I apologize for the lengthy time I have been apart. I have never once stopped thinking of the fast, but because of my life experiences, I have been able to lend a much more textured and colorful picture to share with you. Please be patient. I love a good rabbit trail
I have been combing the scriptures looking for things that have to do with fasting and with food, eating, nourishment, being satisfied, meat and milk, teeth (which of course would chew up the food), and preparation for the food. I have found words such as famine and feasting, all different kinds of food which indicate certain kinds of kosher edibles as well as dietary restrictions galore. Grapes and wine, foods that are sweet and delicious, fruits in their season, as well as having the tools to masticate meat, or simply drink that which is a simple product, like milk.
Leviticus is lengthy and tedious in this right. In fact, any food code, adhered to because you are studying the practice of eating certain foods, or not eating certain foods is Mosaic at best. It is tiresome and boring. It is rules, rules, rules. There is something so much greater about food than what NOT to eat. The key is what IS given us to eat.
Probably the easiest food code for what is good for the body to consume is succinctly laid out in D&C 89. But not the entire list of foods, just those to eat with thanksgiving and prudence. They are fruits and vegetables in their season. This is not a diatribe on what veggies to eat in your green smoothie. Far from it. Actually, what I learned that caught my eye was more about how food is compared to a seed, and how everything that grows (that can create life) comes from a seed. Immediately reminded me of the first commandment given to Adam and Eve. Multiply and fill the earth. Certainly that is what a seed does when it is planted.
All the food that was given to Daniel to eat, which was called pulse, is regenerative. All of it possessed seeds that could be planted in the soil and food could be grown from it. The correspondence of GMO foods which are proven to cause sterility on the third generation (all have been altered by the hand of man) show that when man tampers with that which grows, it has been proven to become sterile, unyielding, and also unhealthy. How much do we really need someone to interpret our understanding of a seedling putting up its first leaves? Could it be that there is so much tampering with the original seed, or in this case, the word, that we aren't getting the intended nutrition any longer? Have we been eating so much 'food' from the hands of wicked and conspiring men that we no longer feel the stimulation of the delicious taste of the pure word of God?
What if we really decided to take advantage of a fasting situation and turn it into a feasting situation, with a more clear understanding of how pure doctrine -- scripture and the word of the Lord -- would turn into a feast of such magnitude that it would be impossible to measure the greatness. We wouldn't have arms to hold all the blessings; certainly not plates to hold all the food.
Alma said that he wanted to compare the 'word' to a seed. That word, which was untampered with, pure and unadulterated, is something that is alive, and has the capacity to grow into a living faith in Jesus Christ. We are taught that by their fruits, ye shall know them. If the truth is in us, it is alive and we are alive because of it. We will manifest life, multiplying and filling the world with the light of Christ in our countenances.
We learn that fasting and prayer, or in other words "rejoicing and prayer" is evidently not a starvation situation, but that of a feast. Think of a feast. You would have at least several people in attendance and they would be having a great time.
If I am to feast upon the words of Christ, that they will tell me all things that I should do, that they will literally lead me to his presence, I could think of nothing I would want on my plate more than a feast of words that testify of His perfect and enduring love for me and the effect of these words upon my heart. Like Joseph Smith stated, they would be sweet to me. Oh, how I love my sugar.
I decided from my little study on the famine of the word that went out to the world, recognizing that the famine was NOT having the word, the truth of the Lord. The fast could bring that to us if we decided that everyday we would make a very concerted effort to find that food, even the word of God, and make sure we have supped well at that table. Through continued effort to set that table and and let the Lord provide for our unquenchable desire to drink of living water and partake of the feast only the Savior can serve up, we can understand the need and desire to fast from the things of this world. We make room for all that is real, that is lovely, that is of good report.
Read the 23rd Psalm and find out what a feast the Lord will prepare for us if we will but ask Him to be our chef, our host, our friend. He will provide such a blessing for us. Yes, fasting is indescribably delicious--and equally powerful.
