Hungry for the Lord

This is a nice picture of creation which is better than me lying on my kitchen floor.

I reached up and to the right of my head, feeling in the dark for my phone.  Finding it, I hit the home button and was met with a blinding screen that seared the time, 3:19, to the back of my retinas. I switched my phone off immediately, scooted to the left half a foot and was instantly rewarded with a new patch of cool against my cheek.  Doing the math I calculated I had taken approximately 40 mins without managing to get myself a glass of water.  Pretty pathetic considering water was only 25 feet from my original starting point on the couch. I sighed and rolled over, bypassing lying on my side and choosing my back as a satisfactory resting place.   I spent another feverish quarter hour looking up at the light fixture before I set to praying.

“Hi Lord.  It’s me.  On the floor, in the kitchen.  Fever.  Don’t want to be stupid but could seriously use some help getting water and back to the couch.  Unless it’s time to call for some help, then perhaps you could help me with that?  Everyone’s sleeping.  Clearly you know that but maybe someone could come down?  Sitting up is the goal right now; an ice pack would be awesome.  Thank you for ice packs.  I really like them… and linoleum.. it’s cold.   I like lino.  You did a good job on that stuff.” I went on for quite some time, in my feverish, delirious state, before I managed to get a glass of water and return to the couch where I was spending the night.

Yes, a time for prayer and fasting had come into my life and in case I haven’t told you before, it doesn’t come easily for me. 

The internet is a modern sensation where you can find information on anything.  Anything that is, unless you are a Christian who finds fasting difficult.  The web is filled with successful people who are devoted to fasting.  Intermittent fasters, weight loss fasters, keto fasters, detox fasters a whole slew of folks who are enthusiastic about the process of fasting and what it does to their body.   Many of them flounce off to fancy places to fast; they wax poetic about enemas, fiber supplements and lemon water.  They are knowledgeable about the outer work of fasting and what the process involves and that would be wonderful if I was in the same galaxy as these people but I have a serious confession to make. 

I’m not in their league.

Our fasts weren’t even comparable.  When they spoke about the amount of energy they were experiencing, I was napping on the couch in order to make it to 7pm.  When their mental clarity increased at day 5, I just felt mental.  When they felt renewed peace and well-being radiating from the universe, I was up at 3am begging God for a right heart that might experience the peace that passes understanding.  I was sending my friends texts like #ifyouwereacookieIwouldeatyourfeetoffandnotevenfeelbad.  What kind of person does that as a survival strategy? 

Looking for support I scoured YouTube for the “reluctant faster”, “fasting for losers – (but not the good kind of losing)”, “fasting for the incompetent” and every time I was struck by the same fact: spiritual fasting has almost nothing to do with an outside work.  Because in truth I could care less about lemon water, what I want to know “is God sovereign above all things and how do I hold onto the peace he provides?”  Or, “is God truly sufficient? And what am I supposed to do if I find myself in opposition to his will?”  So many things I want to know are not about fasting; they are about the supremacy of God and my attempts to come to terms with His rule. 

In other words, fasting in response to the Holy Spirit is all about the heart and the internet doesn’t have a lot of videos about that.

So I wanted to encourage those of you who feel like you are in a battle when everyone else you know is at a banquet.  When people talk about their amazing fasts and share the quilts they produced during that time, with each stitch loving sewn in place by a heart that is hungry for Jesus, I just want to run screaming from the building.  When I fast I walk the neighborhood and pick up garbage.  That is the limit of my creativity.  Oh, and I cried when I saw the Canadian geese flying south, but that was because I knew they were going to find better snacks farther south and I really wanted to eat a sleeve of Ritz crackers.  It is difficult when those who share a culture with you are on an entirely different page, they speak of a feast and you are in a famine.  It is an isolating and lonely place to be.  I remember sitting in a group taking prayer requests.  One woman mentioned how thankful she was that God supernaturally removed her doubt regarding her struggle to have a family; which would have been wonderful if it didn’t completely run at odds to the woman next to her, who chose not to share about her struggle to view God as good after her battle with infertility. 

Sometimes, faith is a battle and finding the battle hard doesn’t make you a wimp, it means you are a warrior.

Blessedly, the bible has a great deal to say to those who find themselves in a struggle.  Whether the warrior is unsuccessfully making use of the disciplines of the faith, or standing on their last legs like the characters in Helm’s deep, the Creator of the Universe sees their battle.  Run the word “battle” through a concordance and fill up on the support you lack. Your friends may love you but they can never understand you like He can.

“For not by their own sword did they win the land, nor did their own arm save them, but your right hand and your arm, and the light of your face, for you delighted in them.” Psalm 44:3 esv

“Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” Psalm 34:19 

So I am praying for you this week my friend.  Especially if you have been given news that makes your heart tremble or sink, and if you are fighting against panic and anxiety.  Praying that you would come to know that if you belong to God, He will deliver you because he is faithful, not because of what you do right or wrong. 

Praying for you to hold until the victory arrives,

xoxKaren

P,S.  I have 3 friends who are quilters and I love them.  They are ridiculously gifted and kind women, and I resent their ability to sit still and produce beautiful things.