Fasting & Freedom: How Giving Up Food Drew Me Closer to God
Heather Stevenson shares how fasting became a powerful spiritual practice, drawing her closer to God and freeing her from comfort and self-reliance.
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Heather Stevenson opens up about her journey with fasting—from fear and hesitation to discovering one of the most refining and rewarding spiritual disciplines in her walk with Jesus. As an athlete and self-proclaimed foodie, fasting didn’t come easy, but God used it to expose comfort, self-reliance, and emotional coping—and replaced them with deeper intimacy, freedom, and clarity. Whether you're curious, skeptical, or just starting, Heather encourages you to step into the discomfort and experience how fasting can transform your life and your faith.
Heather Stevenson:
Oh man. Fasting has been an interesting journey for me. It started out being one of those spiritual disciplines I was kind of fearful of. Like honestly, I tend to be more on the gluttonous side of things, like more of a foodie, like I really do enjoy food a lot. And it felt scary to also be an athlete. We're trained in fueling your body for success and taking in the right thing so that you're gonna have the right energy output and stuff.
So I'd seen my parents fast and heard about it in church and from other people, but I was more nervous to do it. I feel like sometimes the fear of fasting can be worse than actually doing it yourself. But that's one thing I learned – fasting actually is good for us.
There's certain ways that the Lord designed our body to operate in rhythms that even once a week, not having food helps our body reset. And there's so many spiritual lessons you learn as you give up food. Just the way that Jesus tells us that he's the bread of life, he's our living water – giving us an opportunity to understand in a deeper way how we can depend on him.
So I was invited into this group that started to fast together like once a month. It was very rewarding. I think just doing it with other people and the community aspect of things… I started to see also how it was a discipline that really went to war with my flesh. I started to see these benefits in my life and see the lessons that, on those days, the Lord would be speaking to me about. Like on the days when I'm fasting, I do feel like I'm hearing from the Lord more clearly. I feel like I'm convicted of specific sin. I'm drawn to repentance. I'm recognizing my weakness, depending more on the Lord.
So I feel like it's actually now a vital aspect of my walk with Jesus. I was like, wow. It's true what Jesus says, you know? There are some of these things that only come out by prayer and fasting because when I'm not like that, I can see myself now going back to being more selfish, going back to even depending on food to cheer me up. I think a lot of people struggle with emotional eating. That's what we use to cope with things sometimes.
So all these things that maybe I wasn't aware of in my flesh that God has brought up that I can see now, when I'm not doing that, I will go back to having bad habits of thinking about food. So things that I see as idolatry, like in North America, comfort, like even food being one. I just feel like what fasting addresses helps me to not be as tied down by those things so that I can also minister to others from a place of greater freedom from them. But it's a constant thing. It's not like I'm there and I've arrived. I feel like I'm still learning so much, but I see how it's doing that in me and how needed it is, you know?
And so if you are wondering about fasting and what it's like, I would just encourage you not to let even fear of what it will be like hold you back. 'Cause there's other ways you can fast apart from food. So I would just encourage you to consider incorporating this in some way into your life and into your walk with the Lord and your rhythms with him, because there's so much richness and so much goodness that can come out of it that honestly, I don't want you to miss out because I think he wants to meet us, right? Like he wants to speak, he wants to help us in the areas of struggle. And I think fasting is a way where we can demonstrate our desire to let go of the things of this world and pursue him with all that we are.
I recognize in myself how much easier it is to live comfortably and safely, especially in North America, right? We have a lot of access to various comforts that we can stay safe, but God is not safe. He is not comfortable. He wants us getting outside of that.
And that's where it's exciting, that's where it's an adventure. So yeah, fasting has been one of the most refining spiritual disciplines for me, but also one of the most rewarding.
