We at Crossway Moreland are encouraged to devote part of or all of the first week of every month fasting. This means going without food, going without certain types of food, or abstaining from certain leisure activities. The idea is to use the time that you spend doing these things praying instead. The idea is to help you to grow spiritually, to seek to discern God's will for your life in a certain area, or to intercede for the needs of others. Some Christians do what is called a Daniel fast. Like the Old Testament prophet Daniel, they abstain from eating luxury foods for the duration of the fast.This might get me into trouble, but with some creative exegesis, I've come up with the concept of the Ezekiel fast. Ezekiel was mute except when God had a message for him to give to the people of Israel (Ezekiel 3:25-27). Apparently there is some conjecture over whether God caused Ezekiel to lose the ability to speak, or whether it was a self-imposed ritual dumbness. Either way, it added to the impact of his prophetic utterances, and it lasted until news reached him of the fall of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 24:27).
The idea of the Ezekiel fast will be to go without talking to anyone for an extended period of time. This reminds me of a joke about a man who joins an order of monks who practice a ritual silence that restricts them to speaking two words per year. As you can imagine, this would be quite a stretch for me, especially since I'm so extroverted and talkative, and I'm not sure that I'd be up to the task. I'm tempted to take a softer option and abstain from television or DVD viewing instead.
