Fasting 101 for Kids

When talking about the upcoming fast with our kids on Sunday afternoon, John used this analogy that I thought was so good in explaining fasting to kids!

If you have a shelf full of good books that you’ve read and enjoyed over the years, but you want to buy new books and have no room on the bookshelf for the new ones, you have to pull some of the old books off the shelf in order to make room for new ones. In our little analogy, the new books represent “fresh revelation”- things we haven’t heard from God before. And if we are so “full” of other things, there is no room for more of Him. When we fast we are symbolically making more room in our hearts for the Lord. Sometimes those old books need to be completely eliminated, and sometimes we just store them for a season.

When we fast from things like entertainment (TV, Video Games, Movie, Internet, etc). We are setting aside something that can take up huge amounts of time, but additional can dull our hearts from hearing God’s voice. Sometimes at the end of a fast, we have lost our desire for those things. Sometimes we allow them back in an appropriate measure.

When we fast from things like food (for kids, perhaps sugared foods, junk food, soda, etc; possibly even a Daniel fast for some), we are saying, “God we are hungry for you, nothing satisfies like you.” The pangs of hunger, the cravings for the foods that can comfort or even “entertain” us, remind us to turn our hunger towards the Lord and ask Him to make our longings be for Him alone.