Most of us are familiar with the idea of preparation.
We prepare for weddings and funerals.
For exams and surgeries.
For moves, trips, seasons of change.
Preparation signals that something matters enough to make room for it.
Scripture assumes this logic. Again and again, God prepares people before God moves among them. Rarely does transformation arrive without some kind of waiting, stripping back, or reorientation. The Bible is honest about this: preparation is often uncomfortable, usually clarifying, and almost always formative.
That’s why the practice of fasting — and the season we call Lent — deserves another look, even (and especially) in a Baptist church.
Fasting Is Not an Oddity in Scripture
Fasting isn’t a spiritual curiosity that shows up once or twice in the Bible. It is a regular, recurring practice woven throughout Scripture.
People fast in moments of repentance.
In seasons of grief.
During times of discernment.
As preparation for God’s action.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, fasting often accompanies confession of sin, national crisis, and moments when God’s people are seeking guidance or returning to covenant faithfulness. Importantly, it is often communal, not just individual. Fasting shows up as embodied prayer — a way for the body to participate in spiritual attention.
And Scripture is equally clear about what fasting is not.
Fasting is never presented as a way to manipulate God.
It is not leverage.
It is not spiritual bargaining.
Fasting is about alignment, not control. It is about making space so that God’s voice is not drowned out by everything else competing for our attention.
Preparation Is a Biblical Pattern
Before major movements of God, there is often preparation.
Israel wanders in the wilderness before entering the promised land.
Prophets are shaped in obscurity before speaking publicly.
Deliverance frequently follows long seasons of waiting.
Preparation involves learning dependence.
It strips away false security.
It exposes idols we didn’t realize we were clinging to.
It reorders desire.
This is why seasons of preparation are often uncomfortable by design. They clarify what matters. They show us what we rely on when things are stripped away. They teach us to trust again.
Jesus and the Practice of Preparation
Jesus himself fasts before beginning his public ministry. His fasting comes before teaching, healing, confrontation with power, and the announcement of the Kingdom of God.
Jesus assumes fasting will continue among his followers. He critiques fasting done for performance or spiritual superiority, but he affirms fasting done with sincerity and attentiveness to God.
The issue for Jesus is never whether fasting exists — it’s how and why.
Lent: Biblical Logic, Even If Not a Biblical Command
Lent is not explicitly commanded in Scripture. But its logic is deeply biblical.
Preparation before transformation.
Discipline before renewal.
Death before resurrection.
Lent mirrors the movement we see throughout Scripture: wilderness before promise, cross before empty tomb, letting go before new life. Lent is not about earning Easter. It is about being shaped to receive it.
A Word for the worried Baptist
Lent is not required for salvation.
It is not a Catholic loophole for earning grace.
It is not a test of spiritual seriousness.
Lent is a voluntary season of intentional formation.
Historically, Baptists emphasize personal responsibility, voluntary discipline, Scripture-shaped practice, and local church freedom. So the question isn’t, “Are we allowed to do Lent?”
The better question is, “Would a season of intentional preparation help us follow Jesus more seriously?”
Lent is a tool, not a rule. And Baptists are free to use tools that help us love Jesus more deeply.
What Might We Fast From?
Fasting is not about punishment. It is about attention. It removes something that competes for our focus so that we can notice what fills the space.
The invitation is to choose something honest, sustainable, and revealing.
Some may consider comfort fasts: sugar, alcohol, eating out, excess snacking, or constant caffeine. A helpful question is: What do I reach for automatically when I’m tired, stressed, or bored?
Others may consider digital fasts: social media, constant news consumption, streaming, gaming, or phone use after a certain hour. We might ask: What is shaping my imagination more than Scripture is?
Noise fasts can be just as revealing: turning off the radio in the car, limiting background television, or resisting the urge to fill every quiet moment with a podcast. When was the last time we were alone with our thoughts and God?
Financial fasts might include impulse purchases, online browsing, non-essential spending, or eating out. These can open the door to generosity: Could what is saved during Lent be redirected toward someone else?
Some may feel drawn toward attitude or habit fasts: complaining, gossip, cynicism, sarcasm used as armor, or cycles of political outrage. The question becomes: What relational pattern in me needs interruption?
The goal is never to prove discipline. The goal is to expose dependence.
The Inverted Fast: Adding What Forms Us
For some, subtraction is not the most faithful path. Health concerns, life circumstances, or past experiences may make traditional fasting unwise or unhelpful.
An inverted fast flips the question. Instead of removing something, you intentionally add a discipline.
This might look like establishing a daily prayer rhythm — morning and evening prayer, a set time each day, praying a Psalm or the Lord’s Prayer slowly. If we prayed intentionally for forty days, what might shift?
Others may commit to Scripture immersion — reading one Gospel during Lent, slowly, repeatedly, without rushing. Not reading for information, but for transformation.
Some may practice silence — five or ten minutes a day, no agenda, just attention to God. Silence has a way of revealing what distracts us.
Generosity disciplines fit naturally with Lent: giving something away weekly, supporting a mission intentionally, or increasing giving for the season. Fasting from spending and feasting into generosity belong together.
Others may commit to service: a weekly act of intentional care, visiting someone lonely, writing letters of encouragement, volunteering consistently. Resurrection is not only needed inside us — it is needed around us.
An Invitation, Not an Obligation
Lent is an invitation to prepare the soil of our lives so that resurrection has somewhere to land. Not through guilt. Not through performance. But through honest attention to God.
If you choose to observe Lent this year, do so freely. If you don’t, let the questions still linger. What might need clearing? What might need cultivating? What might God be preparing in you, even now?
The goal is not a perfect Lent. The goal is a receptive heart.
And Easter is coming.