followHIM - "What do I do if I hate fasting?" : follow HIM Favorites

Episode Date: July 24, 2022

Hank Smith and John Bytheway answer a question from this week's Come, Follow Me study.Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.co/old-testament/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannelThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Executive Producers/SponsorsDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: MarketingLisa Spice: Client Relations, Show Notes/TranscriptsJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Rough Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Transcripts/Language Team/French TranscriptsAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsIgor Willians: Portuguese Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com/products/let-zion-in-her-beauty-rise-piano

Hello, my friends. Welcome to Follow Him Favorites. My name is Hank Smith. I'm here with my favorite friend, John, by the way. Hello, John, by the way. Thanks. Is that like a BFF or just a FF? Favorite friend? Yeah. Yeah. You're my favorite friend. Well, today, John, we are doing Follow Him Favorites, and you know how this works. We take a question from this week's lesson and we answer that question. This comes from the book of Esther. When she is in real trouble, she calls on the Jews to fast for her. And I think a common question we might get from students or our own children is,

Dad, why do I fast? So, John, when your kids come to you and they say, Dad, why do I fast? So John, when your kids come to you and they say, dad, why do we fast? What do you say? What do you tell them? You know, fasting is one of those things where it's a good opportunity to teach we have a body and we have a spirit. And that one of the purposes of life is to get our spirit to be in charge of our body. So Jesus said things like the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Which one is stronger? The appetites that come with having a body or is our spirit able to govern our body? And I feel like that's one of the reasons that we have life. So usually I try to explain it that

way. Let's see if we can have our spirit be in charge of our body for a while. That will teach us something about making our spirits stronger. I think the Lord knows, John, that self-control is crucial to success. If you want to have a successful life and a happy life and a happy marriage and a happy being a parent, if you want to have all of those wonderful things that are given to us, you have to have self-control. And so fasting gives us an opportunity to practice self-control, practice overcoming temptation, like a safe mode where you can practice avoiding temptation and see what works for you. Sometimes I have to just stay completely out of the kitchen. That's a good analogy for some sin. Just stay away from them.

What does Moroni say? Touch not the evil gift. It's not, well, just hold the evil gift in moderation. No, I said, don't even touch it. Don't even go there. And that's a good way to look at it. Because I think if things weren't tempting, they wouldn't be tempting, right? So all of us are going through life deliberately, not doing things that maybe our flesh wants because we trust the commandments and we trust God, but that makes us stronger. I like the way you put that. I liked what you said with who's in control here. Is it the spirit or the body? The body's not evil, but it comes with natural appetites and passions that need to be controlled. I know one of your favorite scriptures is bridle your passions. I love that one because it doesn't say

kill your passions. They're God-given, but they have to be controlled. And I know the elder Bruce Hafen has talked about that. It's like we bridle a horse because it's so powerful, but it's really useful if it is controlled and we learn to control our passions. Bridle all your passions, comma, it's not a period. And there's a result that you may be filled with love. I mean, how positive and happy and hopeful is that? You bridle your passions so that you can be filled with love. The body has a desire to eat. And if you can control that, it's just practicing something that the body wants to do that you say, no, I'm in charge here. That verse you quoted reminds me of section 59 of the Doctrine and Covenants where the Lord says that thy fasting may be perfect.

This is verse 13, or in other words, that thy joy may be full. So he's saying that you'll have more joy if you fast. Fasting is not easy for everybody. It's not easy for me, but there are times when I really needed help and it was so much easier to focus on. And if I felt a tinge of hunger, all I had to do is remind myself, no, I'm doing this because so-and-so, my friend, my family member, really needs some help right now. And that made it a lot easier. And so I guess the hard part sometimes is the routine fast Sunday. But I think if we look around, was it Elder Eyring, President Eyring,

that said if you figure that most of the people that you're sitting around are going through something really difficult, you'll be right most of the time? Like Esther said, do this for me. We have some that we're asking the Lord to help through our fasting. And this is similar to what we've been talking about with the Old Testament. Bringing a sacrifice to the temple means I'm giving something up. I'm giving something that I would normally keep for myself. I'm giving it up to show the Lord kind of as a sign, right, between me and you. And you might say, why do I have to give up food to do that?

Well, an ancient Israelite could say the same thing. Why do I have to give up my best animal to show the Lord that I care? Well, that's the way the Lord has said, that's how you can show me. Bring forth this animal and I will know what's inside your heart. Well, the same way as on Fast Sunday, bring forth your favorite, fill in the blank, your favorite food, give it away. In essence, we give it to the poor. I have two more things, John, that I want to mention here. The Savior himself said, blessed are they or happier they who hunger and thirst after righteousness. And sometimes we don't have the opportunity to be hungry because the moment we feel hunger we

satisfy that hunger but for a full day we could we get to feel hungry and we know what what then it needs to feel like to hunger after righteousness to hunger after god sometimes i think the way i would go eat food should be the way I feel about going to read my scriptures or going to the temple, right? I really am longing for that. And I really want it. And there's a pull or something pulling me towards that. So that's one that you can learn to hunger and thirst after righteousness through fasting. When I teach that beatitude, I just love to say, why didn't Jesus just say, blessed are the righteous? And in one way, well, none of us are perfectly, but I love the idea that he's talking about the desire for righteousness. And what you just said, I don't think ever in my life, Hank, I have gone,

you know, I don't think I've had a thing to eat since Thursday. I just forgot to eat. But I think I have had times when I've forgotten to read the scriptures, when I wasn't as diligent in my prayers or something. If I just like forgot to eat for four or five days, if my spirit were in my body, it would be pretty weak. I'd be dragging along. It's so much healthier to give your spirit spiritual food every day. So I love the hunger and thirst angle of that. It helps me to think I got to daily nourish my spirit, not just my body. Very good. I think we can go through things in life sometimes and realize it's not our soul hungering for spirituality, for a connection with God. We go through and we think,

why do I feel so down? Why do I feel so upset? Among other things, it can be that your soul is longing for that connection to God again, and you just don't realize it. You don't realize those are the soul's hunger pains. Last, John, and this one's absolutely crucial. If we try to understand the Savior and His atonement, we realize that He wanted to put Himself in our same position so He could know our infirmities, our weaknesses. That's Alma chapter 7. Well, in fasting, we get the opportunity to be like Him in that we put ourselves in the position of someone who does not have food, someone who is poor, cannot afford food to eat.

And when we put ourselves in their position, we start to realize what it's like to be that way. And our soul wants to help. When I'm sitting there hungry on Fast Sunday, John, I think, oh, what about a child who feels this every day because they don't have enough to eat and I'm ready to go and give. I'm ready to sacrifice because I put myself in that position where I don't think I would have that same desire had I not put myself there. Does that make sense? Yeah, that's beautifully put because I think that most of us and maybe most of our listeners, I don't want to paint everybody with the same brush, have never known a day of hunger

unless they chose it by fasting. We have such a high standard of living. When we read the scriptures, we find we can go so quickly past a phrase, and there was a famine in the land, and not realize what that means. Am I going to live? Can I find anything to eat today? Every day was how do I survive today? And so I like that you put it that way. I'm learning what it's like to really be hungry and not know where my next meal is coming from. And like the Savior in Alma 7, when you feel that, you'll want to run to the aid of someone else. To sucker, right. Yeah, to sucker them and help them. I'm impressed with Esther that she knows that this is a way for a mountain to move, right?

For the impossible to become the possible. We can kind of re-up our commitment to fasting and saying, I want to have that same connection to God. Yeah, well put. I'm glad it's mentioned in there. She asked others to fast for her. It's an interesting way of not just denying our spirit, as we've talked about, but thinking of others in need. And for Esther, we get directed at her. And for us, sometimes when we begin our fast, we can pray and say, Lord, I'm not just going hungry. I have a reason for doing this. Here's who I'm thinking about and asking for help for them. There's an element of unity there too. We all want the same thing. And so we're all going to fast together for the same

purpose. Yeah. Hank, if you said to me, John, you forgot your money. I'm going to buy you a hamburger. That would touch my heart. But if you said, John, I fasted for you, I would be like, whoa, Hank, that's a lot. That's a deeper level of friendship. That's a sacrifice on your part. We hope this helped you as you go forward and fast. And we also want you to come join us on our full podcast. It's called Follow Him.

You can get it wherever you get your podcasts. And come back next week and join us for another Follow Him Favorites.