I know it's been a long time. Since Feb. 16 to be exact and that was saying that I was musing over a lot of things and wanted to kinda figure them out before saying anything. Well now I can share. Upon returning from our trip to Nashville and Georgia, Justin and I talked and prayed hard about entering a 40 day fast. My pastor from Georgia and his church had just completed a 40 day fast and so we talked alot about fasting. I had been thinking about fasting more and more but just never took "the plunge". We received wonderful teaching from Pastor Todd along with a better understanding of what fasting is. Basically to realign our spirit with the Holy Spirit and putting into right order our spirit-soul-body instead of body-soul-spirit as we are accustomed to. But I am not going to talk about all this.
So on Feb. 20 we entered into a 40 day progressive fast. Progressive for us was eliminating certain foods each week until we were down to basically nothing this past week. Reflecting back I can tell that I am more in-tune with the Holy Spirit and really enjoyed reading through the Bible as Pastor Todd had laid out for their church. It was hard sometimes with desiring certain foods and having to deny myself those things that I would have just ate no matter what. But feeding my body and it's desires was not what I was focusing on. I was doing this to walk closer with God. To have a sweeter communion with my Lord that I had not reached in my Christian life yet.
I had been earnestly crying out to God these past couple of days to show me that He is working. Honestly, I was hoping that we would be at 50% (at least) of our monthly support by now. We're not even close. Today I was talking with Justin (after working on the grocery shopping list - bad idea to do when you are fasting all food!) and expressing my frustrations and just wanting to give up. What's 1 1/2 more days?!?!?! I just wanted to go to Applebee's and have a quesadilla burger! If the Lord hasn't done anything till now, then why not break our fast now? (Wrong thinking in-light of what the whole purpose of fasting is about.) Is God even working or is He just sitting there watching us?
We "cast lots" to see if we were going to Applebee's or continuing our fast. We flipped a coin in all seriousness and said that we would be content even if it landed on tails (to continue). But I sure was relieved that it was heads and off to Applebee's we went! Although not feeling content with the decision. We went to church afterwards and expected to continue through the Proverbs like we had been doing for quite some time now. Nope. Our Pastor shared from Psalm 111. How great are God's WORKS.
I was reminded about God's awesome works and how He is faithful to the covenant that He makes with His people. Justin said to me afterwards, "Even when we are only 38 1/2 days faithful, God is faithful the full 40." Ouch. But also "Thank you God for Your faithfulness!" Another thing that God reminded me of was that I had ceased worshiping Him. I was praying but I wasn't WORSHIPING Him. That's actually when the battle got bad and all the doubts started rising up. Forgive me Lord!
I share all this to remind you (and myself) that even when we are not faithful, God is. When I doubt Him, He smiles at me and loves me unconditionally. Why? I will never fully understand why but that's not the point. He loves me and that's all that matters.
P.S. It's not important but I did lose about 15 pounds because of this. A great jump start to really kicking those pounds off now!
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