grievous sacred moment in life. I believe fasting is natural. Choosing not to eat or drink is how a person naturally responds to a grievous sacred moment. Furthermore, I also believe fasting is inevitable if we encounter a certain kind of sacred moment. Next, and perhaps most important in our definition, I believe fasting is a response to a serious, or grievous, sacred moment. As we will show in the chapter that follows, people fasted in the Bible in response to some grievous event in life—like death