OSD Launches Fasting Initiative for Believers to Deepen Their Spiritual Walk

The Office of Spiritual Development introduced a 40-day fasting initiative this semester encouraging students to lay down habits like gluttonous eating and excessive social media for a time to focus on deepening their relationships with God. 

The concept was established as a part of a spiritual disciplines initiative focusing on fasting, prayer, worship and meditation, introduced by Campus Pastor David Nasser and facilitated by the LU Shepard’s office. 

“The idea is to experience and encounter God in a way that maybe [students] never had before,” LU Shepard Doug Damon said. “Fasting…especially when you make it a practice, can really be transformative in your walk with Christ.”

The idea runs parallel with the current Campus Community series “Deeper,” which encourages students to take their relationships with God beyond a surface level and establish important spiritual disciplines by removing distractions to better hear the voice of God.

“I think spiritual disciplines are not in any way shape or form a way for us to manipulate the Lord, but are a way to align ourselves with him, and align our hearts with his heart,” Damon said.

Damon emphasized the importance of proactivity in spending time with the Lord during fasting.

“Here’s the key to the fast – it’s not just simply eliminating [food or social media] from your schedule,” Damon said. “It’s taking the time that I would spend in those practices and focusing that time on the Lord.” 

Helms School of Government Adjunct Professor Aaron Van Allen is taking the initiative to heart, encouraging his classes to fast from social media and online entertainment for a period of either 40 days or 10 weeks.

Van Allen said that the idea to encourage his students to participate in this fast came after a time of personal realization and direction from the Holy Spirit.  

“Two or three months ago I really felt like the Spirit was leading me in a direction regarding relationships,” Van Allen said, “When the Spirit started to reveal it to me it was from a 40,000-foot view.”

Van Allen felt the call to explore the idea of healthy, biblically-centered relationships, studying what that looks like in many avenues – in his relationships with his students, his family, his parents, his friends and his wife.

“Say that you get to this crossroads point where you can either choose to go down the path of righteousness or to an area of sin, what leads you to … take the wrong path of sin,” Van Allen said. “What the Spirit revealed to me is that it is not at that fork that [the decision] happens – it’s 10, 12, 20 forks in the road before that of [making small decisions] that lead to that point.” 

Van Allen looked further into what some of those small bad decisions were that led to the larger “forks in the road” and found that constant social media use was one of them.

“I realized that I was willingly giving away my time [on social media] and programming my own brain in a way that was solely focused on me,” Van Allen said. 

Additionally, Van Allen emphasized the cultural and social disconnect that social media has perpetrated over the past 10 years.

“Social media plays a huge role in this disconnect politically and culturally that we see today,” he said. “This relationship [curated by social media] where you are only here to benefit me — it’s a relationship of convenience, which is not how God designed for us to live.”

Van Allen’s Government 327 class chose to fast from social media and online entertainment forms for 40 days, which started two weeks ago. His Government 200 class took the challenge a step further and decided to fast for 10 weeks, taking them into the holiday season social media-free. 

“If there are others who know of an area in their life that they need to give up or let go of, please join us,” Van Allen said. 

Kayleigh Hammer is a Copy Editor. View her LinkedIn profile here.