Wendy Speake | Why Fast?, 155 -

Wendy Speake | Why Fast? | ep. 155

Wendy Speake | Christian Fasting

Whether on the stage or on the page, Wendy ministers to women’s hearts through storytelling and Biblical life application.

With a background in Hollywood as a trained actress, she utilizes the power of drama, poetry, comedy, and spoken word in the study of God’s Word.

Wendy most recently authored The 40 Day Sugar Fast and The 40 Day Social Media Fast. They are both daily devotionals, purposed to accompany men and women through their own 40 day fasts.

A few years back, Wendy and Amber Lia co-authored the popular parenting book Triggers: Exchanging Parents’ Angry Reactions for Gentle Biblical Responses. Together they also released a Triggers Study Guide and video series, followed by their second book, Parenting Scripts: When What You’re Saying Isn’t Working, Say Something New.

Wendy and her husband Matt live in Texas, with their three ruddy boys.

Wendy Speake joins Amber to talk about fasting and how it can drive us feast upon the Lord.

Questions Wendy and Amber discuss about fasting:

(7:16) Fasting can be intimidating and like many spiritual disciplines I think Christians are unsure how to go about fasting with a focus on the Lord vs. focusing on self. Will you take us back and share when you began fasting regularly and what it looks like to rely on the Lord vs self?
(12:07) What are some of the temptations people have shared when you’re in the middle of the fast?
(19:49) What are some ways you encourage people to really push through the hard parts of fasting?
(29:42) You have written the 40 day Sugar fast and the 40 day social media fast. What led you to write those books?
(36:07) As we close, how has fasting changed your life with God?

Why Fast Quotes to Remember:

“[To] really be undistracted so that we might be devoted to feasting on his presence, feasting on his word, feasting on this dialogue through prayer with him and and that’s really what fasting is.” “It can be a private thing. In Matthew, we’re told fasting is done in private. But in the Old Testament we’re shown fasting is done as a corporate opportunity to trust God for deliverance together.” “The purpose of laying something down for a season so that you might pick up intimacy with Christ is between you and Christ. So I would say, talk to him about it, but a very good question to start with is, ‘What am I turning to, in lieu of turning to you?’.” “What if we said, ‘No, God, I don’t want to give into temptation, because I want the blessing of holding on to you’.” “We fast so that we can feast on him.” “There are so many things that can be on the throne of our lives that don’t belong there.” “I have developed a deeper hunger for intimacy with Christ…His Word has come alive, because I’m not distracted running to the next thing that I think is going to fill me up.”