the focus, and you have the clarity. So it just felt like punishment, right? It was one of those things. Then, as I grew an understanding of it, and began to engage fasting as a spiritual practice, then I began to dislike it for what it takes from us, right? Our teaching pastor at Saddleback, Stacey, is like fasting is the only practice that teaches by what it takes. So I’m like, Lord, there’s a reason I have all this stuff. There’s a reason I have gathered all these idols. I like them, right? They are a comfort to me. But the first thing that fasting says is a posture of surrender of all of the things that give us comfort outside of who God is. So from a cultural perspective, from a taking perspective, that’s why, not just I, but I feel like my generation and a lot of people in humanity are disenfranchised with fasting. But when you start looking at the benefits, when you start developing a track record with the Lord and with fasting, when you see what happens when you fast and post fast, when you read the science of what’s happening in your body, you’re like, oh my gosh, it’s like working out, right? You hate it until you love it, right? So, I believe fasting kind of falls in that same category.

Jason Daye
Yeah. No, that’s very helpful. Now, one of the things that you share is the idea about how fasting relates to body, soul, and spirit. So can you kind of walk through that with us?

Reward Sibanda
I would love to. I think, in order to fully understand what fasting is, we have to understand the core makeup and the basic breakdown of who we are as humanity. So basically, Paul talks about this when he talks about the sanctification of the whole being. We’re spirit, we’re soul, and we’re body, right? There are interesting parallels, which, if you’ve read, a lot of my revelation when it comes to scripture in my approach hinges on the same simple premise based on Genesis 1:26. God says, Let us make man in our image and according to our likeness. So basically, I believe that God is the cause and we’re the effect. A lot of what is true about humanity in our expression and our makeup mirrors a lot of that. So, for example, and we may touch on this or not, that God is a God of community, right? Therefore, we always find the fullest expression of who we are as humanity in community, right? God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I’m just drawing logical parallels. This is not theology, by any means. But when I look at the makeup of that, the Trinitarian dynamic, right? That perichoresis, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There are three. When you look at us in the Bible, I mean, it’s irrefutable and it’s indisputable. We are spirit, we’re soul, and we’re body, right? It’s what my friend John Mark Comer usually calls the theology of the body. So we are an amalgam of these three. I call them faculties, as opposed to entities. Spirit, soul, and body. In order to understand a lot of spiritual practices, we have to understand what faculty correlates with which practice. An example I give to this is that there are always receptors, right? So, for example, your nose, right? If you take cologne and you spray it in your ear, I mean, besides irreversible damage, nothing else happens. Why? Because the faculty is the nose. You know what I’m saying? For the stimulus. The stimulus and the faculty of what that essentially looks like. Well, the same is true in the Spirit. We see a lot of these clues when we read the Bible. You’ll notice that when you read about prayer, for example, right? The Bible always says, My spirit prays. Why? Because prayer is a spiritual thing. It’s a spiritual exercise. It’s intimacy. It’s communication. Being spirit beings that proceed from a spirit God, it makes sense that communion and communication have to be spirit upon spirit, right? When you look at the body, there are specific things in the Bible that essentially speak to engaging the body. Now the third is the soul. The soul is what we call the center of our self-consciousness. Our mind, our will, our volition, and all of those things are essentially what the soul is. Whenever you read about fasting in the Bible, what you notice is that fasting is always coupled with the faculty of the soul. So basically, like David would say, when I humbled my soul with fasting, right? When at Ahava, Israel had to humble themselves, they said, Hey, we humbled and afflicted our souls with fasting. So in order to understand what fasting essentially does, we have to be fully aware of that particular thing. That’s why, if you notice in a lot of what Jesus teaches, and a lot of the context, the biblical context for fasting, it always pairs prayer with fasting. Why? Because the soul and the spirit are constantly at this, based on what you feed, and based on what has preeminence, but what fasting does is it humbles your soul, so your spirit can be in ascendancy. That’s why, when the spirit is in ascendancy, you can pray the prayers of faith, and the prayer of faith is what makes great power available, and it is the currency of the language of Heaven through which the things that are seen were created. It’s the substance of the things that we hope for, the evidence of the things that we don’t essentially see. So that’s why it’s always important to understand. So fasting, even though there are faculties, fasting is the only practice that I always say, it engages the soul, it serves the spirit, and it benefits the body. It’s this holistic, recalibrative tool that God has given us so we can know Him more and do all of those things. So that’s that particular breakdown when it comes to the tripartite nature of men that I always want people to be aware of before they can even approach what fasting truly is.

Jason Daye
Yeah. That’s really foundational to consider that. It makes sense as you explain it, Reward, so thank you for that. As we are kind of processing through the way that fasting might benefit our our lives, right? Benefit our lives in a variety of ways, and consider the fact that fasting is something that we have to be intentional about. It’s not something that just happens, right? We have to be intentional. We have to set the time aside. It takes work.  What does it mean for us to enter into a period of fasting? What is our posture as we enter into a period of fasting? What are maybe, and I want to be careful with this word, Reward, but our expectations? Because we want to be careful that we don’t kind of use fasting manipulatively, right? But what should our posture be and what might be some of our expectations from a good heart as we enter into that?

Reward Sibanda
Man, that’s a great question, Jason. I think it’s in everything that we do. It’s always important to understand the culture behind it, right? Because when we understand the culture and our position in it, then that determines the disposition with which we approach those specific things. The culture of fasting and the foundational ethos of fasting are two things. It’s consecration and it’s the Sabbath. It happens if you look at the wonderful benefits of fasting, you notice that those three things happen across your spirit, your soul, and your body, right? It’s Sabbath. It brings a rest. Your entire digestive system shuts down and in that shutdown, all the recalibrative and the regenerative power of things like autophagy and everything can begin to essentially come. Why? Because you’re at rest. We see this principle right of the Sabbath, even in that God gives them when it comes to their land, right? It’s like you can farm a land, but after a specific period, seven years, you let it rest. Why is that? We understand the concept of fallowing ground. We understand the concept of working out of Sabbath because you have to rest so that your muscles can heal and then build on top of that. So the principle of the Sabbath is built into everything, so much so that in the 10 Commandments, in the same breath that he says You shall not kill and steal, He says you shall revere the Sabbath. Why? Because the rhythms, the right rhythms, the rhythms of the rest. A God who didn’t need rest, rested to essentially show to us the importance of the Sabbath. So when you fast, that is the spiritual operational principle at work. It is the Sabbath. Now our approach protocol has to be consecration. That’s why, when you look at the Bible, it never says engage a fast. It never says initiate a fast, right? It always says consecrate a fast. Why? Because there is a humility and a brokenness with which we bring everything to the Lord and posture in that way. See, that’s why I have a fundamental understanding but I feel like there’s a fundamental miss when people approach fasting and say, Okay, what can I retain? Okay, can I drink coffee when I fast? Can I watch this when I fast? Whenever people approach it wanting to hold on to specific things, I almost always say, well, that thing, that’s what the Lord wants more than anything. Because the whole real posture of fasting is like I’m supposed to bring everything in myself. You know what the beautiful goodness and the provision of God is? Like a good father, I will never ask my son for a toy simply because that toy is going to make me richer, or because I want it, or I covet it. No, everything that I asked for my son is his after my goodness, if he wants it. So, for example, you’ve seen this if you’re a parent, correct? You’ve seen this to where it’s like, you ask your son or your daughter, whatever it is, let’s say son because this is mostly your boys. You’re asking for his twig. He just went and he hunted all day, he came back with this twig, and it’s his, you know what I’m saying? He just clings to it. You’re like, hey, give me that. No, I don’t want to. Give me that. But when they finally give it back, then you take it, and then all of that is like, Hey, I’ve got this. Maybe it’s a toy car or a bike or whatever. Then in that instance, it’s like, Hey, you can still have your twig if you wanted, but chances are you never wanted when it comes to that. So the beautiful thing that the Lord assured me in fasting is that everything that you bring to me, that you lay down at my feet when you fast, you can pick back up when you leave, but will you want to? So that’s why consecration in the yielded heart and a laid down heart is that I’m not coming to God and impressing him by saying, I’m laying down coffee and I’m laying down Netflix. I come and I say, I’m laying down all. Through that narrow path with nothing but a desire and a humility for him, I enter, and then I’m enriched by him, and when I come out, I’m like, Well, I don’t need the caffeine anymore. I didn’t think I would. So yeah, it’s consecration, but it’s also the Sabbath. Those are the two primary principles, and both of them require an end to self, an end to striving, and laying down of specific things.

Jason Daye
Yeah. I love, Reward, how you highlight the idea of humility with fasting because that really seems to be what undergirds fasting, this humility. I’d love to talk a little bit, Reward, from the perspective of a pastor of a local congregation, let’s say. First, I would like to talk about our personal practice, our personal soul care. For a pastor who has not really engaged in fasting to a great degree, who’s heard about it, or has maybe fasted here or there at different times, but it isn’t part of maybe a regular rhythm. What would you encourage them to explore?

Reward Sibanda
Yeah, you know, I would actually flip it, being a pastor and kind of having been there, and I’d be like, Pastor, every other Sunday, or, let me say, pretty occasionally, you have to pastor, communicate, and convince your people to do things that you know are going to be good for them, right? Like you have to convince, whether it’s prayer, whether it’s generosity, whether it’s giving, or whatever it is, there are times when a pastor has to say, Listen, trust me, this is good for you. It might hurt and it might suck, but this is good for you. Then once I have that empathic space, I want to flip it and then go, that’s the exact same thing that God says to you, Pastor. It’s the simple fact that fasting is good for you. It’s good for your spirit. It’s good for your soul. It’s good for your body. When you fully embrace it and sacrificially do it. Like taking a shot. It stings on the front end. Like running a marathon, right? It sucks until it’s awesome. But once you get through the threshold of sacrifice and discomfort, you will understand how beautiful it is. So what I would say to most pastors is, begin and sanctify some time out of your calendar and do an extreme 14 or 21-day water fast. Jump in with both both feet. Jump into all the, you know what I’m saying? The discomfort, all the mess, all the detox, and everything that’s essentially happening. Then experientially, and then I promise it happened to me. That’s why there’s a book on fasting out. On the back end of it, let’s see if you’re still trying to convince people to fast, or if you just become somebody who has a blessed testimony of what they are missing out on and what that essentially looks like. So I’d say, Pastor, fast. Then pastor them into a fasted lifestyle.

Jason Daye
Yeah, that’s fantastic. Reward, it’s interesting that you suggested to jump in and go big. Talk to us just a little bit about that. Why do you encourage people to really go big when it comes to fasting? I’m curious.

Reward Sibanda
Well, yeah, for two reasons. Number one, those are the parameters and the definition of fasting, which we didn’t come up with, which God himself came up with. As a matter of fact, when you look at etymology, when you go back to the word “fast” in the Hebrew, it literally means to close your mouth. I mean, it takes away all of those operational conversations we have. Can I fast this and everything? It’s like, no. So that’s what it does. But here’s why I tell everybody to jump in with both feet. Fasting is easier the longer that it is. Let me explain that. Let me let me preface that with a question, do you want it to be easy? Or do you want it to be hard? If you want a hard fast, do it short fast. Do a three-day fast, a four-day fast, or whatever. That’s going to be hard every step of the way. If you want an easy fast, then do a longer fast. Here’s why. Let me go into the science of that. I know it kind of almost sounds like counterintuitive and everything. So God designed our physiology for himself. He optimized and built our bodies for fasting. So what happens is, a lot of the energy that we get, and our body is a machine, and machines use fuels, so that if fuel that we get from our body is through ingestation, it’s the food that we eat. So what happens is we eat, and the food breaks that down, and then it takes all the goodness and all the fat, and basically, simplifying it, stores it as fat. But if you want to get a little more technical, it stores it as glucose or glycogen, and all of those things. So the more you eat, as you eat, it takes anything that’s got salt, oil, sugars, and anything that’s going to be good for the body if you were to ever starve, it puts those in stores, and it stores it away. Then afterward, that’s how we, essentially, gain weight. It’s because the body, which was not designed to live in a 24-hour food cycle, now is taking every good thing and it’s still storing it. It doesn’t know any better than what it does. But when you fast, what happens is it begins to burn that glycogen that’s around the liver, and it begins to burn the glucose and use that for fat. So that’s in the first few days. Use it for energy. That’s in the first few days of fasting. But what happens is, after all that is depleted, then there is a shift. What happens is that your body breaks down those fats into ketones, and it starts using ketones for energy. The moment it starts using, it’s what we call going into ketosis. But the moment you go into ketosis and the moment it switches the fuel source, ketones are hunger suppressants, so all the hunger goes away, and the body begins using up all that stored energy so you don’t feel as much hunger. It starts breaking down all the fat. It starts a process called autophagy where it starts burning down all the redundant things in your body, the cancerous growths, and everything, and it starts using that for fuel. So what happens is, most people feel like, well, because I’m hungry the first and the second day, I’m probably going to be starving by day 21. No, your hunger completely disappears on day three. Then, based on your diet prior to the fast, that’s when you can enjoy it the most. Then the next couple of days is what I call the detox phase. That’s where you get the coffee headaches or the sugar withdrawals. You’re literally going into withdrawal because your body is now withdrawing itself from things like sugar, salt, and all of those things. Then around day six or seven, based on your diet pre-fast, is when all of a sudden your body is optimizing. It’s burning this fuel, then you have clarity of mind and thought and everything. So the longer you go, the easier it is on your body. The Lord designed it that way because when your entire body gets into a state of equilibrium and rest, then your spirit is in ascendance. Oh, my goodness, for me, because of my horrible diet, it usually hits around day 14, 13 or 14, but I’m telling you, it’s like you feel everything is optimized. Your mind is clear, your energy is optimized and it’s at equilibrium, and in that space, nothing is alive but your spirit. So that’s why, to most people, I’d say, you can break it down. For example, you can be like, Okay, I’m going to do this fast and everything. But if you want the easiest and the most effective fast, I say, just go straight water, jump in, let the body do what the body was designed to do, and you will find that it’s an easier fast. You know what the crazy thing is? Ever since I started going on longer fasts, I dread short fasts, and most of the time my fasting is determined by my schedule. So if I’m like, man, I’ve been eating a lot of junk. I feel like my mind is alive. I’m overthinking things. I’m calculating things. I just need to bring everything to a space of Sabbath and rest, but I only have a four-day window. I mean, I’ll take it. I’ll still do a water fast, but I dread it. I’m like, this is gonna suck. I’m gonna feel every single moment of it, and I won’t get to enjoy the benefits that hit day six, seven, or eight. So that’s why, to most people, I’d say, if you jump into a water fast, you get the benefits in your spirit, you get the benefits in your soul, and you get the benefits in your body.

Jason Daye
Yes, that’s a fascinating, Reward. Let’s talk a little bit about if we can touch on the spiritual benefits and the soul benefits. We talked about the body, which is helpful and fascinating. It’s always good to see God’s fingerprints on his creation and how he designed us, right? What are some things, maybe that you’ve experienced, or that you’ve seen others experience as they enter into rhythms of fasting, where this becomes a part of their soul care and a part of their life as a disciple?

Reward Sibanda
Man, Jason, I love that. God has truly gifted you with the gift for language, for rhetoric, just the way you kind of tie, like even how you say simple things like rhythms of fasting. I’m like, Absolutely, that’s what it’s called to be. It’s not a recalibrated practice. It’s not something that you do when you’re like, I guess it’s the beginning of the year. No, it’s supposed to be in rhythm because fasting was designed to be in cadence with prayer. That’s why I want to, if I can, on-ramp into answering your question. I think the most definitive case study for fasting is in the book of Matthew when these people bring this demonized boy to the disciples, and the disciples cannot cast this demon out. Then Jesus comes and then he casts the demon out. Then they come later, and they’re like, why couldn’t we do it now? He’s like, Well, because of your unbelief. I say to you, He says, that whole thing, you can speak to mountains and you can do all these things. Then he says, however, this type or this kind does not go out except through prayer and fasting. For most of us, the moment we read that, if we don’t pay particular attention to the syntax of that particular passage of Scripture, we assume that he is talking about how this type of demon does not go out except through prayer and fasting because that’s also consistent with exorcism language in a modern day context, right? It’s like this. But the danger of that, first of all, and why I always make it a point to bring this clarification is that it speaks, then to a works-based faith, meritocratic system, right? Because then we would come away with the justified assumption that I need to pray more and I need to fast more so I can have more power so that more demons can kind of listen to me. Already we’re taken away from the rest that we find in Christ and we’re taken away from the finished work of Christ. What Jesus was talking about. Listen to this. They came and they said, Why could we not cast this demon out? And he said, Because of your unbelief. When they ask him a question, the subject is the demon. The moment he provides a response, the subject switches, and now the subject is their unbelief, right? Why would you talk about the demon when you will know why the demon wasn’t? So he continues talking about belief, and he says, I say to you, if you have faith, right? So he talks about the benefits of faith in everything. Then he says, however, this kind does not go out except through prayer and fasting. This kind of what, Jason? This kind of unbelief. You see what I’m saying, right? Because the demon is not the problem. The unbelief is the problem. And unbelief, the word for unbelief there is “apistia”. This “a”, as in, like an off or a different brain. “Pistia” is faith. So unbelief is not doubt. Unbelief is a faith and a conviction that the thing that you do not want will happen. So you’re still utilizing the principle of faith. But for them, the unbelief was they brought that, right? So, for example, when you read the passage in the book of Luke, it adds another dimension to that particular story. There’s a question. It’s like, okay, how long has this been going? It throws them in the fire, throws them in the water, and the kid is foaming. So what happening? Immediately, their soul looks at this, looks at how long it is, and I can assume they were pretty much intimidated, right? Their logic is essentially telling them they cannot do it. The moment they’re like, man, we’re gonna need Jesus on this, the moment they decide that in their minds, they have stepped into unbelief. We know that faith is the only thing that draws results from heaven. So Jesus comes. Not with a how to cast out demons thing, but he comes with a recalibrated solution and how we can deal with unbelief and stand in the faith that moves mountains and that gets things from heaven. He says it is through prayer and fasting. Why is this? Remember, prayer is how we get things. There are multiple scriptures that I can’t get into. But if they’re pastors, they know what I’m talking about, right? Faith is the substance. Through faith. It’s like, how many times, multiple times in the Gospels, Jesus says, be it to you according to your faith? Your faith has made you well because of your faith, greater faith. We know that faith gets the attention and the result of heaven, specifically. The prayer of faith, the Bible says it makes great power available. It heals. It does all of it. We know the benefits of what faith essentially happens. But what happens is, when we’re praying in faith, the spirit, our spirit has no problem standing in a place of and communing around faith because it originates from God, the God of the impossible, and from the realm of the impossible. The problem, though, becomes that most of the time when we engage with our soul, our mind, and our emotions, our soul is in a place of ascendance, we logically talk about why things cannot happen, and we step into disbelief. But remember what the Bible always says about fasting. It says, humbled my soul with fasting. So what fasting does is it humbles your soul. That’s why most people say if you want to hear from God, you have to fast. Why? Because your inner voices and the voices of everything around you is humbled, right? In that particular space, your faith is in a space of ascendancy, and therefore when you pray, you can pray with conviction and belief, believing that impossible is going to happen because your soul is humbled. So the dynamic, why prayer and fasting are always coupled together, why, when you look at it in cultural context, Israel and biblical times, Josephus and everything. There was never a fasting period that was not coupled with prayer. They go together because fasting runs interference so your prayer can hit a home run essentiall. So that’s how those two, I believe, work together.

Jason Daye
That’s awesome. Yeah, it’s powerful. I love the insights that you pulled out of that scripture, how it focuses on the unbelief, the faith issue. That’s where fasting can take us. Humbling ourselves. So that’s powerful. Man, Reward, this has been a phenomenal conversation, so refreshing on the topic of fasting, which is a topic, again, that many people avoid, but you have made it accessible in your new book, How to Fast. You’ve made it approachable, right? You’ve made it fresh, which is important, I think. So I would like to give you the opportunity as we close down, you have the eyes and ears of pastors and ministry leaders, men and women who are serving. Reward, what words of encouragement would you like to leave with them as we close down?

Reward Sibanda
No, absolutely. Thank you so much for that, Jason. Just looking at the shepherds, right? That’s essentially what they are. The biggest mistake when I was in pastoral leadership with fasting, is I assumed, and therefore, you know what we believe, what we hold as dear convictions, whether consciously or subconsciously, we essentially impart as the culture and the convictions of the people that we lead. So I was convinced that when it came to fasting, I had to fix my motives, and I had to fix and get specific things together before I could come. It was only later that I understood that, as with coming to Christ, as in prayer, God is not as worried or concerned with how we come, as long as we come. So the moment that happened, I was like, it’s like going to a car wash. Can you imagine your car is dirty, you’ve been mudding if you drive a Jeep, whatever it is. You’re like, Well, before I go to the car wash, I gotta spray off some of the sand and everything. You can. But you don’t essentially have to, right? Because most of the time that becomes the excuse for why you don’t do it. So what I would say is, I’m going to say this, it’s going to be very unorthodox, but it is true, and I’ve seen it work. Come with your selfish motive. Come with your selfish motive. If you want to fast to lose weight, come with that and let that be what brings you to the altar of fasting. If you want to fast because you want to hear the Lord for a promotion, bring that. Whatever it is, never try to fix your motives, whether it’s prayer, whether it’s repentance, whether it’s generosity. Never try to fix it before you bring. Total obedience is what God says in prayer, come as you are. I will do all of that. And because fasting, this is the last thing I’ll say, is a cleansing process, it’s a purifying and refining process, you better come the way you are. So I will say to pastors, that’s why, once again, consistent with the rhetoric that Jason brought out, jump in with both feet, then tell your flock to come. It’s like, hey, find I what I would even say to my to the people that I was leading, is, hey, here’s what I’m going to do. I need you to find a selfish reason to fast. Some of you, you need to lose weight. Well, let’s fast. For some of you, you need a miracle. You need God to do whatever it is. But as they come with their selfish reasons, that’s why it engages us, because children are selfish, right? The first couple of times, but after, as we fast, and as the Lord and His word, prayer, and fasting refine us, we will notice that it’s going to fix all of those anyways. So I would say to a generation and to pastors and to a flock that you lead, let’s get our generation to fast by whatever means necessary because when they come there, they will meet God. When they meet God, everything that is inconsistent with his best for them will just fall away. So, yeah, that’s what I have.

Jason Daye
I love that, brother. That’s so freeing, too. The reality is that God’s not scared of all those weird motivations we might bring, right? God is God. He’s like, I can work through all of that. Yeah, that’s beautiful. I love it. Love it, Reward. Thank you so much for making time to hang out with us. Certainly appreciate that. For those of you who are listening or watching, we’re going to have links to Reward’s new book How to Fast. We’ll have those links in the toolkit, and links to connect with Reward on social media and those types of things. I know you share a lot, you speak a lot, you write a lot, and we’ll have all that included in the toolkit for this episode. You can find that at PastorServe.org/network. So if you want to connect with Reward, if you want to learn more, or if you want to find out how you can get the book, be sure to check out the toolkit at PastorServe.org/network. Brother, it has been a blessing to have you on the show with us, and I’m sure that the audience feels the same. So thank you again.

Reward Sibanda
Thank you for what you do, man. Shepherds, we care for so many people, and to have a ministry and just a mind and a gifting like yours that pours back into pastors, and it’s built an institution and a ministry like that. God bless you for that and thank you so much for this platform and the incredible resources that you make available to shepherds and to pastors. Thank you for your gift in that. I truly appreciate you and this invitation.

Jason Daye
Thank you, Reward. God bless you, brother.

Reward Sibanda
All right. Thank you. Likewise. God bless.

Jason Daye
Now, before you go, I want to remind you of an incredible free resource that our team puts together every single week to help you and your team dig more deeply and maximize the conversation that we just had. This is the weekly toolkit that we provide. And we understand that it’s one thing to listen or watch an episode, but it’s something entirely different to actually take what you’ve heard, what you’ve watched, what you’ve seen, and apply it to your life and to your ministry. You see, FrontStage BackStage is more than just a podcast or YouTube show about ministry leadership, we are a complete resource to help train you and your entire ministry team as you seek to grow and develop in life in ministry. Every single week, we provide a weekly toolkit which has all types of tools in it to help you do just that. Now you can find this at PastorServe.org/network. That’s PastorServe.org/network. And there you will find all of our shows, all of our episodes and all of our weekly toolkits. Now inside the toolkit are several tools including video links and audio links for you to share with your team. There are resource links to different resources and tools that were mentioned in the conversation, and several other tools, but the greatest thing is the ministry leaders growth guide. Our team pulls key insights and concepts from every conversation with our amazing guests. And then we also create engaging questions for you and your team to consider and process, providing space for you to reflect on how that episode’s topic relates to your unique context, at your local church, in your ministry and in your life. Now you can use these questions in your regular staff meetings to guide your conversation as you invest in the growth of your ministry leaders. You can find the weekly toolkit at PastorServe.org/network We encourage you to check out that free resource. Until next time, I’m Jason Daye encouraging you to love well, live well, and lead well. God bless.