Record Live Podcast

Fasting__is_it_necessary_or_optional
[00:00:00]
Jarrod Stackelroth: Hi there, everyone. I'm Jared.
Zanita Fletcher (2): And I'm Zenita.
Jarrod Stackelroth: We are your hosts of Record Live, a podcast where we talk about church, faith, and living well.
Zanita Fletcher (2): We believe as followers of Jesus, faith is more than just a set of beliefs. It's a way of life, something we put into practice.
Jarrod Stackelroth: Let's go live.
Zanita Fletcher (2): Hello everyone, happy Wednesday and welcome to another episode of Record Live. Today is a special episode because we have not one Jared, but two Jared's on the show with us today, which is very exciting. Jared Chung, thank you for joining us on Record Live today.
Jared Chung: Thanks for having me. I'm excited , for this chat.
Zanita Fletcher (2): Yeah, it's going to be good. We're having a conversation today on fasting, which I've actually wanted to have for a long time because I think it's just one of [00:01:00] those. topics that we read a lot in the Bible, but we don't really hear a lot in church anymore and it's not really widely practiced, but it's kind of hard to find someone to talk to about fasting because the people who practice it don't really talk about it.
Zanita Fletcher (2): And yeah, it was only recently I was talking to a friend who we're reading the same book and it talks about fasting and he mentioned your name and I've heard your name before cause you're a pastor in my area. , and so. Before we get into, Do you want to tell us just a little bit about yourself?
Zanita Fletcher (2): Where you are, what you do?
Jared Chung: Yeah. So I am originally from the USA, grew up in Washington state, and, , I actually came here in 2020 for a gap year in between uni and medical school. , but during that time I came here to do a rise and really loved it. And that's when COVID hit and essentially one thing led to another and God led me into full time ministry.
Jared Chung: And so now I'm working as a pastor at the Murwillumbah Seventh-day Adventist church. And I've been here, I've been in the area since 2020 and really love it here. So yeah, [00:02:00] I'm really enjoying what I do, love being a pastor. I can't believe I get to have this job and just wake up every single day like, wow, can't believe I get paid to study God's word and share it with other people.
Jared Chung: But yeah, I don't fast all the time, but I, it is something that I've been learning about more in the last couple of years. So I'm excited to talk about that.
Zanita Fletcher (2): Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. I hear many good things about your pastoral ship, so we are glad to have you in Australia, but, just, I guess on this note of fasting, when we read the Bible, we see Jesus do this a lot. And when we look around the world, a lot of major religions still practice it today. , what was kind of the thing that got you into it?
Zanita Fletcher (2): Because I guess in Christianity, I feel like it's not practiced super widely anymore. , what was kind of the turning point for you and what's your experience been with it?
Jared Chung: So, okay, to be honest, I got into fasting not for the spiritual reasons. When I first started, I was being kind of like medical background. Both my parents are doctors and, you know, I was going to be, [00:03:00] I was pre med going to be in med school. So I've always really been interested in the science of how the body works.
Jared Chung: And it was a topic that I kind of looked at a little bit more here because I was reading in, , In Matthew 6 and in this sermon on the Mount, Jesus basically tells people, you know, like when you give, when you fast, when you pray. And he basically makes it sound like he expects his followers to fast. I'm like, wait, what is all this about fasting?
Jared Chung: And so I dug a lot into the research of like biological research of how does fasting actually affect your body. And that was where my interest started. Because did you know the longest fast, like scientifically recorded fast, was 382 days? There was a guy named Angus Barbieri, and he was like morbidly obese, but he fasted for 382 days, like just water, I think he had some tea and coffee and a multivitamin. , but he was able to go for 382 days of fasting, and at the end, like, he kept all the weight up, and he got married, had kids. So I was just like, what? Is this [00:04:00] possible? , it was an actual, scientifically documented study and this dude survived. I'm like, okay, wait, there must be more to fasting than I actually realized.
Jared Chung: And so I started doing a lot more study and then kind of as a challenge, I think it was in 2022 I decided I wanted to try fasting for myself cause it wasn't anything that I'd really ever seen anyone else done or no one had really told me to do it. And so my first fast was for five days. And it felt terrible, just had water and nothing else.
Jared Chung: And I was really regretting it the first couple of days in, but since then doing that five day fast, that was my, crash course. And over time I've learned more about fasting, why we do it, tips and tricks and how to make it not feel awful. And, , yeah, that's kind of what got me into fasting,
Jarrod Stackelroth: growing up in the church,, as I did, fasting wasn't talked about much, if it was talked about,, I think we, we lent on the verses in Isaiah where it's like true sacrifice is doing,, mercy and, and [00:05:00] things, when you fast, , keep oil on your face, brush up well and don't,, and so we sort of almost relegated fasting to, you know, Oh, yeah, that, that's fine.
Jarrod Stackelroth: That was an ancient practice, but it's not something we do as modern day Christians. Have you seen that true in your experience and , do you get much pushback against the idea of fasting, , and the necessity for it, I suppose?
Jared Chung: yeah, I guess because it's interesting you see fasting as a part of nearly every major world religion and it was something the early church did. They did it twice a week and , so why don't we do it today? I was kind of thinking about the reasons why we don't really see people practicing fasting today and I feel like one of, honestly, It's just like, Oh, big breakfast companies.
Jared Chung: They're like, there's no money to be made and not eating. And so like, there's a lot of, I think a lot of fear mongering. I'm like, Oh, if you don't eat breakfast and your metabolism just shot, or it's just terrible if you don't eat and all this different [00:06:00] stuff. , so I feel like part of it is maybe to do with our, our modern day corporations.
Jared Chung: , but actually I think that. For our modern church, something that I see a lot is there's this big swing towards, being against legalism. So, very,, being very anti legalistic. And I think that's good in itself. Like, we don't want to be legalistic. But I think what that's kind of morphed into is, like, uh, anti doing things.
, just stop doing things because that's not what Christianity is about. And , essentially, I think that type of attitude is kind of Changed people's minds around fasting work now like fasting actually doing something or sacrificing something for god seems so extreme and terrible So like why would you do that?
Jared Chung: And then I think like another reason why people don't talk about it that much is honestly like we just don't do it that much Because we don't like being uncomfortable and so it's interesting like I I've talked about fasting with some of my friends and other people, but we haven't really, I've never really experienced pushback.
Jared Chung: People were just like, Oh, that's cool. But I think it's because [00:07:00] people have not done it at all. And so it's kind of an interesting thing that , they want to learn more about. Yeah. So those are some, some of my thoughts on fasting. Have you guys ever, I don't know. It was never really emphasized in church at my church, at least growing up or in my family.
Jared Chung: Was it emphasized for you guys?
Zanita Fletcher (2): Yeah, I guess similarly, I have probably only heard one or two sermons on it when I've been to church. Like I've looked up other sermons cause I've been interested, but when I've actually gone to church, I haven't heard much. And when I have heard it, it's also been phrased as , Or if you don't want to fast from food, you can abstain from like social media or coffee or television or something like that.
Zanita Fletcher (2): Which if you look at the definition, fasting is abstaining from food. It's not like other things. So it's, it's kind of different, which is interesting, but yeah. So I, I feel like it's one of those things that I'm like, Oh, why isn't anyone talking about this? And, I've done it. Like a handful of times.
Zanita Fletcher (2): But my [00:08:00] first experience was I was doing it for like answers to prayer and I didn't really get any answers. So then I was like,
Jared Chung: lead
Zanita Fletcher (2): of this? That's kind of, but yeah, I guess it's something I've become more interested in maybe the last year or so, but what about you, Jared?
Jared Chung: You
Jarrod Stackelroth: Yeah. It's interesting you say about the answers to prayer, Zanita, . I guess maybe we can unpack that more later. For myself, it was the same. I didn't hear any sermons. I didn't hear many people talking about it at one point. When I lived in Melbourne, I went to a church where they didn't preach about it.
Jarrod Stackelroth: It wasn't necessarily part of the thing, but a few of the members mentioned it sort of offhandedly. They were talking about it. , and I went through then a real. I guess a period of uncertainty in my life and my career and stuff. And I just decided to give it a crack. I suppose, made up the rules myself.
Jarrod Stackelroth: I chose Wednesday as a day that I didn't have sort of other activities and whatever. And I just had a, had to [00:09:00] go, both for my health. I think it was, there were health reasons involved. I saw the impact on my health, and weight loss and things, but also, , really seeking those, I guess, answers to prayer.
Jarrod Stackelroth: And so it was more for a season. I find it hard at different times since I've had to go here and there, but it's sort of been much more haphazardly., this, this period in my life was really motivated, I think, by a real desire to get closer to God and to, seek answers and to seek support in what I was going through.
Jarrod Stackelroth: And I think for me, that was,, yeah, a sort of. Experience that now when people talk about fasting, I'm like, Oh yeah, I know. I get like, I get it. That's, you know, I've tried it. It works like it's an important discipline, spiritual discipline., for me, it looks like doing things like instead of meal time, you have lunchtime at work or whatever you go for a walk and you talk to God, and you spend time.
Jarrod Stackelroth: With him instead in the outdoors, [00:10:00] instead of maybe sitting at your desk, eating lunch quickly, or talking with your colleagues or whatever, it was one on one time with God. , and, I guess we can get more into how to fast and what that looks like. But,, for myself, that was a really, yeah, a sort of foundational experience in my Christian journey that really helped me,, and my faith to grow.
Zanita Fletcher (2): Yeah. I'd love to know, Jared, I know you've obviously spoken about, , The health benefits, which I think is often an incentive for people to fast. Like we see fasting a lot nowadays, but it's for health reasons, not spiritual reasons, , shed light a little bit on what are the spiritual benefits of fasting? Why does Jesus ask this of us?
Jared Chung: yeah. So I preface all this with saying, I'm still figuring this out for myself because a lot of these things, it's, it's a mystery, like, why does God ask us to pray? And I'm learning more and more about prayer, but still like parts of it are just a mystery to me. And fasting is kind of in a similar way, but I think what fasting does is it helps us to focus on God.[00:11:00]
Jared Chung: And then helps us surrender to him fully and also strengthens us against temptation. And I guess where I kind of get that reasoning from, well, it's interesting as Adventists, we, I think we have a advantage in understanding fasting because we don't believe in immortality of the soul. Like, what does that have to do with anything?
Jared Chung: Well, essentially like we believe that we don't have souls. We are souls. And so like our body and our mind, like everything's connected. It's not like your body and then your spirit, right? we believe that we're a holistic being. And so essentially that means that our physical body will then affect our spiritual nature, I guess.
Jared Chung: And so that's, I think, another reason why we have the health message, because if our health is linked to our body, then it's linked to our spirituality. Yeah, anyways, what happens to our body affects our spirituality. And so that's why I think this practice of fasting is given to us to physically energize our walk with God.
Jared Chung: And Galatians 5. 17, I've prepared some notes. , Galatians 5. 17 says, For the desires of the flesh are [00:12:00] against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. And so we see, the desires of our sinful flesh is against God's spirit. We don't believe that, oh, the body is bad, the spirit's good, so you have to punish the body because it's so bad. Like, we don't believe in the body spirit divide. But what we do recognize is that everything in life, everything in this world, is corrupted by sin. And that means that even our non sinful,, natural urges, those can actually lead us away from God.
Jared Chung: And so, that corrupted human nature is what Paul calls the flesh. And so how do we actually deal with the flesh? He tells us Galatians 5. 24, And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with his passions and desires. And , this verse actually comes right after, the Fruits of the Spirit.
Jared Chung: Like, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, safety. And then crucify the flesh. You're like, what? But basically,, it means that we need to put our flesh in its rightful place, which means it's below [00:13:00] God. And so we want God to rule us. We don't want our own flesh to rule us. And so I believe that God has given us fasting as a way of crucifying the flesh because Very often we see in scripture that the battle, the main arena where temptation happens is with food.
Jared Chung: And so you can think of a couple of biblical examples of that, like,, the temptation of Adam and Eve. Like, they're tempted with food. The issue wasn't actually food, it was whether or not they trusted in God's word. But food was , the medium for that temptation. And they allowed their flesh to take hold.
Jared Chung: And then also same with Jesus temptation. Satan's like, oh, I'm just gonna, try to do something I did with Eve. And essentially he tries to have Jesus turn stones into bread. And the issue wasn't necessarily that he was turning the stones into bread. It was actually about trusting God's word.
Jared Chung: Because what happened right before Jesus was being tempted was the father had said, this is my beloved son whom I'm well pleased. And then satan comes along and he's like, Hey, [00:14:00] you say that you're son of God, but if you are the son of God, turn these stones into bread, like you need to prove it.
Jared Chung: And so the issue wasn't actually turning stones into bread. The issue was, did Jesus trust in the father's word, but that battleground was food. So it's interesting that,, like it seems that food has to do with some area of our temptation of our being. , but yeah, I actually think that in order to prepare for his temptation, Jesus fasted.
Jared Chung: I always thought, like the 40 days in the wilderness of fasting was a temptation and that was a trial. And then afterwards, Satan just kind of came along and,, just thought he'd try a little bit at the end, but something that the more and more I read scripture, I see that the fasting was actually the preparation for the temptation.
Jared Chung: And I think. If we're able to, if we're able to allow our appetite, like if we allow our flesh to take control of us in the area of food, I think that actually translates to other areas of our life. , if we're [00:15:00] able to gain control of ourselves in the simple, non sinful area, then I think it helps us with the actual areas of temptation.
Jared Chung: Yeah, fasting, what I think it does is it puts you in a place where the Holy Spirit can take greater control over you and help you overcome those temptations.
Jarrod Stackelroth: So, so, so interesting, you know, that idea of, and we see it, I think a lot of biblical characters who fast are almost prepared for a test or a trial at that time, or they're doing that to go in, ready, to prepare themselves. So, yeah, I think that's some really interesting insights. Just to be clear though, when we talk about fasting, it's not a step to salvation.
Jarrod Stackelroth: It's not, a, a work, you know,, we're not doing fasting. To be more honorable to God. And I was interested in Zanita's comment earlier, even in my own experience, , it's always hard, it's always tricky in your own motivation and your own mind. And you're questioning,, I really want God to answer [00:16:00] me.
Jarrod Stackelroth: So I'm doing this almost to earn the credit. So he will. , and, and it's. I guess it's a tricky sort of thing for a Christian sometimes to navigate and maybe we use that as an excuse, not even to start, not even to try because it's hard, but it's like understanding that line between, , I'm doing this to earn God's favor, I'm doing this to get the answer that I want, you know, I need something out of God, and if I, maybe if I fast, he will Come to the party.
Jarrod Stackelroth: It's not to force God's hand as such, or is it, I guess , that's the question, , we can explore.
Jared Chung: yeah, that's a, that's a really good, good that you brought that up because I think the trap, and this is one reason I think a lot of people avoid fasting is because I think it can come across as I'm doing this to merit God's favor. Like this is meritorious. And that's like something that you see Jesus pushing back against was these people like, Oh, I'm fasting.
Jared Chung: I'm so holy. Like, I'm so good. Jesus says, no, no, [00:17:00] when you fast, Don't let people know that you're fasting. And so it was something that they're supposed to not display to the world because it wasn't something that was for their salvation. , yeah, I definitely, when I first approached fasting, to be honest, the first time I did it, it was to try to get something out of God.
Jared Chung: What I found more and more as I fasted, it's like, Oh, it's actually not about trying to get things out of God. Just like prayer isn't, just trying to wring God's arm. Like. In the same way prayer isn't, you know, a strike against God, fasting isn't a hunger strike against God to get what we want.
Jared Chung: And something that I see is fasting helps us increase our desire for God and our surrender to Him. And there's this really good quote, by Hudson Taylor, he says perhaps the greatest hindrance to our work is our own imagined strength. And in fasting, we learn what poor weak creatures we are dependent on a meal of meat for the little strength, which we are so apt to lean upon.
Jared Chung: And something that fasting has helped me realize is like just how weak I [00:18:00] actually am. Like, if I stop eating for a while, I'm like, oh no, life is so sad and terrible and I'm so weak. And then it just kind of makes you realize, oh, everything I receive I get from God. Every blessing that I have, every strength or talent that I have, it actually comes from God.
Jared Chung: And so I need to be relying on Him for strength. I need to be relying on Him for my salvation, all these different things., , but when it comes to, Actually finding,, trying to find answers to prayer. So often we see in the Bible, yeah, before characters, like these Bible characters would fast, they'd be praying about certain things, but oftentimes what they'd get wasn't the thing they're praying for.
Jared Chung: They'd actually get surrender. And so, an example of this is, , 2 Chronicles 20, , the Moabites and the Ammonites are about to attack Judah, and so King Jehoshaphat, he holds a fast. And he, they're praying that God would deliver them and they're fasting and praying. And then verse 12, he basically says, for we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us, nor do we know what to do, [00:19:00] but our eyes are upon you.
Jared Chung: And so you see that , their conclusion was essentially like, Okay, we're praying for this thing. And then actually we realize we can't do anything. God, we trust you. And we put our faith in you. , same thing with Esther, Esther asked people , to pray or to fast and not eat or drink anything.
Jared Chung: And then at the end of that fasting period, she says,, if I perish, I perish. So fasting kind of strengthened her resolve to surrender to God's will. And so fasting is a lot less about,, trying to get certain outcomes and more helping us to surrender to his will. It doesn't mean that you can't ask for things when you fast, but I don't think that's the main point of it.
Zanita Fletcher (2): Yeah, it's true. You certainly hear the experiences where people do fast and they get crazy answers, , but it's not like it's the guarantee or the sole reason. I guess on the topic of prayer, often when we read about fasting in the Bible, it's either linked to prayer or it's linked to the poor. , and I know this is something you're also still reflecting on, but I guess I find it [00:20:00] interesting because,, When I said before that I had only fasted a few times, I was also talking spiritually.
Zanita Fletcher (2): I've actually also fasted a lot for like health reasons, but I've, , I've still called it fasting and kind of maybe in the past when I was younger, I'm like, Oh yeah, I fast. Like, I'm a real Christian, but it was never really for those like spiritual reasons. I always kind of thought in my head like,, but it's not actually that bad because I'm benefiting myself because it's good for me and I'm actually saving money.
Zanita Fletcher (2): So fasting is. I'm like, it's a win win, but I never really, , was drawn to feel for the poor or it never really changed the people's lives in any way. So I guess like what I'm asking and either one of you can answer this is like, why does Jesus ask us to fast? Like for the poor, when it's not like, , that changes anything.
Zanita Fletcher (2): Like when I fast, they don't really benefit. , or when I fast, like. It doesn't really impact them in any way, unless I give them my meal. Maybe that's what he's asking of it. But [00:21:00] like, why does he ask us to do that?
Jared Chung: Do you have any thoughts, Jared? Yeah.
Jarrod Stackelroth: yeah, maybe., I guess you could think creatively about it., I don't know if you remember Zanita, Jared, maybe they didn't do this in the States when you were growing up, but the 40 hour famine, was it world vision or someone that did? Yeah. So I, I believe that would have had Christian roots potentially that, that whole concept, but it's the only sort of, engagement with fasting as a young person that you might've had.
Jarrod Stackelroth: And I never. personally did it, but I knew a lot of people who were doing it at their school or at their church or, and I guess the idea was raising money by not eating,, to experience or to sense that feeling that the poor people, less, , more disadvantaged people might have. I guess you could creatively, you know, skip a meal a week as a family and Put aside that money for someone, for a charity, a charitable purpose or something like that. , so I guess there's creative ways you [00:22:00] could make it a regular thing that, again, speaks against the commercialization that Jared was talking about at the start of this conversation, like the idea that, you have to get yours and, you have to feed your appetite and you have to look after yourself and you have to eat well every meal.
Jarrod Stackelroth: , I think in, in, in our day, we've probably got excess of what we need. And so, , less than in Jesus day, whereas like if you missed a meal, you might actually not want that food to go to waste, or you might not have, , a whole cupboard full of things. If you made a meal, but missed it, you might be giving that meal directly to someone else rather than.
Jarrod Stackelroth: Letting the food go to waste because there's a lot less to go around. Whereas for rats, if we miss a meal, we just leave it in the fridge and we eat it again., 12 hours later or five hours later or whenever the next meal is. So yeah, I think just some cursory thoughts, not having thought a lot about it, but I do think [00:23:00] it's interesting to me that you've brought up that link between prayer and the poor and fasting.
Jarrod Stackelroth: And I think it's something we could probably all reflect on a bit more as Christians. How can we help those that are less fortunate than we are?
Jared Chung: Yeah, actually, you said something earlier about,, kind of striking back at excess. And I think that that's a really good point. The because when I say fasting, it's not just about the action, but it's about the principle of denying yourself. And like these days, I can get whatever I want. I was actually surprised when I moved to Australia, they don't like Amazon doesn't have free two day shipping like it does in America.
Jared Chung: And that was one thing. Like, we're so conditioned to have everything that we want exactly when we want it,, exactly the way that we want it right away. , and so I feel like we, we're not used to getting our own way. And so not getting our own way turns our mind away from ourselves and actually thinks like, oh, okay, how can I actually benefit other people?
, if I'm [00:24:00] this disgruntled with not having a meal, how does someone else feel when they don't have a meal for, when they have food insecurity and things like that. , and I think that, yeah, it just takes our focus away from ourselves and puts it on God and others. And I feel like that,, that shift of perspective is really important in fasting.
Zanita Fletcher (2): Awesome. Yeah. It's interesting that you say that. And I guess on that idea of what you were talking about before with temptations, I think a lot of the, ancient Greek philosophers have written about fasting as well. And they used to fast for like mental clarity, but they also used to fast because they thought that food was like the first, it was like that main temptation or that main thing.
Zanita Fletcher (2): It's like the initial thing that stops us from being, strong. In restraint or having self control is like the word is I'm looking for. , and so, yeah, they used to kind of like exercise their self control by fasting, , and that would flow out into other areas of their life. We, we [00:25:00] like to get practical on Record live Jared.
Zanita Fletcher (2): I don't know if you have anything else you'd like to add before we go to that section, but
Jared Chung: just looking over my notes. , yeah, actually one more thing on the spiritual aspect., why does God actually ask us to pray? There's a really interesting story in Matthew 17 where there's this epileptic boy who has a demon and the disciples aren't actually able to cast out the demon. And when Jesus comes back down from the mountain,, he ends up casting out this demon.
Jared Chung: Like, well, why couldn't we do it? And he said,, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting. And something that we see, he said that they couldn't cast it out because of the unbelief. This is something that we see is that their unbelief was what caused their spiritual failure. And so their faith had to be strengthened by prayer and fasting.
Jared Chung: And I think what fasting does, it reveals that we can't do things in our own strength and power. We can't save ourselves. We don't have any spiritual strength in our own power. And so fasting helps us realize that we need to rely on [00:26:00] God. So yeah, that's a one final thought on spiritual things on the practical nature of things.
Jared Chung: When I first started fasting, like no one had ever told me how to do it. I looked at some articles online and then I just tried to do it for five days straight and it felt really bad. Like I remember just feeling shivery and weak and, my legs, I couldn't walk straight. Something I've learned is you need to really ease into fasting if you're going to try to practice it regularly.
Jared Chung: , it's just like exercise. If you try to run a marathon right away, you're not going to feel great and you can even harm yourself. And so I'd say if anyone wants to start fasting, , you should start easy. So maybe, you know, maybe skip breakfast for a week and then the next week and do one meal a day or, and then the week after that, you can actually try a full day.
Jared Chung: , I also say if you're going to do a longer fast, you need to take salt and that's something that a lot of people don't talk about, but your body needs electrolytes. And when you fast, you actually get rid of a lot of electrolytes. So to be able to fast for longer periods of time, you need to take salt.
Jared Chung: [00:27:00] I actually went on a backpacking trip in Tassie. We did the three capes track, with some friends and, , One of my goals for that hike was actually to fast for the whole time. And so I did one meal a day the week prior and then for the whole, , for the whole hike, I was fasting, completely, so just water.
Jared Chung: But as long as you're taking salt, you actually feel great. And a lot of people, they feel awful when they fast because their body is deficient on salt. And so, yeah, that's a cool trick that you can try if you're fasting for longer periods of time. Do you guys have any tips from your experiences?
Jarrod Stackelroth: I , think easing into it , is a good one. I think listening to your body like I would avoid fasting on days where I had. an extreme thing to do. Like I play basketball and so I'm not going to fast on a game day sort of thing. If, if that's, if it's a one day a week, I was just doing it of a certain day each week.
Jarrod Stackelroth: So rather than a chunk of days in a row. [00:28:00] Um, so yeah, understanding what your calendar looks like and giving yourself that permission to have like, okay, this is a day where I'm pretty much in the office. There's not too much else happening. I'm going to prioritize spending time with God, avoiding meals and.
Jarrod Stackelroth: I have the
Jared Chung: All right.
Jarrod Stackelroth: Capacity. It's sort of like easing into it. You know, I'm not actually going to do anything super strenuous that I actually need sustenance for,, to make sure that you're planning ahead. You're thinking through , what that might look like is one, tip that I've sort of experienced or tried.
Jarrod Stackelroth: [00:29:00] Silence.
Zanita Fletcher (2): It's just a day. Like, you can do it. Yeah, it's gonna be uncomfortable. I think that's like the reality of it, but um,
Jared Chung: Yeah, just going to make a quick point on the science of fasting. That's the topic that I've really looked into because my main concern for fasting was, the health risks. And while I'm not a doctor and I can't give,, qualified medical advice, I can say from my research, there's actually heaps of data and like, A lot of studies that show that there's many health benefits for fasting.
Jared Chung: And we often think like we're hurting our bodies by fasting, but what the studies actually show is that your body rebuilds itself and you're, you have lower risk of cancer. You have, your mind and basically it just erases a lot of different health issues. And it's a, one of the ways that your body's able to heal itself.
Jared Chung: I'd also say, um,
Jarrod Stackelroth: Silence.
Jared Chung: we're not earning [00:30:00] anything by this. This is supposed to be a blessing for you and your spiritual walk. And so a lot of people, I think, try to go into it. Like they try to go in right away or do a big thing because they want to earn something out of it or be able to say that they did it.
Jared Chung: Well, we shouldn't have that type of mindset. Like this is a spiritual discipline, not something that's supposed to burn us out. And so don't feel guilty. Fasting is a gift, not a burden. And, yeah, we're not doing this to be saved. So it's something that we learn and grow in over time.
Jared Chung: Yeah.
Jarrod Stackelroth: look at incorporating into their own faith journey to see if this might be something that could help them. It certainly has helped.
Jarrod Stackelroth: And I'm thinking now, yeah, maybe I should get back into this, , maybe I should think about doing this. It's been a while. , So time for a reset, but thanks Jared. Thanks [00:31:00] Anita. It's been a great and interesting conversation today. It's a shame we've run out of time, but we'll hopefully see you all again next week on record live.
Jarrod Stackelroth: God bless.