That was the question Gracen asked over a dinner of brown rice.

Gracen is pretty smart. She listens, connects dots and draws good conclusions. And this past Sunday, she heard the Biblical reasons for fasting. But as we join other followers of Christ at Geyer Springs in a corporate fast, Gracen still didn’t get it.

She’s probably a lot like many people… mentally tied up in the legalistic aspects of what we should or shouldn’t consume over the next three weeks. Even with our pastor encouraging the church to take a deep breath as we begin, Gracen still had that larger question. Why do we fast?

I began to explain it several ways, but the more I spoke, the opportunity to give her a clear picture would soon be gone.

So this is what I told her…

Fasting is about sacrifice. It’s an external expression we give to God so that He can do something greater inside our hearts. Those sacrifices are reminders of our dependence on God. And the more focused we are on Him, the clearer His voice will be.

She had one other question for me over dinner. What are we expecting God to reveal?

The thing is, God is always revealing Himself to us. What God expects of us is to learn how to hear His voice over all the others.

For Gracen, for me and for you – there are lots of voices that compete for God’s voice in our lives.

There is the voice of compromise. God expected the nation of Israel to eliminate the nations that occupied the Promised Land because He knew their culture would infect His people’s lives. He expects the same from us. Yet our world screams at us constantly, without relenting, to persuade us to bend. While a fast is for a specific period of time, it sets a new baseline for how we relate to God.

There is the voice of routine. Work. School. Friends. Church. Every aspect of our lives can give way to routine. The more we do something, the more comfortable we become. As our comfort level increases, we often become numb to peripheral things. We set our course on autopilot and relax our attention. And often we exchange our identity as a follower of Christ for those things we engage in routinely, those things we are comfortable with, those things we have mastered. Routine separates us from dependence on God… and that’s what God wants to expose in our hearts over these weeks.

There is the voice of pride. Pride is one of the most destructive emotions we ever harbor in our hearts. It’s blinding, it’s deafening, it’s crippling. Pride distorts reality. Pride tells us we are fine, that our relationship with God is ok, that we can hear God speak anytime we want to hear Him. Pride puts God on our schedule. Pride makes God disposable. Pride makes us God.

Fast or not, we all need to silence the voices that compete for God’s voice in our lives. What He is revealing to us is significant. We must learn to hear.

What is interesting about Daniel is that after he refused to live like the king’s men, after he challenged the status quo, after God protected and provided… Daniel still got thrown into the lion’s den. Just because we make sacrifices and do what God says, we may still find ourselves in a pit of lions. Why? God is less interested in our comfort than He is showing Himself holy through our lives. And He will do whatever it takes to do this.

These next several days hold a great deal of significance for everyone who chooses to engage God in this way. It’s a first step, no matter how many steps with God you have already taken with God.

This is an act of faith that can give you perspective far greater, far higher than anything you can develop on your own. God wants to reveal one thing to you: His heart. And as we know His heart, we can see life from His perspective.

In these days, let your preoccupation be with God, not your dietary intake. Make your commitment, let it remind you of your dependence of God and let Him speak freely into your life.