Fasting? Bless your heart..

The “bless your heart” thing is a Southern expression that precedes something less than desirable that must be pointed out to another person. For example, this has been heard on more than one occasion, 

“Fasting? Well. Bless your heart. Are you insane?”…

Few things provoke others to think that you have lost your mind more than fasting. It just is not natural. Our lives revolve around food. In our house, the food issue proves even more problematic because of Mathias’ Prader Willi Syndrome. But, even if you do not have a perpetually hungry kid in your house, the emphasis on food is everywhere.

So, you tell a co-worker that you are not eating lunch because you are voluntarily fasting, and they look at you with pity. I am not sure if they feel sorry for my hunger of they feel sorry that I have finally lost my last thread of sanity. “Experts” come out of the wood work and tell me fasting is bad for my health (but all the cheeseburgers I have consumed over the years are BETTER?). After they have exhausted their pity and health lectures and have determined I may not be insane, they all want to know, “Why?”

That is a legitimate question. I have studied various authors on the subject and I have done my Biblical research (although I am not a scholar) and have come up with a mnemonic device to explain my insanity.

F- Facing challenges or obstacles

A-Attention focused towards God                                                                                

S-Submission of the flesh

T-Times of repentance

I-Increase receptivity to Divine Intervention

N-No, NO and NO to temptation

G- Gain humility

FACING CHALLENGES

I have mentioned Paul Finck in the past. He does not see roadblocks, but rather sees challenges that one needs to conquer. Goodness knows I have a lot of challenges in my life and I make a boat load of obstacles that get in my own way. I know that, if left up to me, I am going to make a mess of things. Ask my wife. I need help facing these challenges so fasting allows me to lean on Jesus and less on myself.

ATTENTION TOWARDS GOD

I love this one. I discovered this during a 40 day fast and I sadly allowed the chaos of life to get in the way of this. Food is symbolic of life clutter. There are a few things in which to choose from of solid value and lots of junk available. With each hunger pain, take a deep breath and draw closer to God.

SUBMISSION OF THE FLESH

I have always been a pretty strong guy. This has been problematic as I tend to think I can handle many things by myself. When I get in a bind, I usually try harder and that is not smart. Flesh is weak. Period. I may do a whole blog entry on weakness of the flesh.

TIMES OF REPENTANCE

Repentant fasts are common in the Bible. To be truly repentant means to feel so sorrowfully remorse that it hurts. Too many times we feel sorry for a sin but lack that deep remorse necessary to impact one’s life. Repentance causes so much pain that committing the same sin goes against sound judgment. When we hurt that badly, we should turn to Jesus for comfort. Fasting helps us focus on not only the repentance but also the healing that follows.

INCREASED RECEPTIVITY

When you are fasting and leaning on God, you find yourself able to listen to that still small voice better. As a fast continues, one gives up more and more control and trusts God more every day. I know, this does not make any sense and I would not have believed it either if it had not happened to me.

NO, NO and NO!

Fasting helps us deal with temptation in so many ways. First, you overcome that tempting candy bar. Then, you overcome the urge to sneak a little supper. But the lessons you learn from food can then be applied to bigger and more dominant temptations in your life. The thing is, God will help you through ALL of the temptations. But you must be willing to trust Him and really want to avoid the temptation.

GAIN HUMILITY

I have not experienced anything more humbling than a fast. The most obvious to me was the physical effect of a fast. I exercised throughout my previous fast as I found that it helped me build psychological, emotional and spiritual strength but I can tell you my physical strength plummeted, which I found humbling. Endurance, speed and strength vanished. I cannot emphasize enough to newbie fasters to expect some serious weakness, especially at the beginning.

There you have it. If you can spell “fasting” you can come up with reasons for those you encounter. I have also found it useful to set the end date, look at it, and then focus on each minute of each day. Lean on Him to get you to the end.

Be the Attitude

Mathias is my youngest child. He was born with Prader Willi Syndrome and he was born with a love of God that I cannot explain. He starts kindergarten in the fall and they want him to write his name and tie his shoes by then. These things may or may not happen, but this 5 year old can explain and understands salvation. He plays "church" like most kids play with trucks. Yesterday, he was curious about Adam and Eve. For those who do not know about Prader Willi Syndrome, Mathias is always hungry because the appetite control center in his brain has a "hard wiring" issue.  He does pretty well most days but sometimes he is overcome with hunger and obsesses on food. I told him that Adam and Eve lived in Eden and he misunderstood and thought they were "eating in" and immediately wondered what restaurant they went to way back then.

Last night, he wanted the Bible read to him at bedtime. He loves John the Baptist stories so I read out of Matthew. He was not going to sleep so we made it all the way to the Beatitudes, or Jesus' sermon on the Mount. He laid there and listened and I wondered what he thought of the "attitudes" that Christ taught.

Matthew 5 CEV
³ God blesses those people who depend only on him. They belong to the kingdom 
  of heaven!
⁴ God blesses those people
who grieve.
    They will find comfort!
⁵ God blesses those people
    who are humble.
The earth will belong
    to them!
⁶ God blesses those people
who want to obey him
    more than to eat or drink.
They will be given
what they want!

Wow. I have read this many times but reading it to Mathias put it all in perspective to me. In 3 short verses, Christ summarizes all my blog posts! These qualities are the very ones that I feel God has been laying on my heart for my own life.

Check out verse 6. THAT should be the reason we choose to fast. THAT reason alone because if we really seek to obey and follow Him, the rest of the stuff of life will get in line. 

I tell Denise all the time I have no idea what God has in store for Mathias, but that little boy is a kid after His heart. My boy fights giants everyday. It is 6:15AM here and soon I will hear the pitter thump of his feet and know he will want his breakfast and his coffee and I will do my best to help the little guy put on his armor to fight the giant hunger. Hunger here, is not a game, but a nasty enemy that wants to crush my baby boy. 

Mathias has a great heart and a great attitude. I feel like whooping up some giants.

What are some of the giants in your life that wreck your "attitude"? 

3 Reasons NOT to negotiate with God

Life is a humbling experience. Take this blog for example. I feel God is leading me to blog and express my intentions to be a real follower. On the first post, I laid it out there that I would be fasting a portion of the week. In reality, I have found myself saying, "OK, God. I will start tomorrow. Today I have ____ and, well I need to eat. please don't take offense, Great Creator of the Universe, but I have this one.". I didn't actually say THOSE words daily but pretty much actions are louder than words. Funny, me, the guy with the messed up life, telling God when the best time to really get started.

I have come up with 3 reasons why negotiating with God makes no sense at all. I plan on reading this aloud and to myself when I get the notion I am omnipotent.

1. Pride mucks up the water. Personal pride comes at a cost. It causes us to lose our humility and puts us in a position to become arrogant. We start expressing statements that lead with "I" and do not give the credit to God. I wonder of Dr. Phil would have asked Jonah, "How's that running from Ninevah working for you?" (I do wonder if it would have been more like, "How doest that worketh for thy well being?" to give it some KJV feel). Jonah thought he knew to avoid those nasty Ninevites  and his decision would work out best for him. God felt otherwise and just for Jonah, He added a bonus trip to the inside of a giant fish. We need to remember the simple verse in Proverbs (29:23)
                                       Too much pride brings disgrace humility leads to honor.

2. Rationalization often goes against God's will. This one comes up all the time. We feel God is leading us somewhere to do something special, but we go and get all rational about it. What about the kids-will the schools be any good? What about all of our stuff? The list goes on and on. One of my favorite authors Tim Ferriss has a quote about rationalization that I appreciate.
                Pure hell forces action, but anything less can be endured with enough rationalization

Action, or the act of following God's will may go against our better judgement. That is the beauty of relying on God to guide us opposed to what we can come with ourselves. Anyone ever felt the conviction of NOT following God's will? That feeling is pretty nasty.


3. Surrender to get freedom This really does not make sense. The old hymn says "I surrender all", not "I surrender just some of the stuff because I really like being in control". Not only does that not rhyme or fit any kind of musical meter, it minimizes the potential effect that can be exerted on your life. Hmm..should I do it (see 'screw up' and my picture pops up on Wiki) or should I let God direct me? No brainer, huh?


Negotiating with God makes no sense. We parents see the futility when our kids try and negotiate with us and I have never parted the Red Sea or raised people from the dead, so think of our futility and selfishness when we try to negotiate with Him.

Here we go

This is the plan that I intend on following. To me, it seems a bit daunting but isn't being a radical zealot all about being over the top? I figure that the experts who say it takes 21 days to create a habit did not understand my ability to procrastinate. So, in order to account for the John Factor, I am going to allow for 30 days.

My zealous efforts will tackle ALL of my issues at the same time. I am taking into account as many variables as I can and I have 7 distinct focal points. Funny how that works out to match days in a week, but God knows how I operate.

Sunday. Day of REST. No thinking about work. I will conduct no business at all and will devote my day to my family and maybe a nap.

Monday. I am calling this my "prep" day and it will be a day I focus on prayer, fasting and seeking God. I am hoping to get involved in a men's group at church as well.

Tuesday. Love Day. You know, Jesus also commanded for us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. When I listen to the self talk going on in my head, I am not too loving towards myself. So, I am falling short of loving others as well. This day will continue the prayer and fasting because I need all the supernatural blessing I can stand.

Wednesday. Soul Day. This begins the "Big 4" of soul, mind, heart and strength. Since Soul Day requires exploration with my Heavenly Father, I believe a day of fasting and prayer are in order.

Thursday. Heart Day. This day also takes into consideration the tongue (read James) and sadly, I have a sarcastic and bitter tongue and this area of life needs a whole lot of work. This will be the last day of the week that I fast, but prayer and lots of it are necessary for growth.

Friday. Mind Day. The week has been long, the candle is being consumed on both ends and my JOB week is complete. My business week has been plugging along and I know I will need a day in which I focus on my disposition, outlook and witness. And I eat today so that should help.

Saturday. Body and Strength Day. I chose Saturday for a reason. I plan on doing 5K runs in the near future, both as a way of measuring my efforts but also as a witnessing tool and opportunity. I plan on eating today as well as on my Sabbath.

That is the rundown of how I will approach my life with Zealous Intention. So, each topic gets a day of the week and each topic needs 30 days to sink in my big old hard head, so I am looking at the experiment lasting 30 weeks. Basically, I will be fasting Monday through Thursday. Fasting, for me, has significance and its purpose is to teach me humility, bring me closer to God's will and lean on Him during this time when I am discouraged by setbacks in my physical, personal and financial life. Also, by being totally dependent on Him, I can more enthusiastically follow his 2 commandments.