A Call to Repentance: How a Fast for SNAP Changed My Perspective

Note: A version of this devotional was published in the “Faith” section of The Eagle, Nov. 15, 2025

“You need to change your perspective.” That’s what the guest staying at our church with her family told me.

We were the host church for Family Promise, a local ministry helping unhoused families find permanent homes, and providing them with hospitality in the interim. Today, Family Promise has a fixed location for lodging. But before that, churches hosted guests, with each family—no matter the size— staying together in one room per Family Promise guidelines.

I had sat down for dinner with a family of four: a mom and her three children. We got to talking about our dream vacation, and she said, “I’d go to a beach somewhere, doesn’t matter where. And I’d want my babies right there with me.” I said, “That sounds great except for the part about having my kids there every waking moment.”

With my foot planted in my mouth, I proceeded to talk about a wedding I had done in Santa Fe one winter where our family stayed in a single hotel room. My wife and I spent hours in that room with our two hyper-energetic children. “The vacation was great,” I said, “but it would’ve been better if we’d had a little break from the kids. I mean, they were with us all the time.” The mom looked at me, eyebrows raised, and said, “That’s my everyday reality. You need to change your perspective.”

Last week, with families like hers in mind, I sought perspective by pledging to a fast for SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that provides 63% of monthly groceries for an average of 8,505 Brazos County households—that’s 18,907 individuals, 52% of whom are children. With the government still shut down and SNAP halted, I joined an interfaith effort of fasting alongside people of goodwill across the country to be in solidarity with our hungry neighbors.

My fast consisted of consuming nothing but water from sunup to sundown each day. Other faith leaders and I encouraged our congregations to observe their own fast, being mindful of their health and committing to spiritual practices, like fasting from routine activities to volunteer at food pantries, fasting from eating out to purchase donations for the Brazos Valley Food Bank, and praying at meals for those struggling to eat.

Fasting was practiced by Jesus and the Apostles, by ancient and modern-day prophets, and by the venerated saints of the Christian faith tradition. Historically, fasting has also been used as a form of protest against injustice. I chose to fast because the hunger of my neighbor—especially the hunger of children, the elderly, and people living with disabilities—compelled me to act as a follower of Christ. But I also fasted for perspective.

Being hungry, I couldn’t think straight. My creativity was stalled. I struggled finding the simplest words to communicate my thoughts. This brought to mind the 3.5 million Texans who rely on SNAP, 1.7 million of whom are children. Kids need calories to learn, play, express themselves, form sentences, ask questions, and become all that they have been created to blossom into. Without food, children wilt. And as Marian Wright Edelman, Founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, reminds us, “A nation that does not stand for its children does not stand for anything and will not stand tall in the future.”

With the government reopened and SNAP restored, I’ve broken my fast. But the perspective remains. And that perspective calls me to repentance—to a change of direction that does not question whether a human being deserves to be fed, but instead advocates for them to receive their daily bread; to a change of mind that does not judge the poor for their station in life, but that helps them get food, and seeks an end to poverty itself; to a change of heart that rejects the myth of scarcity that pits neighbor against neighbor, honoring instead the reality of abundance, where the fruit of all creation is shared for the blossoming of all, and where we proclaim that all God’s children—no matter who we are or where we come from—must eat.

Our church’s first host week with Family Promise 17 years ago had its hiccups. There weren’t many rules. Dinner was served at a scheduled time, we ate in a designated area, and then cleaned up and called it a night. But our guests got hungry after dark. They would go to the kitchen, pull out food, and have a snack. They might not leave the area as clean as it was before, not unlike how most do in their own home.

When we got together and assessed how the week went, “Midnight Snacks Gate” came up. There was concern about rules being broken. Suggestions were made: “Let’s put locks on the refrigerator and cabinets. We could install a kitchen door and keep it locked at night. Problem solved.”

But then we paused, looked at it from another perspective, and someone said, “What if instead of putting the food away after dinner we put more out at night, more than enough? And what if we leave it in the dining area so our guests can get to it whenever they need?” It might have been impractical, unorthodox, even a bit radical, but it felt a lot less like a needlessly hungry world, and more like what we mean when we pray “give us this day our daily bread.” All of us.