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Wendy Speake Biography

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“Things changed when my phone outsmarted me. Once Facebook had a permanent place in my pocket, it became a permanent portal—able to transport me away from my family. Even if we were physically in the same room, I wasn’t necessarily there with them. Facebook was no longer simply a naptime vacation but an all-day form of escapism.”

“When our children have our intention, they don’t need to get our attention. Andy Crouch explained the phenomenon this way: “An awful lot of children born in 2007 . . . have been competing with their parents’ screens their whole lives.”

“You must remain in the Word. Five minutes of nibbling on a verse in the morning won’t fill you up and fuel you through the other 1,435 minutes of the day. You need a continual feast to carry you through long fasting days. First Thessalonians 5:17 tells you to “pray without ceasing.” If praying is talking to God, then reading God’s Word is listening. Let’s make the conversation a continual feast! Read and pray, then read and pray some more. Let your fasting days propel you into a feasting life.”

“The reward for giving and praying and fasting is found in the giving and praying and fasting. Because fasting and praying and giving allow us to experience more of Him. And He is everything. Our reward is the intimacy forged in prayerful conversation with the One who stitched us and knows us and sits enthroned within us and over us.”

“Scottish minister Andrew Bonar said, “Fasting is abstaining from anything that hinders prayer.” Not just food. Anything. As a matter of fact, Bonar often fasted from reading in order to spend more time with the Lord. Reading! His example ought to challenge us to consider what else might be hindering our intimate friendship with the Lord. If we want to experience His sustaining hand in our lives, it may be a good idea to take a season to set aside anything that might be in our hands. I like to say it this way: We abstain so that He might sustain. This isn’t just about food. We don’t just run to the pantry—we run to online games, we run to romance novels, and we run to Starbucks too.”

“Satan hates you. But for the most part, he pays you no mind as long as you are entangled in sin and struggling with shame. He likes you lethargic and ineffective. He prefers it when you struggle with migraines and emotional instability, when you are irritated with your spouse and your kids and your coworkers. He loves it when you blow up at your family or friends over a sugar-induced spike and crash. However, when you turn to Christ for His free and freeing power, Satan takes offense and goes on the offensive. He hates it when you fast and pray because he knows that each time you go to God rather than to sugar to fill your longings, the Spirit of God floods into the empty places in your heart and life. Satan hates losing ground. When you started your forty-day fast from sugar, you may have anticipated temptation, but you may not have expected the tempter himself.”

“We suffer spiritually each time we reach for a sugar high rather than the Most High. Our sugar fixation stops us from fixing our eyes on Jesus, and hungering for sweet treats gets in the way of our hunger and thirst for Him. The goal of this fast isn’t that you will begin to choose healthy food options; it’s that you will come to see Christ as the only option. The more you ingest of Him, the less hungry you will be for the things you once craved. We’re fasting from sugar so that we might feast now. This is how we crowd the sugar out.”

“SUGAR IS A STRONGHOLD for many people. Does it hold you back from the good life that God has planned for you? Perhaps over time your sweet tooth has turned into a full-fledged addiction, dictating your days, driving you from one sugary fix to the next. Unfortunately, no sugar fix can fix you. In fact, when you give sugar that job, you’ll end up more broken than before because sugar weakens our physical bodies and clouds our minds.”

“THERE’S NOTHING WRONG with wanting to lose the extra weight you may be carrying around, whether the extra load comes from literal pounds or from pounds of pain. However, for deep and lasting physical and emotional transformation to occur, you first need deep and lasting spiritual transformation. Matthew 6:33 makes it clear: When you turn your eyes, first and foremost, on God, everything else will fall into its rightful place. Conversely, when you look to the scale first, it’s nearly impossible to see past it to the soul.”