Something happens when the children of God fast, but I've come to believe that it's wrong to fast to make something happen. Make sense?

I used to fast all the time--whenever I really wanted God to do something. In the graciousness God often shows to young believers, he usually addressed whatever was on my heart, often in the way I wanted. God honored an immature view of fasting because he’s gracious.

A few years into this kind of fasting-to-make-God-act, God started to make me uneasy with it. When we fast, we're to humble ourselves before God: "God, I'm hungry. I'm weak with hungry. But I want to come before you. Is there anything you want to say to me? Is there anything in me that offends you? Lord, you know I've been thinking about _____. Is there something you want me to do here? Is there something you want to say to me about this?"

The way I pray when I'm fasting today isn't too different from how I used to pray, but my heart is significantly different. I remember praying for release from my feelings of bitterness toward an ex-girlfriend. I wanted to be free of those wrong emotions and I told God that while I was fasting, in no uncertain terms. I demanded that God act to free me from the thoughts and emotions I’d identified that weren’t honoring to him.

Even early on, in the midst of a mostly wrong understanding of fasting, I realized that something happens when we fast. My mistake was in dictating to God what that would be. I approach fasting now with much more fear and trembling. "Do I really want to do this?” I ask myself now, usually for days or weeks before I do it. “Something is going to get unleashed, but I have no idea what."

One final word. While you're coming before God, ask him to protect you from the evil one once your time of fasting is over with. Satan recognizes the power of fasting and he seeks to destroy the effects of it, to drive a wedge between us and God. So take a moment or two to pray against this. And fast.