Spiritual affects of fasting by Russ

I promised (when different ones asked) to explain the spiritual side of fasting and my experience on this 40 day MC fast. Let me say first off that I am a Christian, pastor and missionary so my comments in regard to fasting will have a Christian perspective.
We feel (Russ&Sonia)that it was the Lord that brought us to the MC fast to accomplish His will. Almost from the beginning the scripture came to my wife about fasting out of Isaiah 58:6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen... For first few days when we wanted to quit that scripture kept us going.
God's purpose in fasting is to bring CHANGE in our lives and the rest of verse 6 says some of it: loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke. Vs 7 talks about making ourselves available to others in need while we are fasting. This happened to us a number of times on this fast. The first time was when there was an organization that helped starving children and I felt to respond and my son and I sent $250.00. I didn't think much of it until I was reading Isaiah 58:7 and realized that I was a channel on this MC fast to "deal my bread to the hungry".
The second time this happened was my wife felt we were to take $100.00 to a young mother with 3 kids. When she arrived the woman cried as she had NO food and NO money, (the fridge and cupboards bare) and wondering what she would feed them for supper!
A couple of tremendous things that happened were in the area of relatioships. I have eight woderful children and a good family but you know there are always problems of some sort. My second son left home (17) and went to live with one of his 5 sisters.
He had a bad, bad attitude (but wasn't getting into trouble of any kind). After 30 odd days he is home and his attitude toward both me and my wife has changed!!!
Another example is with the youngest daugther of 5 (they are all married)that there was something that was a problem in our relatioship frome before marriage. We new it was there we both just go there because of the pain. Well one day somehow while on this fast we were together and it got completely dealt with and now our relationship is that much better. I believe there are more things to happen and I will give the update later.
This has been lengthy and I hope this has been helpful. Blessings Russ

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