Day 1
It's Day 1 of my forty days of prayer and fasting. I always hesitate to share these kinds of thoughts because I believe you can "lose the blessing" when what you do becomes "public information." I believe our purest deeds are those done in secret. But I also feel like I want others to learn what I learn through this process.
There is nothing "special" or "sacred" or "spiritual" about starting forty days of prayer and fasting @ 7:14 AM on 7/14, but it is a helpful milestone for me. I've found that I need goals and markers and milestones to help me remember the vows I've made. Just as I need physical challenges (running a half-marathon for example) I need spiritual challenges. That is the way I'm wired.
So I've decided to fast soda for forty days (if you knew how addicted I was to vanilla coke and cherry coke you'd know what a sacrifice this is). I always feel like "giving something up" helps me stay cognizant of what I'm doing.
I'm also going to read the entire Old Testament in the next forty days. I feel impressed that the forty days aren't about God hearing my voice, as much as, it is about me hearing God's voice. I want to dream His dreams and think His thoughts. I want His desires to be my desires.
I'm convinced that the deepest level of transformation isn't behavioral or intellectual or attitudinal or emotional. The deepest level of transformation is motivational--it is a transformation of my desires so that I want what God wants. That process doesn't happen overnight.
There are certain passages of Scripture that become "gravitational fields"--they magnetize you and pull you in so that you cannot escape the truth. Psalm 37:4 is one of them for me. "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." I think this is square one or ground zero. And the way that happens is by allowing the word to wash us (Ephesians 5:26) and humble us (Deuteronomy 17:20). The word is what reveals our desires. Hebrews 4:12 says, "It is sharper than the sharpest knife, cutting deep into our innermost thoughts and desires. It exposes us for what we really are."
So here we go. I'm not sure where I'll end up forty days from now, but I get tired of thinking the same old thoughts or saying the same old things. I'm tired of old manna. I want God to take me where I've never been before. I want to spend less and less energy on the things of the flesh and more and more energy on the things of God.
This forty days of prayer and fasting is not an end in and of itself. It is a means to an end. It is about becoming so filled with God that He naturally overflows from my life and impacts the people around me without me even trying to do it. I honestly think most of my ministry has been "ministering from emptiness." I want to "minister from fullness." Jesus said, "Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks."
There is nothing "special" or "sacred" or "spiritual" about starting forty days of prayer and fasting @ 7:14 AM on 7/14, but it is a helpful milestone for me. I've found that I need goals and markers and milestones to help me remember the vows I've made. Just as I need physical challenges (running a half-marathon for example) I need spiritual challenges. That is the way I'm wired.
So I've decided to fast soda for forty days (if you knew how addicted I was to vanilla coke and cherry coke you'd know what a sacrifice this is). I always feel like "giving something up" helps me stay cognizant of what I'm doing.
I'm also going to read the entire Old Testament in the next forty days. I feel impressed that the forty days aren't about God hearing my voice, as much as, it is about me hearing God's voice. I want to dream His dreams and think His thoughts. I want His desires to be my desires.
I'm convinced that the deepest level of transformation isn't behavioral or intellectual or attitudinal or emotional. The deepest level of transformation is motivational--it is a transformation of my desires so that I want what God wants. That process doesn't happen overnight.
There are certain passages of Scripture that become "gravitational fields"--they magnetize you and pull you in so that you cannot escape the truth. Psalm 37:4 is one of them for me. "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." I think this is square one or ground zero. And the way that happens is by allowing the word to wash us (Ephesians 5:26) and humble us (Deuteronomy 17:20). The word is what reveals our desires. Hebrews 4:12 says, "It is sharper than the sharpest knife, cutting deep into our innermost thoughts and desires. It exposes us for what we really are."
So here we go. I'm not sure where I'll end up forty days from now, but I get tired of thinking the same old thoughts or saying the same old things. I'm tired of old manna. I want God to take me where I've never been before. I want to spend less and less energy on the things of the flesh and more and more energy on the things of God.
This forty days of prayer and fasting is not an end in and of itself. It is a means to an end. It is about becoming so filled with God that He naturally overflows from my life and impacts the people around me without me even trying to do it. I honestly think most of my ministry has been "ministering from emptiness." I want to "minister from fullness." Jesus said, "Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks."
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