A Very Lenten Ramadan
Episode 7
This is the final episode in the short podcast series, ‘A Very Lenten Ramadan’. In this episode I’ll reflect on the end of the period called Lent and my fasting in 2026. I’m recording this a few weeks after Lent mainly because I ran out of time at the end of the season. However, I also think it was a good idea to pause prior to my final reflection and instead look back at Lent with a few weeks break in between.
And I’ve been thinking about what I gained from this period of fasting. On the practical side, I gained the chance to slow things down and focus on exactly what I was doing at that very point in time. There’s no need to get up from your work and make another cup of coffee, because you can’t during a Ramadan fast. You stay in the work zone without taking a break. Or else you just go home. That’s actually a good thing.
Yet the spiritual benefits are – unsurprisingly – even greater.
I’ve been reflecting this week how fasting is something that occurs in the ‘wilderness’ times of life. Not in the ‘promised land’ times of life – to use some strong Old Testament symbolism. In Deuteronomy 8:3 it says that when the Israelites were in the wilderness God “humbled [them] causing [them] to hunger”. But that wasn’t just for nothing. It was so that God could show his provision for them “feeding [them] with manna”.
I think fasting forces us to acknowledge our dependence on God and in doing so allows Him to demonstrate His grace and provision that only He can deliver “which neither you nor your fathers had known” as Moses says to the Israelites.
Jesus echoes this in the New Testament when he’s asked why his disciples aren’t fasting. Jesus says that he is present with his disciples at the time, so why would they fast? You don’t fast when the promised Messiah is with you. You pray and fast when you’re in the wilderness. And you pray and fast when you’re in exile.
I remembered this week how, just over 20 years ago, I was meeting with a mentor and we were deciding which part of the Bible to read for the last part of the year that we met together. “Let’s read 2 Chronicles,” my mentor suggested. “Nobody ever reads 2 Chronicles.” So we did. 2 Chronicles is actually a really depressing so that’s probably why nobody reads it. A lot of 2 Chronicles is about God’s people doing the wrong thing and then needing to go into exile.
But earlier in the book, when Solomon dedicates the temple, there is a very gracious instruction from God, which I think also contains three key elements of fasting. It’s here that God says:
“…if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
That’s 2 Chronicles 7:14. And here are the three things I reflected on this week that are in the verse and that I think are connected to fasting:
- The humility of prayer and seeking after God
- Turning away from wickedness – otherwise known as repentance.
- Restoration through forgiveness and healing of the land
Now, each of these things in connection with prayer and fasting is a full sermon in itself. So, I think I’ll leave it there for now for that reason and also the fact that I’m still reflecting on those three things myself.
However, I do notice that these three things make clear that when we lean in close to God through prayer and fasting, he leans in close to us. This makes me think of a verse in the New Testament book of James which says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”
So my final reflection is that fasting, whenever and however you do it, provided it is done with the right attitude and heart posture, should bring you into a closer fellowship with God, should it not? And surely anyone who is a believer would want that, really, above anything else, no matter what time of year it is: Christmas, Lent or anytime.
This brings me to the end of this short podcast series and the ways in which fasting has impacted me. Certainly, I am sure, not the last point in time in which I will engage in fasting in my life. But having been a significant period of time, about 40 days, and a way in which I have never fasted before – and may never again – I personally found it helpful to reflect on these things. And hopefully it is also of benefit to anyone else who listens to these podcasts.