I am not sure that I can adequately describe what this time of fasting has been for me but I will try. It is beyond words because it is beyond the natural. Supernatural? Yes. After all, isn't that the point? If what I do is about the natural, then fasting would not be part of it! It is NOT natural to deprive your body.
But what I now know, is that it isn't about the deprivation, it is about the battle for my soul. It is not giving up something...it is giving myself up to someone. A giving up of the temporal for the eternal. Humbling myself before one who is greater than I. Yearning for what I can not produce or control. Surrendering myself to God.
He is the air I breath, my food and living water. My delight!
Would you not be willing to give up something of far lesser value in order to gain a treasure that is beyond what you could ask or imagine?
Since Adam and Eve, we have fought sin and its destructive consequences. But no consequence has been greater than our broken relationship with God. We lost not only the beauty of the garden, but everything He is. Pride replaced trust; blame replaced love; sorrow replaced joy and worry replaced peace. "What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?" (Mark 8:36)
Praise be to God! He provided a way to redeem the curse. Through the blood of Jesus we can find forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God. This means that we can once again regain all that He is, by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us who believe.
I have been a believer for 30 years, but am confident that I have been missing out on much that is freely offered by God, because I have sought him on my terms...not his.
"And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written:
“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—
10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for,
“Who has known the mind of the Lord
so as to instruct him?”
so as to instruct him?”
But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:1-16)
Even in my fasting I must come to him rightly. I do not fast in order to trade for what I want or persuade God to act on my behalf. I fast to seek him. I come to be changed. The LORD spoke to Israel, through his prophet Isaiah, and declared the kind of fasting he desired; a fast that was pleasing to the LORD.
“Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
2 For day after day they seek me out;
they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.
3 ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’
Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
2 For day after day they seek me out;
they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.
3 ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’
“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.
4 Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.
5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?
and exploit all your workers.
4 Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.
5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?
6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness[a] will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness[a] will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
13 “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath
and from doing as you please on my holy day,
if you call the Sabbath a delight
and the Lord’s holy day honorable,
and if you honor it by not going your own way
and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,
14 then you will find your joy in the Lord,
and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land
and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.”
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
and from doing as you please on my holy day,
if you call the Sabbath a delight
and the Lord’s holy day honorable,
and if you honor it by not going your own way
and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,
14 then you will find your joy in the Lord,
and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land
and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.”
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
(Isaiah 58)
And God IS changing me. He has shown me that what is impossible for me (20 days with no sugar) is possible with God; that the support and accountability of other like minded believers is a must (we were never meant to live alone, Genesis 2:18); that I must endure for the joy set before me (it is about setting my mind on that which is most important); and that this life is about living for him not myself. Through all this, a compassion I have not felt before has arisen inside me. It is his compassion for the world which leads us from our solitude to action.
When we take this epic struggle to our solitude with God and deal with it there, we emerge with compassion, peace, joy, kindness, etc. (Galatians 5:22-25) Only then can we meet the worlds needs, for these are precisely what the world needs. If we do not, then we take our struggles with us to our encounters with others. We have little if anything to offer and usually end up inflicting harm, for we are seeking for someone else to help us.
Even as circumstances may dictate an end to this particular fast, I feel as though my true fast is only beginning. I have not arrived at my destination and I know there will be stumbles along the way, but I also know the One who upholds me with his powerful right hand. He will not sleep, nor slumber and he will never leave my side.
I am on a journey to the heart of God. Will you join me?
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