Particularly if we're new to fasting, we might just not know what to do.

The not eating part is obvious, but what do we do when we're not eating?

It's so easy to get derailed by those feelings of hunger.

So I do like to take notes of what it is that I'm praying for.

And I have looked back on notes from when I'm praying about something long term as I fast,

and I see all the ways that God has worked in response to my prayers.

Cassie Ackerman serves as a copy editor, an editorial project manager for the Gospel Coalition. She and her husband Josh live in Sydney, Australia.

Cassie's also the author of Fasting, which is part of the Disciplines of Devotion series for

Women, published by Crossway in partnership

with the Gospel Coalition. Cassie, thanks so much for joining me today on the Crossway podcast.

Glad to be here. So Cassie, you've written this book on fasting, and as we were as a team

planning this interview and kind of thinking about books we'd want to do interviews about.

We really quickly realized that fasting was one of these topics that we just really haven't done

any interviews about over the years. We've maybe hit on it briefly, but never a focused

conversation. And as I thought about that, I just realized that I think that that mirrors in many

ways just the broader way that we as Christians, as evangelical Christians maybe, we often think about fasting.

It's kind of, we know it's, we know it's a spiritual discipline.

We know the Bible talks about it some, but it's probably one of those that we just haven't talked or thought a lot about.

Does that track with

your own experience as a Christian growing up? Yes, absolutely. So I only started fasting for

myself a few years ago. Before that, it wasn't something that I really saw modeled by Christians

that I knew. I grew up in the church. It wasn't

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