It's
over...
So,
once again I have returned from a arduous winter journey. A journey
that I have now taken for several years. Today I return to this crazy mixed up world driven by excessive consumption and us always trying to figure out
“what are we gonna eat?” I have been on a 24 day fast that ended
Sunday. I have fasted a few times in the past for as many as five
days and felt certain that I would surely perish for lack of food. So
just imagine 24 days with NOTHING AT ALL to eat. NOT 24 hours...24
days. It really is totally mind boggling to just think of over three
weeks and not one bite… So, as I previously mentioned, I am not
going into all the minute details of fasting and the technical
aspects of it. If you are interested in that information there is
plenty of stuff out there. I believe it’s pretty well laid out why
it’s necessary right here in Isaiah 58:6-11, when God says,
“Is not this the holy day for which I have given orders: to let loose those who have wrongly been made prisoners, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the crushed go free, and every yoke be broken? Is it not to give your bread to those in need, and to let the poor who have no resting-place come into your house? to put a robe on the unclothed one when you see him, and not to keep your eyes shut for fear of seeing his flesh? Then will light be shining on you like the morning, and your wounds will quickly be well: and your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will come after you. Then at the sound of your voice, the Lord will give an answer; at your cry he will say, Here am I. If you take away from among you the yoke, the putting out of the finger of shame, and the evil word; And if you give your bread to those in need of it, so that the troubled one may have his desire; then you will have light in the dark, and your night will be as the full light of the sun: And the Lord will be your guide at all times; in dry places he will give you water in full measure, and will make strong your bones; and you will be like a watered garden, and like an ever-flowing spring."
Being on a fast, especially one this long is about learning to understand desire and consequences of choices we make. It is about living with a very high degree of intention and presence. It is about being mindful as opposed to being mindless in not only what we eat but how we operate in the world. As followers of Jesus, we should be set apart from the world. This is the meaning of being holy and living a holy, righteous life...that is, to be set apart. We are not to engage in the excess and gluttony the world promotes, nor are we to retain the insipid, disengaged mind that the world creates so easily in us all. We can operate in a lot of deception in our daily lives and so easily fall into the common trap of living “carelessly”. Fasting causes you to focus, sometimes very intensely, on how the seemingly simple things we do in one moment affect the next moments in your future. It is amazing how temporarily removing eating from our lives has such a profound impact on so many other areas. I never realized how just plain obsessed and food crazed we are in the US. Seriously, it is just amazing how much money is spent just on advertising food. There is an entire television network dedicated to food 24/7. We have celebrity chefs who are treated like rock stars. We collect recipes and cookbooks and spend hours on Pinterest pinning things we'll never cook. It's just cooking, people.Or better yet, go to Wal-Mart in the middle of a 24 day fast. You will really see why we are so physically and spiritually sick. A fast makes you come to a dead stop and get off the out-of-control merry go round that’s trying to kill you. It opens your eyes. For me personally, I look at this fast as an investment for this year. My wife and I did it together because: 1. We believe this is what God calls us ALL to do. 2. It’s an amazing way to start and set the tone for the new year-offering a HUGE sacrifice to God. 3. Doing it together as a couple strengthens and bonds us together is a very special and unique way and 4. It creates an atmosphere where God can work and speak in very powerful ways and we become focused on the power of prayer. So, why fast? Well, in a nutshell, fasting helps create in us, in a way nothing else can, “a wrinkle in the fabric of the veil which separates heaven and earth”. These sacred fasts are merely a brief moment in time where we temporarily break away from our day to day comfortable self absorbed life in the physical world and enter into the heavenly and kingdom focused world; where we rise from the tangible gross weighty matter of the material world into the more refined and sustaining substance of the spiritual realm. On a personal level it has helped me to just really focus and listen to the ever present voice of God revealing many things about His nature as a loving father who wants to bless me and give me good gifts. You see, I have historically had a real problem with that. My dad left me when I was 13. He decided that life was just too tough and I wasn’t enough to keep him hanging on. So, I always lived in fear that it could happen again thus that “father in heaven” thing seemed difficult for me for many years. So, one of the things I discovered on the fast is that a lot of stuff gets stirred up in you when you aren’t eating for 24 days. You know, stuff that you thought was safely and conveniently “stuffed away”. God has an attention grabbing way of just calling you out on that avoidance thing we do so well and saying “OK…now that I have your UNDIVIDED attention…” Oh boy, here it comes… Perhaps this may be yet another reason why we overeat??? Hmmm? I think the words from Isaiah mandates that we do this and clearly spells out our reward for this sacrifice... “And the Lord will be your guide at all times; in dry places he will give you water in full measure, and will make strong your bones; and you will be like a watered garden, and like an ever-flowing spring.” I am a watered garden...indeed.
“Is not this the holy day for which I have given orders: to let loose those who have wrongly been made prisoners, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the crushed go free, and every yoke be broken? Is it not to give your bread to those in need, and to let the poor who have no resting-place come into your house? to put a robe on the unclothed one when you see him, and not to keep your eyes shut for fear of seeing his flesh? Then will light be shining on you like the morning, and your wounds will quickly be well: and your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will come after you. Then at the sound of your voice, the Lord will give an answer; at your cry he will say, Here am I. If you take away from among you the yoke, the putting out of the finger of shame, and the evil word; And if you give your bread to those in need of it, so that the troubled one may have his desire; then you will have light in the dark, and your night will be as the full light of the sun: And the Lord will be your guide at all times; in dry places he will give you water in full measure, and will make strong your bones; and you will be like a watered garden, and like an ever-flowing spring."
Being on a fast, especially one this long is about learning to understand desire and consequences of choices we make. It is about living with a very high degree of intention and presence. It is about being mindful as opposed to being mindless in not only what we eat but how we operate in the world. As followers of Jesus, we should be set apart from the world. This is the meaning of being holy and living a holy, righteous life...that is, to be set apart. We are not to engage in the excess and gluttony the world promotes, nor are we to retain the insipid, disengaged mind that the world creates so easily in us all. We can operate in a lot of deception in our daily lives and so easily fall into the common trap of living “carelessly”. Fasting causes you to focus, sometimes very intensely, on how the seemingly simple things we do in one moment affect the next moments in your future. It is amazing how temporarily removing eating from our lives has such a profound impact on so many other areas. I never realized how just plain obsessed and food crazed we are in the US. Seriously, it is just amazing how much money is spent just on advertising food. There is an entire television network dedicated to food 24/7. We have celebrity chefs who are treated like rock stars. We collect recipes and cookbooks and spend hours on Pinterest pinning things we'll never cook. It's just cooking, people.Or better yet, go to Wal-Mart in the middle of a 24 day fast. You will really see why we are so physically and spiritually sick. A fast makes you come to a dead stop and get off the out-of-control merry go round that’s trying to kill you. It opens your eyes. For me personally, I look at this fast as an investment for this year. My wife and I did it together because: 1. We believe this is what God calls us ALL to do. 2. It’s an amazing way to start and set the tone for the new year-offering a HUGE sacrifice to God. 3. Doing it together as a couple strengthens and bonds us together is a very special and unique way and 4. It creates an atmosphere where God can work and speak in very powerful ways and we become focused on the power of prayer. So, why fast? Well, in a nutshell, fasting helps create in us, in a way nothing else can, “a wrinkle in the fabric of the veil which separates heaven and earth”. These sacred fasts are merely a brief moment in time where we temporarily break away from our day to day comfortable self absorbed life in the physical world and enter into the heavenly and kingdom focused world; where we rise from the tangible gross weighty matter of the material world into the more refined and sustaining substance of the spiritual realm. On a personal level it has helped me to just really focus and listen to the ever present voice of God revealing many things about His nature as a loving father who wants to bless me and give me good gifts. You see, I have historically had a real problem with that. My dad left me when I was 13. He decided that life was just too tough and I wasn’t enough to keep him hanging on. So, I always lived in fear that it could happen again thus that “father in heaven” thing seemed difficult for me for many years. So, one of the things I discovered on the fast is that a lot of stuff gets stirred up in you when you aren’t eating for 24 days. You know, stuff that you thought was safely and conveniently “stuffed away”. God has an attention grabbing way of just calling you out on that avoidance thing we do so well and saying “OK…now that I have your UNDIVIDED attention…” Oh boy, here it comes… Perhaps this may be yet another reason why we overeat??? Hmmm? I think the words from Isaiah mandates that we do this and clearly spells out our reward for this sacrifice... “And the Lord will be your guide at all times; in dry places he will give you water in full measure, and will make strong your bones; and you will be like a watered garden, and like an ever-flowing spring.” I am a watered garden...indeed.
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