Undo the Heavy Burdens: The Fasting Practices that Shaped My Life

[R]emember that on this, the Lord’s day, . . . thou shalt do none other thing, only let thy food be prepared with singleness of heart that thy fasting may be perfect, or, in other words, that thy joy may be full. Verily, this is fasting and prayer, or in other words, rejoicing and prayer. And inasmuch as ye do these things with thanksgiving, with cheerful hearts and countenances, . . . the fulness of the earth is yours.  (D&C 59:12-16)

It’s hard to believe next year (2025) will mark twenty years since my father’s passing. One thing I deeply miss about my father, is our gospel-centered discussions; especially those sparked by the Book of Mormon stories and the meaning behind the dialogue, and the principles they taught.

One such principle we studied and applied was fasting. Reading Jacob 5:65-66, my niece Meijken shared an interesting insight she studied, based upon “clear[ing] away the bad according as the good shall grow, that the root and the top may be equal in strength, until the good shall overcome the bad”.

In turn, I shared her insight with my father. After considering these verses, he applied the principle by inviting the family to fast for the purpose of softening hearts and drawing closer to the Savior. He suggested that for 6 months each of us would take something out of our lives that was “bad” for us and add something good into our lives.

The “bad” I chose may sound silly considering it was to stop drinking soda; while the “good” I chose was recommitting myself to attend the temple weekly. The most wonderful thing about this fast for me, was not my choices, as much as it was my husband’s choice to participate. Joe is not a member of the Church, yet for his “good” choice he chose to attend Church for the six months with me and our children!

Another family fast we undertook, was an eight month fast for one of my siblings. The idea was to have at least one family member fast each day. Those who could not do a traditional fast of abstaining from food and water, fasted by the way of sacrifice, giving up something they truly enjoyed on their day of fasting. We could see a change in our sibling even though it was not  permanent like Alma the Younger. Even so, it changed and helped those who fasted including the nieces and nephews who chose to participate.

Just as the principle of serving others changes us, I believe when we turn our hearts outward to help others through fasting, our spirit turns toward the Savior.

Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? (Isaiah 58:6)

A Variety of Fasts

My sister Cheri taught me how to fast during the years I was pregnant and nursing, not by suggestion, but by example. Noticing Cheri repeatedly refusing her favorite treats when offered, I asked her why she turned them down. Cheri explained giving up her favorite food vices such as chocolate, chewing gum, or drinking her nightly milkshake was her way of fasting, while pregnant and nursing, which ended up encompassing about twenty years. I decided to do a similar fast which led to expelling refined sugar from my diet for a time. I will confess of the restoration of eating sugary treats and can definitely testify I am worse off for it.

Years after my pregnancies as my eldest son Jake grew closer to “missionary” age, I decided to fast for him with the hope his desire to serve a mission would increase. I implemented the same principles of the fast my father suggested of taking something “bad” out of my life and adding something “good”. After Jake put in his papers, I recommitted to the fast for the two years he served. Once again, I know it helped him as he left to serve in the Japan Kobe Mission and helped me build a better spiritual perspective

Symbolic Forty Day Fast

Years ago the ward I attended did a symbolic forty day fast for missionary work. The effect for our ward’s focus and efforts resulted in quadrupling new converts from the previous year. Although I was not instrumental in bringing a new member into our midst, this fast affected me greatly.

At the time I had not served a mission and still have never served a proselyting mission. Yet, I believe the Lord blessed me in my efforts in a surprising manner, giving me the experience of a missionary’s joy when they find and teach a person who joins the Church. My experience revolves around family history.

At the time of my ward’s forty day fast, I was working on my sister-in-law’s genealogy. This was not the first or fifty-first time I had looked for the parents of her great-grandfather, John Joseph Coughlin, who immigrated from Ireland about 1890. During this fast, a new record appeared in my search; the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) for John Coughlin. I applied for his social security application, and there they were, his parents, James Edward Coughlin and Catherine Gallagher.

The feeling at that moment I can only describe as pure joy and gratitude in a way I had not felt before. I have located plenty of parents in past searches for people, which usually brought a verbal cheer and fist pump, but this was something else. I said out loud to myself, “This is what missionaries must feel like when a person they are teaching desires to be baptized.”

After this first experience during the fast, I located a second set of great-great-grandparents for my sister-in-law. The feeling was similar to the first. So, even though I did not find a new, living convert, I did find four people who were prepared to receive the gospel and have their temple work completed.

Three-Day Fasts

At one point in my life, my faith in fasting was fading. I cannot recall if a single moment in time had sparked the flame of doubt; I only recall I began asking why and knew my heart was wavering. As I questioned myself, I quickly realized that I knew the Book of Mormon was a true set of scripture which led to believing Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God who was instrumental in restoring the Church of Jesus Christ. Yet, even with this belief and knowledge, it didn’t change my feelings about fasting.

As I continued to contemplate my dilemma, I decided if I was having a problem with a principle of the gospel, I needed to implement that principle with all my focus and study. So, I began to fast and pray with the intention of continuing until I came to know of a surety it was an important gospel principle which needed to be practiced.

After fasting and praying for 2 days and 2 nights, on the morning of the third day, I knew fasting and contributing a fast offering was an important principle to apply in my life. Even though all the reasons for fasting may still have eluded me, I recognized that the Savior and the prophets past and present have not only taught and counseled us in regard to a proper fast, they have been great examples of the principle of fasting.

In reference to contributing fast offerings, President Eyring noted that “President Spencer W. Kimball called failing to follow that law a sin of omission with a heavy cost. [President Kimball] wrote: ‘Rich promises are made by the Lord to those who fast and assist the needy. … Inspiration and spiritual guidance will come with righteousness and closeness to our Heavenly Father. To omit to do this righteous act of fasting would deprive us of these blessings.’”¹

Since my memory often falls short these days, now in preparation for my monthly fast,

I note in my planner on the Saturday before fast Sunday to begin my fast at a certain time, usually 2 PM. By contemplating, praying, and making a list (or single purpose), then recording the purpose of my fast, I have found it always helps me to stay focused on what my fast is centered. This is also a reminder for me to see if I have paid my tithing for the previous month and a time to give a fast offering for the current month.

A Prophet’s Invitations

Nearly six years have passed since President Nelson invited the women of the Church “to participate in a 10-day fast from social media and from any other media that bring negative and impure thoughts to your mind.”² As I reflect on the effects, I realize President Nelson’s other invitations of that address, such as reading the Book of Mormon, consistent temple attendance, and reviewing the Relief Society purpose, combined with the social media fast, freed me from the mundane, lifting my perspective to the eternities. Reading my journal from that time period showed how my thoughts shifted more toward the Savior as I followed through with promptings more quickly and stood up in hard conversations with gentle firmness – no wavering on truth, listening with empathy, then with the power of the Holy Ghost, restating the truth.

During the early days of the Pandemic in 2020, President Nelson invited all to join in two worldwide fasts back to back. The first he invited members of the Church and friends “to join with me in a worldwide fast for all whose health permits to pray for relief from the physical, emotional, and economic effects of this global pandemic.”³

Just a few weeks later, President Nelson once again invited the people of the world to “fast, pray, and unite our faith” to “prayerfully plead for relief from this global pandemic.” He specifically stated the focus as “that the present pandemic may be controlled, caregivers protected, the economy strengthened, and life normalized.”⁴

I was privileged to be able to participate in both of these fasts. How wonderful it is to have the Prophet of God lead, direct, and counsel us in these latter-days.

Conclusion

President Henry B. Eyring said in his April 2015 conference address, “The brief time we fast every month and the small amount we offer for the poor may give us only a small part of the change in our natures to have no more desire to do evil. But there is a great promise, even as we do all that we reasonably can to pray, to fast, and to donate for those in need:

Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. (Isaiah 58:8–9)

May our hearts be drawn out in prayer and fasting until our souls have no desire to do evil, but to do good continually, that we may run to Savior’s embrace and live with Him and our ancestors in the eternities.

 

1. Eyring, President Henry B.“Is Not This the Fast That I Have Chosen?”. April 2015. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2015/04/is-not-this-the-fast-that-i-have-chosen?lang=eng. Accessed 30 June 2024.)
2. Nelson, President Russell M. Sisters’ Participation in the Gathering of Israel. 2018. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/eng/general-conference/2018/10/sisters-participation-in-the-gathering-of-israel. Accessed 30 June 2024.
3. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. President Russell M. Nelson Invites All to Join in Fast for Relief from COVID-19. 2020. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btwh40huKIo.
4. Nelson, President Russell M. Opening the Heavens for Help. 2020. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2020/04/37nelson?lang=eng. Accessed 30 June 2024.

Fasting or Merely Hungry?

I’m hungry. Starving maybe, I mutter to an empty kitchen.

It’s been twenty hours since I ate last. My belly tells me that a decent person wouldn’t punish it this way. Food is still four hours away, according to the Mormon custom of a full day’s fast. This state seems biologically perverse to me. Something is clearly wrong here.

But I’m fasting. So I wait.

That name, “fasting,” has always struck me as outrageous because few simple things so easily disrupt the normal flow of life as failing to eat. Especially when I’m out of practice, each hour drags me forward by the pit of my stomach. It’s not the slow tempo of dread. In my heart, I know that I won’t starve to death or contract a fatal disease of malnutrition. But time moves at a tortuous pace: I’m no good at being quiet.

Hungry and restless, my mind wonders why I’m doing this to myself all over again. This quiet is painful. I have the same problem with prayer. My soul can’t sit still. It’s like a 2-year-old boy trying to endure hours of church meetings with grownups. The quiet frightens me. It’s not natural.

When I was a young missionary, I thought fasting was a way to shout a prayer. If you wanted something too weighty to be secured by time on your knees, then you dialed the amplifier up to 11 by skipping two meals. Even the half-deaf God of the Psalms could surely hear such a shouted prayer. That strategy fit well with my lifelong fear of silence, and it contributed to my general exhaustion by the end of my mission. I was hell-bent on wearing myself out in the service of the Lord.

I’m less convinced now that God needs a hearing aid. I suspect that God hears perfectly well, whether we shout or whisper. Not that we shouldn’t pray with passion. Often, we must. But sometimes we will need to be quiet.

After my mission, I went through a phase where I thought of fasting as exclusively a mechanism to honor the poor. I was spiritually depleted. I only had the energy to see the material, practical implications of religion. I understood the day without food as a way to turn a sympathetic eye to the plight of the penniless. I donated to the food bank, paid a fast offering, and tried to keep the hungry in mind. Fasting was a way to walk in a hungry person’s moccasins for the proverbial mile. Short of actually becoming poor, fasting seemed like an efficient way to commiserate with those who are “an hungred” (Matthew 25:35). I still believe it is, believe that fact with my whole Mormon soul. There’s just more to it than that.

The fast is not simply a story about the human toll of poverty, however important that story is. The fast is also a story about noisy excess. We moderns have created a promised land full of curdled milk and spoiled honey. We stood with Moses in front of the bush that was aflame but not consumed. With the ancients, we heard Jehovah promise that the righteous would find “a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:17). And in place of that Promised Land, we have built a nutritional Tower of Babel. This modern temple on the Plain of Shinar (Genesis 11) is a cornucopia of loud, flavorless, anonymous food that swells our bellies. The ancients were so vulnerable to hunger that they sometimes saw God as a story about full bellies. We have built that longed-for Shangri-La ourselves, and it has left us achingly overweight and indigested. Our backs are breaking under the burden this modern cornucopia has imposed upon us. We are never hungry, but we are always uncomfortable. We are never quiet.

But we are called to be quiet. After they established the world we know, our heavenly parents and their newly human children rested. They observed the Sabbath. They let the world fall sacredly silent.

The pattern of Sabbath as cosmic quiet has begun to shape my aspirations for the fast. When I celebrate the Sabbath, I step outside the flow of secular time. I admit to myself and to others with the methodical sequence of Sundays that the succession of earthy moments is not all there is. I tell myself, my neighbors, and God that I know there’s more to the story than just atoms and energy flows, flesh and bones, minutes and hours. I seek also those pregnant moments in which I become open to divine vastness.

In fasting, I fashion in my body the same susceptibility to divinity that Sunday works on my calendar. The aching beauty of our mortality comes both from our fleeting weakness and the eternity within which it is staged. We cannot know ourselves and our magnificence if we stay always locked in the prison of flesh and bones. We step outside that prison on a Sabbath. On a Fast Sunday, we strive to leap beyond the flow of time and the crush of mortality. We are, however briefly, furloughed from the frenetic flow of energy through ecosystems and the battles of nature red in tooth and claw. We are, in a word, quiet. We become more than we seem to be.

In my experience of fasting as bodily Sabbath, I’ve discovered an unexpected kinship. In her wise and perceptive PhD dissertation, “Radical Food,” Kate Holbrook explored the fasting practices of Nation of Islam Muslims (the African American take on Islam that converted Malcolm X from his life of criminal dissipation). Those Black Muslims, many freed like Malcolm X from lives of anger and self-destruction in Jim Crow America, struggled constantly with the perception that they were mere beasts. Slavers had always called them animals, and so had the slavers’ heirs. These American Muslims thus ate only one meal a day in order to tell the world that they were free to resist their bestial appetites. They could choose not to eat food that was placed before them. Through fasting, these African American souls took back their humanity from those who doubted it. They proved that they were more than talking animals.

When I fast these days, I acknowledge that I too am more than an animal. I am also a human being who resists mere physicality. I hear people say, apparently sincerely, that we humans are just animals. That’s an odd thing to say, like a jet pilot saying that airplanes don’t actually fly or a writer pretending she is illiterate. In wondering whether we might merely be animals, we are exercising our distinction from those physical beings who have never pondered such existential questions. I can see how pretending that we’re talking animals could be a way to resist a certain strain of religious fundamentalism. Heaven knows I’ve struggled myself at times to comprehend some ultra-traditionalist positions. But I’m not ready to cut off my nose to spite my face. I don’t need to abandon humanity to win points in a fight with fundamentalists. Fasting opens up to my view the gorgeous paths that lead away from the modernist highway, littered with road kill, and into forests and mountains and hidden alpine lakes. Fasting leads me to the quiet places where sense can be made of that life we share at most partially with animals.

When I fast, I admit that I and the people I love are merely human and also more than human. We are, in a word, gods of flesh and bone. For us mortals, to be a god means to be present in both time and eternity, as physical beings who yearn and look beyond our physicalness. Being hungry means knowing that I don’t wholly belong here. There’s more to me than this body of meat and calcium. Uncomfortable through hunger with my all-too-mortal flesh and bones, I realize that we are all more than we seem to be. We bear the marks of eternity deep in those very bones. Like the ancient Hebrews that Jeremiah (31:33) saw so clearly, we have the divine presence inscribed inside us, like spiritual DNA. When we fast, quietly, we find ourselves a little better able to read that inscription.

Why Does the Lord Require People to Live the Laws of Tithing and Fasting?

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“Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house; and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”
3 Nephi 24:10

The Know

The Prophet Joseph Smith received a revelation about tithing on 8 July 1838 in Far West, Missouri. In the revelation, the Lord announced, “the beginning of the tithing of my people,” explaining that the members of the Church were to “pay one-tenth of all their interest annually,” after they had given of their surplus property as part of the Law of Consecration (Doctrine and Covenants 119:3–4).[1]

Furthermore, a revelation given through Joseph Smith in 1831 had instructed the saints to use the “Lord’s day” as a day of “fasting and prayer” (Doctrine and Covenants 59:13, 14). Elsewhere, the Lord gave the saints a commandment that they should “continue in prayer and fasting from this time forth” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:76).

The early members of the Church were clearly aware of biblical directives regarding the paying of tithes, such as Malachi 3:8–12[2] and were also likely familiar with passages such as Isaiah 58:3–12 that taught about the proper approach to fasting. The Book of Mormon also provided early saints with valuable insights into how the Lord’s people in former times have understood the payment of tithes and the concept of fasting.

The Nephites knew about the law of tithing. The prophet Alma was aware of the story, found in Genesis 14, about Abraham paying “tithes of one-tenth part of all he possessed” to Melchizedek, the high priest (Alma 13:15). During His visit in 3 Nephi, the Savior himself chose to share with the Nephites the Father’s instructions to Malachi regarding tithing. He recited the words of Malachi 3 and commanded that the Nephite scribes write them down (3 Nephi 24).

After the Savior’s visit to the Book of Mormon peoples, “they had all things common among them; therefore there were not rich and poor” (4 Nephi 1:3). The fact that they “had all things in common,” referring to “their goods and their substance” (4 Nephi 1:25), suggests that they were living what would become known in this dispensation as “the law of consecration.” For the early Latter-day Saints, the law of tithing was a part of the law of consecration.[3]

The Book of Mormon contains many examples of individuals who fasted and prayed in order to entreat the Lord for special blessings and revelations. The prophet Amaleki described the road to salvation as including “fasting and praying,” as well as being willing to “offer your whole souls as an offering unto him” (Omni 1:26). The record of the Nephites during the era of peace after Christ’s visit to them implies that one of the Lord’s commandments to them was that they continue “in fasting and prayer” (4 Nephi 1:12). The Nephites fasted in times of mourning (Alma 28:6) and as an expression of thankfulness to the Lord (Alma 45:1).

Some of the greatest Nephite missionaries and teachers relied on fasting to receive guidance from the Lord. Alma declared that he knew that the prophecies concerning Christ were true because he had “fasted and prayed many days that I might know these things of myself” (Alma 5:46).

The sons of King Mosiah had success and remained faithful over their arduous fourteen-year mission to the Lamanites because, “they had given themselves to much prayer, and fasting,” asking “that the Lord would grant unto them a portion of his Spirit to go with them, and abide with them, that they might be an instrument in the hands of God” (Alma 17:3, 9).[4]

The Why

Through divine revelations, the early saints of this dispensation understood that the laws of tithing and fasting are principles that bring great blessings. They knew the promise of Malachi, that the Lord will “open unto you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it” and that God will “rebuke the devourer for your sakes”—a promise that He will protect their means of sustaining themselves (Malachi 3:10–11; 3 Nephi 24:10–11). The Lord declared to Joseph Smith that this dispensation was “a day for the tithing of my people” and that those who pay tithes “shall not be burned at his coming” (Doctrine and Covenants 64:23).

In the Book of Mormon, the example of Alma being raised from a death-like state demonstrates the power of fasting. This miracle only occurred after his family and others “began to fast, and to pray to the Lord God that he would open the mouth of Alma, that he might speak, and also that his limbs might receive their strength” (Mosiah 27:22). When the sons of Mosiah fasted and prayed, they were given “the spirit of revelation” and were able to teach “with power and authority of God” (Alma 17:3). After Alma fasted and prayed, the Lord gave him “the spirit of revelation” as well, and he received a powerful testimony of the truth, made manifest by the Holy Spirit (Alma 5:46).

As with many of the Lord’s commands to His children, great promises accompany the principles of tithing and fasting. Latter-day Saints today can reap the blessings of living the law of Tithing as demonstrated in the Book of Mormon. Like the Sons of Mosiah, readers can fast to experience the “spirit of revelation” and can be witness to miracles like Alma the Younger. The Doctrine and Covenants and the Book of Mormon contain many examples of these promised blessings from which readers may greatly profit.

Further Reading

Book of Mormon Central, “Why Did Fasting and Prayer Accompany Nephite Mourning? (Alma 28:6),” KnoWhy 135 (July 3, 2016).

Alexander L. Baugh, “Tithing” in Book of Mormon Reference Companion, ed. Dennis L. Largely (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Company, 2003), 757.

Stephen D. Ricks. “Fasting,” in Book of Mormon Reference Companion, ed. Dennis L. Largely (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Company, 2003), 268–269.

Stephen D. Ricks, “Fasting in the Book of Mormon and the Bible,” in The Book of Mormon: The Keystone Scripture, ed. Paul Cheesmen, S. Kent Brown, and Charles D. Tate Jr., The Book of Mormon Symposium Series, Volume 1 (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1988), 127–136.

[1] Early LDS leaders understood the revelation to mean that the saints should give ten percent of what they would earn in interest if they invested their net worth for a year. See Steven C. Harper, “The Tithing of My People” (D&C 119, 120), Revelations in Context, 13 January 2016, online at history.lds.org. The Church has subsequently interpreted “interest” as “income.” See “The Law of Tithing and the Law of the Fast,” Doctrine and Covenants and Church History: Gospel Doctrine Teacher’s Manual (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1999), 94.

[2] For example, Bishop Newel K. Whitney, in 1837, used Malachi 3:10 in a letter “to the saints scattered abroad.” Newel K. Whitney, et al., “History, 1838–1856, volume B-1 [1 September 1834–2 November 1838] [addenda],” p. 8 [addenda], online at josephsmithpapers.org.

[3] Alexander L. Baugh, “Tithing” in Book of Mormon Reference Companion, ed. Dennis L. Largely (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Company, 2003), 757 states: “It is not known whether or not Book of Mormon peoples lived the law of tithing. They did, however, have ‘all things in common among them’ (indicating that they were living the law of consecration) for nearly two hundred years following the Savior’s appearance.”

[4] For more on this topic, see Stephen D. Ricks, “Fasting in the Book of Mormon and the Bible,” in The Book of Mormon: The Keystone Scripture, ed. Paul R. Cheesman, S. Kent Brown, and Charles D. Tate, Jr. (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1988), 127–136.