Episode 6: The Nazirite Vow

Erin Davis: Okay Bethany, I have a Bible quiz for you. Are you ready?

Bethany Beale: No! I’m very nervous. Bible teacher quizzing me? My brain can’t think anymore!

Erin: I think you might be okay.

Okay, I’m going to tell you four men that are in Scripture, and you’re going to connect the dots and tell me what they have in common. First is Samson, second is Samuel, third is John the Baptist, fourth is the apostle Paul. What do you think? What’s your guess?

Bethany: They all had very big personalities and made a big impact?

Erin: That’s true; they did have big personalities. Okay, I’ll give you a clue. Your two-year-old, Davy, might have what they have in common in his backpack, if he has a backpack, because my son Ezra, who’s about the same age as your son, loves this little snack. He has it in his backpack. Does that help you?

Bethany: Are you telling me they had goldfish back then?

Erin: That’s it; they all had goldfish . . . or cheese sticks.

Bethany: Cheese sticks . . . apples . . . you’re going to have to help me out.

Erin: No! You’re on the right track. None of these men ate raisins. That’s the connection.

Bethany: What?

Erin: I know. I’m going to explain it in this episode.

Bethany: Studying the Bible leads to all kinds of fascinating topics, like, why would some people be called to avoid . . . raisins? Erin will explain more as she teaches us about the Nazirite vow in Scripture.

Erin: We’re continuing in our series I’m calling “Fasting and Feasting,” and we’re looking at what the Bible says about food. But really, a better description for this series is that we’re looking at how the Bible uses food to teach us about God. There are all kinds of lessons in Scripture where the writers of Scripture, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, used food (something we have a lot of experience with) to teach us something about God, somebody that we are trying to get to know through His Word. These lessons then show us how God intends us to live.

We’ve been alternating between fasting and feasting, fasting and feasting, and today is a fasting day. We’re going to look at an Old Testament passage that outlines something called the Nazirite vow.

If you listen to The Deep Well podcast, then you know that I love to take you to nooks and crannies in your Bible that maybe you’ve never been to before, or maybe you’ve read them if you read the Bible every year, but you’ve never really understood them or never known how they apply to your everyday life.

I think Numbers 6 might just be one of those nooks and crannies. It’s a long chunk of Scripture to listen to, so I’m going to focus on some select verses, but my encouragement to you, maybe right now, hit pause and read the entire passage, which is Numbers 6:1–21, or after this episode find some time to read this whole idea, this whole passage for yourself. Again, that’s Numbers 6:1–21.

I’m going to start with Numbers 6:1–4.

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When either a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of the Nazirite, to separate himself to the Lord, he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar made from wine or strong drink and shall not drink any juice of grapes or eat grapes, fresh or dried. [That’s the raisin part I mentioned earlier.] All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grape vine, not even the seeds or the skins."

Okay, let’s make some observations from the text, which is always the first step when we’re trying to understand a passage, especially a passage that maybe doesn’t make sense to us at first pass.

What we see, if we’re just looking for observations within these four verses, what we see is that God spoke directly to Moses. God gave Moses instructions that Moses was supposed to pass along to the Israelites. Now, if you know your Old Testament, you know this is really common. God did this a lot in some of the Old Testament books like Exodus and Numbers. God was giving His people the law. These were the rules that they were to live by and the standards they were to meet as they pursued holiness in their worship of a holy God.

This Nazirite vow is different from some of the things that we read in those books, because this vow was always voluntary. The Nazirite vow is not a command, it’s not listed among any of the “thou shalt nots.” It’s also unique (this is fascinating; you see this right in the text) in that men and women could take this vow, unlike some of the things that the priests and other groups that we see in the Old Testament, that they have to follow.

God gave the purpose of this Nazirite vow right there in verse 2. If we continue to have our binoculars on and we’re just making observations about the text, we see the purpose is to separate himself to the Lord. That’s the reason a person might voluntarily decide to take the Nazirite vow, because he wants to live separate, dedicated to the Lord.

Like so much of what we’ve talked about in this series, the Nazirite vow was just an outward expression of a heart attitude. I know I keep saying that, but I want us to grasp that that’s what fasting—true, biblical fasting—really is. It’s not a rule; it’s not a mandate. It’s not something that makes us righteous or makes us special in God’s eyes. It’s just an outward expression of a heart attitude, a heart change that either God has already done in our hearts or that we’re wanting God to do in our hearts. The heart attitude here, the heart behind the Nazirite vow is: I want to live set apart for the Lord.

Now, the first way to live out this vow had to do with one of my favorite subjects, food and drink. Let me read verses 3–4 again. “He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar made from wine or strong drink, and shall not drink any juice of grapes or eat grapes, fresh or dried. All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, not even the seeds or the skins.”

This is right out of the gate. This goes on for a whole bunch of verses, and there are all kinds of parts of this vow that don’t have to do with food. But at the very beginning, as God is speaking to Moses, through Moses to the people, about this vow that they can voluntarily take, he starts with food. No drinking of wine or strong drink, no grape juice, no grapes, no wine vinegar, no raisins. Nothing from the grapevine, not even the seeds or the skins (which is okay with me, because I’m not crazy about grape skins or seeds).

This is a vow of self-denial. The person who makes the vow decides he’s not going to drink wine. Well, what’s the purpose of wine? Wine intoxicates, right? To take this vow means to turn away from that nice glass of wine at the end of a long day, to give up that creature comfort, and to seek, instead, comfort from God.

Grapes and raisins would have been a source of pleasure, a sweet treat before the days of refined sugar. It’s a commitment that, “I’m not going to look for those sweet treats on the vine; I’m going to seek, instead, pleasure from God alone.” God never forbids these things outright for all of His people all the time.

This is not a mandate that no Israelite can ever drink wine, no Israelite can ever eat grapes. There are some of those in the food laws that are in the Old Testament, and this is not. Fasting is not about God forbidding food. It’s a commitment to seek the Lord with fresh intensity. It’s a way to express that you want Him more than you want food or drink or, in this case, the comfort or the pleasures of food.

There’s a lot more to this vow. Verse 6 talks about hair cutting. Verses 6 through 8 talk about not touching a dead body, even if somebody in your family that’s close to you dies. Verses 9 through 17 talk about these certain offerings that the person who takes the Nazirite vow needs to bring. Verse 18 says that when you end the period of the vow you shave your head. Verses 19 through 21 talk about how to reenter normal life once your vow is complete. So, this was not a permanent commitment, just like fasting is not a permanent commitment. It was for a designated amount of time.

But if you vowed to the Lord that you were going to do this to the Lord, for the Lord, you needed to keep that vow. I think that’s true of us with fasting, too. There’s a seriousness to this. You could say as you’re listening to this series, “I think I’m going to start fasting tomorrow. Yes, I am.” And then breakfast-time comes along and you get hungry and you say, “Ah, forget about it. I’m not going to do that.” No, it takes planning; it takes intentionality. If you’re going to make a commitment (which is voluntary, just like the Nazirite vow was), you need to keep your commitment.

There’s a phrase that gets repeated over and over and over and over in this passage, and we should pay attention to those redundancies when we see them in our Bibles. It goes like this: “All the days that he separated himself to the Lord he shall be holy.” Living separated to the Lord, separated for the Lord, set apart, and pursuing holiness; that is really the heart of the Nazirite vow. It really doesn’t have anything to do with haircuts and grapes. 

It’s the heart of fasting, too. That’s the call on all of our lives if we are followers of Jesus.

Listen to 2 Timothy 2:20–21 and I think you’ll see that what we read in Numbers 6 and what we read here in 2 Timothy 2, there’s correlation. They connect. God’s the same, so His Word’s consistent. Again, it’s 2 Timothy 2:20–21.

Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart [there it is!] as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.

Let me put those two passages together for you to make it really crystal clear. In the Nazirite vow, this phrase keeps getting said. “All the days that he separates himself to the Lord he shall be holy.”

Here in the New Testament, for those of us who aren’t even under a Nazirite vow but are followers of Jesus, this calls us to live set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, who is, of course, God.

I want to be that honorable vessel. I don’t want to be the dishonorable vessel. I want to be the honorable vessel, cleansed of all that is dishonorable and useful to my master. I want to be ready for God to use me however He sees fit.

As I’m recording this season of the podcast, I’ve completed two forty-day fasts. If that sounds like a humble brag, I want you to go back and listen to episode three, because my intent in even telling you that is to put the topic of fasting back into our conversations, not at all to say, “Hey! Look at me!” There’s no trophy for completing a fast.

The second was the forty days before my fortieth birthday. This idea we see in Numbers 6 and again in 2 Timothy is the whole reason I made that commitment. If I live to an average age, forty is my halfway point. So, as I started to head towards that big number, that big birthday, I knew I wanted to renew my commitment to Jesus—not because my salvation was in question, it wasn’t. I wanted to recommit to say to the Lord, “I want You to use me in this second half. I’m ready for you. Do more with my life in years forty to eighty (or however many years He gives me) than You gave me in the first forty years.” I was telling Him, “God, I really do want to live this second half of my life set apart for You.

Let’s circle back to the Nazirite vow. Samson took the vow. We read that in Judges 13:7. That’s why Delilah shaving his head was such a big, hairy deal. (See what I did there?) Samuel took the vow; we read that in 1 Samuel 1:11. John the Baptist took the vow; we read that in Luke 1:15. So did Paul; that’s in Acts 18:18.

What’s most fascinating to me when I think about Paul taking the Nazirite vow is that he did that after he became a follower of Jesus. Not in his before life, when he was primarily concerned with following the law to the letter of the law, just to be seen as a good Jew. No, it was after, when he was all about God’s grace. He still took this vow, made this commitment to follow this outline we find in Numbers 6.

I want to be crystal clear here. This vow did not forbid wine, it did not forbid vinegar, it did not forbid grape juice, it did not forbid fresh grapes, it did not forbid raisins for all of God’s people all of time—which is good, because I’ve had a raisin or two in my day, and I’m glad for that. 

I live in a little town, and we’re famous for our wineries. But the locals know that the really good stuff is not the wine, it’s our Concord grapes. Every year we have a big grape festival, and we stomp the grapes just like you’ve seen on I Love Lucy. We eat Concord grapes until our teeth turn blue. I’m so glad to be able to look at this passage in Numbers and know that’s not forbidden for me, because I love that. That’s not a violation of God’s Word, because I have not undertaken the Nazirite vow (although as I study it, I think someday I might).

Once again, we see that when it comes to food, when it comes to everything, God is less concerned with our list of dos and don’ts. When we learn about fasting, we’re like, “What are the rules? How do I do it? Give me an outline!” Scripture never does that, because God is most concerned with our devotion to Him. Vow or no vow, to follow Jesus is to live set apart. Our lives are to repeat that line from Numbers 6: “All the days that he separates himself to the Lord he shall be holy.” For you, all the days that you separate yourself to the Lord, you shall be holy. Why? Because God is holy!

I see Romans 12:1–2 as a New Testament echo of the Old Testament Nazirite vow. Listen.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

I’ve often heard these verses applied to sexual purity. Scripture does call us to live set apart in that area of our lives. But sexual purity is actually not the context that these verses are set in. Romans is all about the fact that because of Christ’s sacrifice we are released from following the letter of the law. It’s about the fact that Gentiles (that’s us) are grafted in—that’s grapevine language there—to the family of God. Because God has given us salvation, we are to live set apart, and that includes what we do with our bodies, which includes what we eat and when we eat.

The Nazirite vow was given by God in the same spirit as Scripture’s call to embrace fasting as voluntary. God’s never going to make us. The vow was an opportunity, a gift, really, to take the initiative to live a life marked, set apart for God’s glory. Fasting is that exact same thing. It’s not a mandate, it’s a gift. It’s an opportunity to take the initiative to live a life marked, set apart for God’s glory.

Note-takers, click your pen. I’m about to give you a list of reasons that Scripture gives us to fast. It’s probably not comprehensive. I’m sure that I’ve missed some, but it’s a strong start. If you can’t take notes, if you’re listening to me in the car, that’s okay. I’ll make sure this list gets into the episode notes. But here we go. Here’s the list of reasons Scripture encourages us to fast.

• First, Scripture invites us to fast before making an important decision. We see that in Acts 13:2 and Acts 14:23.
• We can fast to overcome addiction. We see that in Isaiah 58:3–7.
• We can fast for God’s intervention. That’s a lot of what we’ve been talking about in this series; your “this kinds” that you need God to work out in your life. We see that in 2 Samuel 12:15–17.
• The Bible invites us to fast as a show of humility. We see that in Psalm 35:13 and lots of other places, too.
• We can fast in response to our grief, our mourning, which is fascinating to me, because if you’ve ever been in a season of true grief, sometimes food is the last thing you want to touch. The Bible’s saying, “Yes, that’s a right response to mourning.” We find that in Psalm 35:14 and in Esther 4:3, when Esther called all of the Jews to a period of fasting and prayer because their people group was going to be annihilated. That’s such a grieving thought. There’s a whole combination of reasons to fast there. They needed God to intervene; they were showing their humility; they wanted God to take care of them; they couldn’t take care of themselves; and they were deeply grieved that all of their heads were on the chopping block.
• The Bible tells us to fast to request God’s protection. Again, we see that in the book of Esther, in chapter 4:15–16 and again in Ezra 8:21–23.
• The Bible tells us to fast when we’re setting apart leaders for Christian service. That’s why those two forty-day fasts happened in my life. They were both times where a new ministry was about to begin, and I needed God to set me apart to lead the charge. We find that in Acts 13:2–3, as the disciples are sending out leaders to start churches all around the world.
• The Bible tells us that we should fast when we are repentant. We find that in Joel 2:12–15.
• The last one on my list is that the Bible tells us to fast when we are leaders who desire God to work among our people. We find that in Jonah 3:6–10. I love that Bethany, in an earlier episode, told us that her parents had their whole family fast. They were the leaders of that family, and as part of the leaders of that family they fasted and asked God to work in their family, among their children. That’s biblical.

Scripture also shows us that many of the superheroes of our faith, including Jesus, fasted.

• Moses fasted before he received the Ten Commandments; that’s in Deuteronomy 9:9–18.
• David fasted to mourn the illness of his baby boy and to ask God to intervene; that’s in 2 Samuel 12:1–23.
• Ezra fasted to mourn the sins of God’s people; that’s in Ezra 10:6–17.
• Esther fasted for the safety of her people; that’s in Esther 4.
• Daniel fasted for an answer to prayer in Daniel 10:1–3. Daniel is a superhero of fasting, if such a thing can exist. There are all kinds of things we can learn from his life.
• The elders of the church in Antioch fasted before sending out missionaries; that’s in Acts 13.
• Jesus Himself fasted before He started His earthly ministry; that’s in Matthew 4.

Here are all the circumstantial reasons why we might fast, and also, we could just look at this list and go, Moses, Esther, Daniel, Jesus—we want to be like them—and they fasted. 

Scripture also gives us some bad reasons to fast. First and foremost in my mind is the idea that we can somehow twist God’s arm. Read Isaiah 58 as you’re exploring this topic. What you’ll find is a group of people who fasted really regularly, and they got mad at God when He didn’t seem to take notice. That’s in Isaiah 58:3. 

Fasting is not a transaction where we fast and God gives us what we want. That would make Him a pretty small God, wouldn’t it? No, again, it’s a gift. It’s a gift He gives to us, not a gift we give to Him, as if He needs anything from us.

Another really bad reason to fast is because you think that can somehow cover over your sin. The Pharisees fasted often too, and they were really good at missing the point. In Luke 18:9–14 Jesus blasted a Pharisee who publicly declared that he fasted twice a week, while simultaneously glossing over his own sin. We do not want to become pharisaical about fasting.

Fasting is never, ever a substitute for repentance. There’s not some scale where you can sin on one side and fast and pray enough on the other side and somehow it evens out. That’s not how it works. Bottom line: fasting is about living set apart, not showing off.

Here’s how I want you to make all of this practical today. I’m not calling you to take the Nazirite vow. If there are some of those reasons on that list that apply to your life—maybe you are in a period of mourning, or maybe you have something to repent about—don’t be knee-jerk about it.

Here’s what I want you to do today. I want you to take just a moment and consider who are the followers of Jesus you admire most. Maybe make a list. Now consider this: what do they have in common? Well, they may or may not eat raisins (I myself am a fan of the golden raisins), but I’m sure of this: they don’t try to be like everybody else. They don’t try to live like everyone else.

Their ultimate goal is not to blend in in a world that doesn’t recognize Jesus. No, those people whom we admire as followers of Jesus, every single one of them live consecrated lives dedicated to the glory of God. That means their lives might look unusual. They might do things that seem strange, like the Nazirite vow must have seemed. But that doesn’t matter. Their goal is to live set apart. That is the heart of the Nazirite vow, and that is the heart of fasting.

Erin Unscripted

Bethany: Erin, I was taking so many notes during this episode. I feel like you just knocked it out of the park. We all have a lot of questions, though, because you just brought so much to us. So, thank you for that; that was incredible. 

I was really curious, though. We talked a lot about vows, and I was just curious if you have ever made a vow before the Lord.

Erin: I have made a couple of vows; great questions. Obviously, when I vowed to stay married to Jason Davis until death do us part; that’s a vow I take very seriously. But there’s another vow, and it relates to my teaching. I don’t even know when I made it, but I take it seriously. Probably five years ago I made a vow, a commitment to the Lord, that any time I teach the Bible, I will make it very hard to be a hearer only (because you know there’s that passage that says don’t be hearers only). I will do my best to make it very easy so that the people listening to me teach can be doers. I don’t want them to violate that at all. I don’t want them to just listen to it and go on with their day. So, I really take that seriously as I’m preparing to teach, that people walk away equipped to be doers.

Bethany: I like that. If somebody wants to make a vow before the Lord, what would that even look like?

Erin: This is another thing that is just not really a part of our culture. We are so skeptical about promises and vows in general, much less making a vow to the Lord. But a vow is a promise, and in the Bible, vows are serious business. There are even some weird things people do—they take their shoe off and all kinds of weird things when they make a vow. But if you would just think of a vow as a promise. God has given us many, many promises. You could say God has given us many, many vows, meaning, He’s going to do what He said. 

So, if you’re going to make a promise to God, mean it. Don’t be like, “If You get me out of this situation, I will never miss church again, and I will never sin again!” That’s not a vow you can keep. So, think it through, because you’re promising God something, and you’re speaking to God, the promise keeper, who’s never broken a vow, ever. But I do think it’s good to say, “God, this is my commitment to you.”

Another one that comes to mind is Hannah. In the Old Testament when she was just desperate to get pregnant, she made a vow to the Lord that if He would allow her to conceive, she would dedicate that child to the Lord. That child became Samuel. And she did. Scripture tells us that she kept him until he was weaned, and then she dedicated him to the Lord’s service. That was a serious vow. When the rubber met the road she had to actually surrender that child. That, I think, is the spirit of a vow. It’s a dedication, it’s a promise to God.

Bethany: That’s really good.

Another thing you mentioned that I was really curious about was you said especially these hard passages, Numbers or even Romans, you said, “Just go read it and study it.” I was curious, how do we actually study it? Are we just reading it over and over again? You bring so much wisdom to the table, and I think many of us would want to know how to do that ourselves. Do you have any really quick tips to practically put into practice what you recommended?

Erin: That’s my favorite question of all time. I am a very new seminary student. I keep saying I have just enough seminary under my belt to be dangerous and to drop that into every conversation, like, “Well, in seminary I’m learning . . .” But my mind has been blown. What happens in seminary is they force us to observe the text, observe the text, observe the text before we do anything else. I’m always wanting to jump the gun and go right to interpretation or right to application, and I don’t think that’s just a me situation. My professors are constantly pressing me back in, saying, “Was that really there? Did you apply some foreknowledge there of what you thought that was about?” So, I think just that is helpful.

How you do it, what way you do it . . . I tend to take a book of the Bible and work through it very, very systematically and slowly. So, I may be just observing five verses at a time.

• What do I actually see there?
• What did God actually say there?
• What is God actually doing there?
• What is interesting there that I never noticed before?

A lot of the stories we’ve been talking about in this series, if you will just really observe—let’s take Numbers 6 as an example.

Say you’re doing one of those read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year plans, and you get to Numbers 6 and the heading in your Bible says, “The Nazirite Vow,” and you’re going, “I’m going to just go into rapid-fire reading mode here.” But as you’re reading it, if you’re just observing before you apply, you’re going to see those redundancies—where “set apart,” “holy” is repeated over and over in the vow. You’ll have questions, like, “Why couldn’t they eat the skins of the grapes? Why couldn’t they eat the seeds of the grapes?”

I guess my big-idea tip is really slow down in the making observations. We’re not good observers at all. Being naturalist and all that stuff has gone out the window. People used to stare at birds for hours—Audubon and all those guys. We have weak muscles in that area, and that leads to weak Bible studies. So become a better observer.

Bethany: I actually strive to be a bird-watcher in my old age, so I’m glad you brought that up.

Erin: Me, too!

Bethany: I love birds. If we’re driving in the car and I see a unique bird, I will turn around. I will try to follow it.

Erin: Me, too. I always say that’s my old-lady habit, because I learned it from my grandma. She was a bird-watcher, and I have all of her bird-watching books. But she was a better observer than me.

Bethany: I do feel like that is really hard, though. I think that goes so hand in hand, being slow in the Scripture and also fasting. There are things where we just want to be fast, we want instant answers. I feel like that’s a hard answer, what to do in Scripture, but it’s the truth. We have to slow down. We have to take time to be in the Word. I wanted an easier answer, Erin.

Erin: I’m sorry. That’s the only answer I have. 

To use more animal pictures, it’s like putting a bit in the mouth of a horse. The horse wants to run. When we read the Bible, we just want to run through it—a lot of times in my case (see if this applies to you), just to say that I did it, just to say I read my Bible that day. But when you put the bit in the mouth of the horse, then that horse can be controlled. That’s what God wants to do through His Word; He wants to turn our heads to be more like Him. So, I’m sorry, it’s not an easy answer, but I’m sticking by it.

Bethany: I like that.

You also talked a lot about living set apart. I heard that growing up. I’ve heard those terms, and the connection to holiness—all of that. But I think as modern women living in our day, we see the passage, the Nazirite vow, we see Paul, but it’s kind of confusing. What does that mean for me as a modern woman right now? How do I do that? Can you give us some practical advice on what it looks like to live set apart as a woman in our day?

Erin: Yes, I think what we do instead is we are always mad at the culture because the culture isn’t like us. No kidding! They don’t have God, so just by nature of who we follow, we should not look like the culture; the culture should not look like us. That’s not a problem with the culture necessarily—the culture is fallen and godless. The problem is that yes, there should be that dichotomy. They should not be looking to us and becoming more like us, we should be separate from them.

Bethany: Yes.

Erin: What I hope the listeners of this series realize is that that’s about all of your life. It’s not just about the things that we put in the box of part of our faith. Yes, of course we pray more than people that don’t pray. Of course, we read our Bibles more than people who don’t believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God. But it should also impact what we wear, it should impact the things we talk about. These are all scriptural areas that are identified that we are to live apart. It should impact what we watch, what we intake. It should impact who we marry. It should impact how our marriage unfolds and what that looks like. It should impact our families. It should impact our approach to food.

I just think to live set apart means to live differently than those who do not know or follow Jesus and do not believe that the Bible is His book for us to follow. It really does apply to everything. Practically, I think it just means our days look different, the way we organize our time looks different, the things that we ingest, the things we say, all of it is unique compared to who we were before Christ and how those who don’t follow Christ operate.

Bethany: I really want to hone in, because you mentioned this term being useful to God, and you even read that in Scripture, but that sounds confusing to me. I don’t exactly understand what that means. How do I be useful to God? He’s God! He has everything! He doesn’t need me. How do I be useful to a perfect God?

Erin: Great question! Yes, there’s a verse in Acts that talks about that God doesn’t dwell in places built by human hands as if He needs anything. That’s the line in the verse, because He doesn’t need anything. He doesn’t need me. The moment I think, God needs me to teach this podcast so that the world can be changed, that’s the last day The Deep Well airs, because God doesn’t need me.

But in His mercy, God uses me. I am so, so grateful that the Lord enables me to be a Bible teacher, because I don’t have all of this figured out. I certainly am not an expert on any of the things we’ve talked about here. But God uses me, and that’s as much for me as it is for any of you listening, that God might use this podcast to impact your heart or mind.

It’s that idea of being ready. However God wants to use me, He doesn’t have to use me, but however God wants to use me to bless my husband and children, however God wants to use me to bless my neighbors, however God wants to use me to bless the church, however God wants to use me to equip the saints, however God wants me to reach the lost. He doesn’t have to, but I’m ready in case He wants to use me for any of the zillion things God is doing in the world, just to let me be a part of it.

Bethany: That’s amazing. It’s just like, “God, I’m here. I’m ready. I want to serve You.”

Erin: I am, yes.

Bethany: Any way, I’m ready.

Erin: Yes. I don’t want to be in a museum somewhere just on a shelf. I’ve said this often, and I really do mean it. I want to be a washcloth that at the end of my life God has just wrung out everything He can wring out of me for His glory. You know, honestly, more often it is not this kind of stuff, the Erin Davis Deep Well podcast. More often it’s God just wants to use me to serve others who need a physical set of hands to hold them, vocal chords to speak truth to them, and to bring food, as we’ve talked about in another episode. I just want to be ready to be used by God.

Bethany: You mentioned fasting a lot in this episode, because we’re focusing on fasting, swapping back, fasting and feasting. With fasting, what if someone says, “Okay, I have fasted, and I really meant it. I fasted. I prayed. I have a really difficult situation, and nothing changed. I’ve tried this. It doesn’t work.”

I know you mentioned that a little bit. Can you unpack that just a bit more for someone who says she’s tried it, and it just doesn’t work?

Erin: Well, it’s not transactional. I’ll tell a story from my own life. Those forty days before my fortieth birthday fast that I mentioned, I really thought—this is funny to say, but on some level in my mind I thought—God’s going to use these forty days to commission me. He’s going to give me this vision of what my life is going to be like. He’s going to give me this idea of how I can serve Him the next forty years. I’m going to just come out of that forty-day fast fired up!

That’s not what happened. Actually, the Lord used that forty-day fast to deeply convict me of sin. I mean, the further I went in, the further it was like, “Oh, I didn’t realize I was sinning in that. I didn’t realize I was sinning in this. Yes, you’re right, that’s a relational situation that I need to ask for forgiveness for.”

I’m thirty days into this thing and going, “When do we get to the part where I get to hear all the amazing ways You’re going to use my life?”

Bethany: Yes, exactly.

Erin: It just didn’t happen. It never happened. But as I reflect back on that, I think, well, if I meant what I said, if I meant that vow, which is that I do want to be used by God in the maximum ways in this next lap of my life, He sure did need to deal with sin, because those things were holding me back. They were hindering me from being who God made me to be. So, it worked, not in the way I intended it to work. I thought it was going to be this forty-day ultra-experience, like when you go to church camp and you just feel fired up to serve Jesus. And it wasn’t. It was incredibly humbling and incredibly heartbreaking.

God’s at work in your fast, but a fast doesn’t work where you say, “Okay, God, I’m going to fast for You, and in this fast I want You to do x, y, and z.” That’s just not how it works. I would say to that woman who says, “I’m in this hard situation. I’ve fasted about it; it didn’t work.” Well, take it back to the Lord and say, “Help me to see what You are doing. Help me to see what You did do. I had this one outcome in mind, and that hasn’t happened. But I do trust that You’ve accomplished something else through my obedience.”

Bethany: That’s so interesting. It’s less of saying, “This is my narrowed focus of what I’m hoping for.” But fasting, and then saying, “God, You may have something different in mind. Open my eyes to see what there might be that I’m missing.”

Erin: Yes. I mean, He may want to really convict you of some serious stuff. In my personal opinion, just obedience is its own work of Christ in our hearts. I mean, none of us obey on our own. I think of my toddler. You have an almost-two-year-old, I have a three-year-old, so we know this. I mean, Ezra doesn’t obey naturally. Mama will say, “Don’t touch that cookie,” and he will look at me and smile and touch the cookie. That is how all of us are in our flesh. So just empowering us to obey Him, just empowering us to deny ourselves something, that is a fruit of fasting.

Bethany: As you’ve listened to this season of The Deep Well, have you been surprised at how much the Bible has to say about food? You can dig in deeper to this topic when you get a copy of Erin’s new devotional, Fasting and Feasting, which I highly recommend. Erin will take you on a forty-day journey of growing closer to the Lord and being satisfied in Him.

To get a copy, visit ReviveOurHearts.com/TheDeepWell.

Erin’s done a lot of studying on fasting. She has a lot of head knowledge. But she also has a lot of personal experience with this topic. She’ll share some of her own journey in fasting on our next episode.

The Deep Well with Erin Davis is a production of Revive Our Hearts, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.