Day 6: Fasting That Frees

Focus Area - REACH UP
Stretching Toward God

Scriptures: Isaiah 58:6-12 (NIV)

Reflection: True fasting doesn’t just change habits, it breaks spiritual chains.

Expanded Focus:
I was watching a show on HGTV one evening. Please don’t ask me the name, but it was the kind where a couple buys an older house with “good bones” and assumes a little paint and polish will fix everything. Sure enough, when the cameras panned through, everything looked impressive on the surface: new flooring, fresh cabinets, staged furniture. But once the contractors started tearing into walls and peeling back layers, they found mold behind the drywall, rotten boards beneath the floor, and long-term leaks that had quietly damaged the foundation. What looked “move-in ready” actually needed deeper repairs. This wasn’t going to be a cosmetic fix. This house needed structural surgery. 

Sometimes our spiritual lives look the same way. We learn how to decorate our dysfunction. We cover emotional damage with busy schedules. We hide wear and rot beneath religious activity. But fasting is where God tears into the walls we’ve painted over and says, “We’re going deeper this time.”

In Isaiah 58, God redefines what holy fasting really looks like. He says the fast He chooses is the one that loosens chains, unties burdens, sets the oppressed free, and breaks every yoke. That means real fasting doesn’t just affect what’s on our plate. It should affect what’s on our hearts. It confronts what we’ve learned to manage instead of surrender.

Hear me clearly: there are some chains you can’t outwork. Some cycles you can’t out-plan. Some habits you can’t self-improve away. They only break through spiritual alignment and divine intervention. And that’s what this fast invites us into. It’s not a religious food restriction. We are doing the work of spiritual release.

Reaching Up means we stop pretending that discipline alone will save us and we allow God to do the deeper work. When freedom comes, God promises clarity, healing, restoration, and answered prayer. Your chains will fall, and your purpose will rise.

Questions to Consider:

1. What internal chains might God be trying to break in your life during this fast?
2. Have you been managing something God wants to deliver you from?
3. What would real freedom look like for you in this season?