Fast Club

It's like Fight Club, only different

AI rendition of a “Fast Club” bar of soap

About two weeks ago my pastor texted me when he was right in the middle hours of a 72 hour fast. We texted back and forth a little bit about fasting. At one point he mentioned doing a “Fast Club” with him once a month adding, “I want a team and a purpose beyond health.” I was sitting at my desk at the moment and Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club immediately popped into my brain. At one point in the book (and movie) the main character, Tyler Durden, says to Marla Singer, “you met me at a very strange time in my life.” Ha. Well, friends, the same is true here.

I headed over to ChatGPT and used DALL-E to generate the main image for this post. But as I was editing the prompt to get it a little more how I imagined, I thought of the rules for Fight Club and sought to alter them for Fast Club. First, I asked what the original rules were:

“The rules of Fight Club, as outlined by Tyler Durden in Chuck Palahniuk's novel Fight Club (and popularized by the 1999 movie adaptation), are as follows:

1. The first rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club.

2. The second rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club.

3. The third rule of Fight Club is: If someone yells "stop," goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over.

4. The fourth rule of Fight Club is: Only two guys to a fight.

5. The fifth rule of Fight Club is: One fight at a time.

6. The sixth rule of Fight Club is: No shirts, no shoes.

7. The seventh rule of Fight Club is: Fights will go on as long as they have to.

8. The eighth and final rule of Fight Club is: If this is your first night at Fight Club, you have to fight.

These rules emphasize secrecy, commitment, and the raw, unfiltered nature of the experience Tyler intended Fight Club to embody.”

Then I asked, based on those rules if it could generate 8 rules for a biblical Fast Club:

“Certainly! Here’s a creative adaptation of the Fight Club rules for a "Biblical Fast Club," emphasizing the spiritual and disciplined aspects of fasting with a biblical perspective:

Rules of Biblical Fast Club

1. The first rule of Fast Club is: You do not boast about fasting (Matthew 6:16-18).

2. The second rule of Fast Club is: You do not boast about fasting (humility is key).

3. The third rule of Fast Club is: If your body or spirit is overwhelmed, seek rest and renewal in prayer (Isaiah 40:29-31).

4. The fourth rule of Fast Club is: Fast with intention and purpose—seek God wholeheartedly (Joel 2:12).

5. The fifth rule of Fast Club is: One fast at a time; focus on the present moment with God.

6. The sixth rule of Fast Club is: Approach fasting with simplicity—no need for elaborate rituals (Isaiah 58:6-7).

7. The seventh rule of Fast Club is: Fasting should last as long as it draws you closer to God; let the Spirit guide the duration (Acts 13:2-3).

8. The eighth and final rule of Fast Club is: If it’s your first time fasting, do it in faith, trusting God to lead you (Psalm 34:8).

This adaptation keeps the reverence and discipline of fasting aligned with biblical principles while adding a sense of structure and encouragement for participants.”

Rules 1 and 2 pull from Matthew 6:16-18. If you read through the 40 or so posts I have already written about fasting, you may recall that on Day 7 and Day 11 I addressed that same passage. As I noted in Day 7, “fasting is assumed to be a normal part of one’s spiritual life (cf. 1 Cor. 7:5). Fasting is associated with sadness (Matt. 9:14-15), prayer (17:21), charity (Isa. 58: 3-6), and seeking the Lord’s will (Acts 13:2-3; 14:23).” I would add to that, as seen throughout those 40 Days of posts, fasting is also associated with repentance, mourning (I know, that’s a type of sadness), humility, focused prayer, and praying for one’s nation.

In Day 41 and Beyond and I said, “I do know that fasting will continue to be part of my life. For faith reasons as well as for health reasons. I am still stunned that I fasted, consuming only water, for forty days and forty nights. I still don’t recommend that you do it. I still do recommend that you seek out your own heart and arrive at your own conclusion on what fasting may look like for you.” All of that still holds true. However, I do now want to open up Fast Club to you. Yes, you! If you are so inclined.

I regret not learning more about the biblical reasons for fasting sooner in my life and that I did not approach my spiritual welfare with the perspective of “when you fast.” At least in part because of our opulence, our nation has arrived at a gross level of spiritual bankruptcy. Just about everything has become about comfort; even our spiritual walk. In many ways we are at a point where the church is trying to be like the world. Where the church is trying to please the senses and satisfy “feelings” instead of speaking the truth. That is one of the reasons fasting can help accelerate your prayer life and your overall spiritual health. It is about denying self through discipline and momentary discomfort for an overall more purposeful walk.

I texted my brother and our friend, who I’ll call Ben, about Fast Club too. More so to tell them how rapidly ChatGPT was able to come up with sound rules in the Fight Club fashion and an image. Ben mentioned putting a crown of thorns around the soap to make the imagery even more reflective of a biblically purposed fast. I mentioned Ben and my brother before. Way in the beginning of these Substack entries. They came with me to Virginia to collect my family’s belongings after the fbi finally decided they would no longer hold them hostage. We have very strong reason to believe that we were being surveilled on that trip too. Maybe I’ll harken back to that time and write more about it in the future. I wrote a bit about it here. ⬇️

Belly of the Beast

The more I thought of the imagery for the Fast Club, the more I thought how much sense it makes too. Firstly, it just seemed like a flippant play off of Fight Club. But, when you think about the repentance, mourning, and prayer associated with a biblical fast, the cleansing aspect of soap plays a role. When you add the crown of thorns and reflect on what Jesus did on the cross for us, the cleansing that he did for us and our dirty deeds, it all comes together.

Isaiah 1:17 says, “learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.” It is one of a number of verses I have come back to time and time again over the last 29 months of injustice I have faced on a personal level. There are a bountiful handful from Isaiah alone. Isaiah spoke truth to a wicked nation; often times to the political, religious, and social leaders. A lot of the wickedness seen in his nation is analogous to the depravity we have seen in our own. Increasingly depraved at that.

But, it is verses 16 and 18 that really shine through here. Verse 16 says, “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil,” and v18 says, “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord; though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, the shall become like wool.”

We have that cleanliness through Christ’s sacrificial work on the cross. His murder at the hands of corrupt government, corrupt religious, political, and social leaders, happened so you could be cleansed. So I could be. Even so those who carried out his murder could. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Through Christ, we can be cleaner than any soap could ever make us, because we will be internally clean from our sin that no other has the power or ability to cleanse.

On Day 31 I wrote about King David’s seven day fast. This fast came in light of David’s lustful, adulterous, murderous, unjust, unrighteous, tyrannical actions. All because he wanted another man’s wife. Analogous to the biblical account of David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel is Psalm 51. It’s a beautiful Psalm and the cleansing imagery and cleansing of our sins, hearts, and minds through repentance comes through tremendously.

David wrote this Psalm after the prophet Nathan confronted him and rebuked him for his affair with Bathsheba, murdering Uriah, and then taking Bathsheba as his own. David recognized his sin and need for repentance. He also understood the “washing” that comes through true repentance to God. Verse 2 says, “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!” Verse 7 says, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.” Verse 10 adds, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

In the Day 31 post I wrote, “David eventually tells Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” To which Nathan responds, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. But because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for the Lord, the son born to you will die.” Even though we can repent of our sin, even though Christ washed it away, even though we can be redeemed, that doesn't mean that our sin does not have consequences.” Although we are cleansed, it is important to remember that our choices still have consequences.

This has been an interesting week for me. At least from the perspective of what I had as a rough idea for this post. The bones of it are true to what I planned, but the content has developed in a bit different of a way. For example, I had already been studying biblical church leadership and qualifications for leadership positions in the local church. Then, on Tuesday, President Trump and others from the new administration attended church services at the Washington National Cathedral.

An Episcopalian “bishop” called Mariann Edgar Budde provided the homily. You can watch the full 15 minutes here. However, this shorter clip from closer to the end has ignited quite the conversation in the political sphere. I’ll abstain from commenting on it further as I already have here, here, and here, although I admit X is not the best platform for longer discussions or proper expositions of relevant biblical text.

I will however, expand on 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (mentioned here) which says, "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

Relevant here again is the idea and imagery of being washed. Think of that list. Of those sins listed, which are you guilty of? I know I am guilty of most of them, and all sorts of other unrighteousness. There is not enough fasting, washing, tithing, sacrificing, etc., that could even atone for my guilt in one sin. That is, aside from the sanctification, justification, and cleansing that I have through Christ’s blood. I have been cleansed through Christ atoning sacrifice. You can be too. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)

Although our sins will have consequence. Although we should seek to live in accordance with His will, which includes turning from our sins, Christ is, and forever will be "the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 John 2:2)

“because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” -Romans 10:9-13

I fasted for about 80 hours this week. Monday through Thursday morning. One of the things on my mind was the health aspects of fasting. By the end of my 40 day fasting journal that I posted, I know many of you were curious about some of the physical aspects of that journey. I, myself, was a bit regretful that I didn’t really properly note those aspects throughout and had to rely on memory by the time I wrote the final journal entry.

On Day 24 I mentioned some of the physical aspects, and on a few of the other days too. One of the aspects discussed a little bit from Day 24 was ketones. Our bodies can use glycogen and ketones as fuel. That’s it. In our western diets, carbohydrates are the primary macronutrient that we ingest; the other macros being protein and fat. Our body creates glycogen through glycogenolysis, which is the process by which our body takes the stores of glycogen in our liver and muscles and turns it into glucose to give our bodies energy to function. Ketones, on the other hand, are created through ketosis, which is the process by which our body takes stored fat and turns it into ketones to give our bodies energy to function.

Our bodies can get to a state of ketosis when we fast, eat a low carbohydrate diet, or when we exercise. When we fast, our bodies can also enter a state of autophagy. Autophagy is a cellular process that breaks down and recycles old, damaged, or abnormal proteins and organelles within a cell. It also helps cells maintain energy homeostasis, eliminate intracellular pathogens, prevent necrosis and genome instability, and it promotes cellular senescence and cell surface antigen presentation.

As shown in the timeline above, you can kick your cells into autophagy hyperdrive with fasting. To put some of those benefits of autophagy listed in the previous paragraph into at least some beneficial context, autophagy helps your body prevent cancerous cells from establishing a foothold (if caught soon enough). There is a lot of information out there about this aspect of fasting at this point. Here is about a 10 minute TED Talk discussing it.

Sunday marks my 29 month Suspendiversary. Epoch is defined as “a period of time in history or a person's life, typically one marked by notable events or particular characteristics.” No doubt the last two + years has been marked by notable events for me. One of those events, which was as unexpected as any of the others during this time, was my 40 day water fast. I no longer need such a notable event, and hopefully never will again.

However, fasting has become an important aspect of my life now. I’ll always have done that long fast. Now, I want to join others and do it together. I think we can all benefit from each other through unity in this way, even if we are miles apart and only connected through modern technology. My plan this year, which I know my plans rarely go as planned 😂, is to do at least a focused, intentional 3 day fast per month. I have no doubts that each month there will be certain aspects of my life that will require extra attention through prayer. In the last 29 months I have seen and come to understand the spiritual war like never before. I certainly don’t, and will never, fully understand it.

I’ve mentioned Canadian pastor James Coates and his sermon entitled The Church at War before. In that sermon he says, “when you take a stand for Christ, the enemy is going to fire at you from every and any angle especially when it's a public stand. He'll fire at you from the government, he'll fire at you from the media, through your extended family, through your friends, through your co-workers and he'll even attack you through the church.

“And so you need to have faith. The shield of faith because that will give you courage to render all of that to no effect. With the shield of faith in hand, when you get that opposition, it will actually be validation. You will know that that opposition is validating, that you are taking the exact stand you're supposed to be taking and so when the war wages you will need to believe on the promises of God to stand firm. The church needs to be a believing church that is believing on the truth of the word of God and holding the promises of God tightly and bringing them before the throne of grace, and then as the arrows come in, they will be extinguished. They will have no effect.”

With the recent change of presidential administrations, the potential that may have on my status, aspects of my personal life, various relationships, and other matters, what Coates preached certainly still holds true; and all has been heavy on my mind and soul. All of the areas of attack that he mentioned have come to fruition on this path. That’s the thing with proper biblical, expository preaching though. It stands the test of time. Just as God’s Word has.

In the movie rendition of Fight Club, when Tyler Durden told Marla, “you met me at a very strange time in my life,” Where is My Mind by The Pixies was playing in the background and continued as the credits rolled. The credits certainly aren’t rolling for me yet, but it seems fitting to at least end this post in similar fashion.

With your feet on the air and your head on the ground
Try this trick and spin it, (Yeah) yeah
Your head will collapse, if there's nothing in it
And you'll ask yourself
Where is my mind?
Where is my mind?
Where is my mind?
Where is my mind?
Where is my mind?
Where is my mind…

I am not a medical professional. This journal is about my spiritual path and about that which the Lord has placed on me. This is not medical advice, nor was this fast done for any medical purpose. If you have a medical interest, seek medical advice. If you have particular health concerns, seek medical advice and/or conduct your own research. Any fasting advice, effects, realizations or anything else related to my fast come from my personal reflection and experience. If you are considering fasting, consulting with a healthcare provider may be appropriate for you.