Today, as we are preparing to enter into the healing season of Great Lent, we put our focus on understanding why we fast with prayer and the benefits God offers us as we do so. The people of God have always had prayer and fasting as part of their living experience of God. Jesus taught "when you pray" and "when you fast" not "if you pray and fast." Today we remind ourselves that fasting accompanied by prayer is not something we do as some legalistic rule. It is a prescription that the Healer of our souls offers us, and has always offered His people, that grants us the greater experience of the God Who is our Life and our Salvation.