For unbelievers, the idea that Jesus fasted for 40 days is a bit hard to swallow. But for 1,460 members of Shades Mountain Baptist Church, Vestavia Hills, it is historical fact and an essential lesson on how to deepen spiritual intimacy with God.
For 40 days last fall Shades Mountain church members collectively fasted from a variety of seeming necessities of life in order to “Seek His Heart and Surrender My Own,” the theme of the event.
“Fasting is a choice to forgo something that is good and right so that the spiritual appetite may be good and whetted,” said Pastor Danny Wood. When asked for the inspiration behind the churchwide fast, Wood explained, “It’s something that God laid on my heart.”
Though planned before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, those events added special meaning to the congregation’s sacrifice, Wood noted. “I had already shared the idea with the staff and deacons in August but it seemed even more appropriate after Sept. 11.”
The church collected 1,460 commitment cards signed by adults and children alike, pledging to abstain from everything from lunch to surfing the Internet.
“Some people might give up Cokes while a lot of the kids fasted from Nintendo,” Wood explained.
Shades Mountain member Carolyn Clark, who partook of the fast, said the experience was humbling. “I felt fragile and weak. I came to realize how dependent we are upon God,” she added.
Wood stepped up to his own challenge in a serious way. Though few people knew until the final sermon of the nearly six-week series, Wood went 40 days without solid food of any kind, drinking broth and juiced fruits and vegetables as his only physical sustenance. Within a few days, he said the hunger went away.
Going without food
“I’d been off caffeine for 40 days already so I really didn’t have any side effects. After about three days, I just wasn’t hungry any more. It was the social aspect of eating I missed more than my body missing food,” Wood said.
He noted that he lost nearly 40 pounds during the fast, though he’s careful to point out that unlike the “hypocrites” Jesus mentions in Matt. 6:16–18, Wood’s motives were pure. [When I told the congregation] “I didn’t want to come across like, ‘Hey, look at me!’ but just to share that this is what I had done, this is what God showed me. Anybody can give up food for 40 days but we really focused on replacing the time we would have spent eating with time spent with the Lord.”
Clark expressed a renewed admiration for her pastor. “When we found out he had fasted for the entire 40 days it really showed how much he cared for God and for our church.”
The church responded well and they prayed that God would respond by doing something only explainable by God’s strength. Meanwhile, Wood secretly expressed doubts that the church would reach its annual budget of $1 million.
With a slowing economy both in Birmingham and nationwide resulting from the September attacks, best estimates were at $850,000. But by the end of the year, not only had the operating budget been surpassed by a quarter of a million dollars, but also the Shades Mountain Baptist missions goal, by a full 10 percent.
Shades Mountain’s 40 days of prayer and fasting was an event not soon forgotten by the members or their pastor. “It really challenged our church,” Wood said. “We just went into it with pure motives and we knew that to seek His heart, we had to surrender something. It’s been life changing.”
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