The End (for Chris)

Well, for anyone who’s interested… I did it. I made it 40 days. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it has left me feeling more accomplished than I ever have in my life. I learned a lot about what God has been doing in me in the last season, and I’m so thankful for His grace to help me endure.

I haven’t posted in forever because there wasn’t much to say. It was just, HARD. To anyone who is contemplating fasting for 40 days, I recommend it, but only if you know you are called to do it. Otherwise, you’ll just wind up disappointing yourself. But I can say, that every moment of it was worth it. It was worth it to truly learn that through Christ, I can do all things. Every temptation, every struggle was completely worthwhile to know that i was obedient to God, and He is pleased with me. Every time I smelled food and wanted so desperately just to taste it was all worthwhile to taste it in the end and know that I conquered my flesh. I won!

 

Spirit 1. Flesh 0. I win!

 

God is Good

All the time. Even when He isn’t doing what we think He should be doing! I love how God just messes up our plans and does things His way. This fast has been a perfect example of that: We pretty much expected it to go like a normal fast. Get past the three day hump, and have a couple rough days here and there, but otherwise just be enjoying a much greater connection to God. It seems as if God has other plans in mind, because we are paying a high price. But I believe it is worth it. I don’t know what is going to happen, if anything visible, but I know when this is all said and done it will have been worth it. 

God is calling us into something deeper. He’s giving us a hunger that dwarfs even our physical hunger (which right now is quite immense). The hard part is to not get discouraged, and just keep pressing in. If you’re reading this, please pray for us.

 

a bit crazy…

It is day 13 and I have been lousy at documenting this, but there really hasn’t been anything for me to write about. It is typically the same every day- hunger, tiredness, seclusion etc. Although my hunger has been diminishing over the past few days I am just choosing to ignore it. At this point I really don’t care if I am hungry I just want God to be my hunger. I can’t seem to get Jesus’ words out of my head, “Man cannot live on bread alone, but by every word of God.” Luke 4:4  I have a peace when I realize that this isn’t about me wanting to eat, but a deciding factor to live on each of God’s words.

So, then I began a quest today. What is every word of God? Sure it’s referring to scripture, but it’s also referring to the spoken word of God into us. I can only tell you that every day is different and every minute can change. BUT one thing remains the same the love. The one word that will never change in the heart of God that we must learn to live off of is love. His love beats for us as steady and consistent as our hearts. Every pump of our heart flows life into our mortal bodies, but every pump of God’s heart flows an eternal love that we can have now. This eternal love never fails. This love casts out fear, confusion, anxiety and impatience. So the word that I am feeding on today is love. I will eat up the love of God by acknowledging his goodness, faithfulness, and compassion today. God is love.

God, let your love pour down and shine down on us this day and every other. May we learn how to receive your goodness and joy at this present moment.
Amen

Dustin

 

Breakthrough…

We’re after it, but we don’t have it yet.

This thing has been REALLY hard. We’re on day 11, and I’m just as hungry this morning as I was on day 2. Here’s the thing though: I’m really excited, but I was so close to giving up last night, because I’m frankly a little frustrated. I don’t mind not having food, as long as I can have God, but over the past 11 days I felt like I’ve had neither. So as I’m lying on my bed contemplating whether this is even worth it last night, I breathed in through my nose and all of a sudden smelled a strong fragrance of flowers – no idea what kind though. I breathed again and it was gone. I thought I must have been imagining it until a couple minutes later I smelled it again for one breath, and then gone. This happened 2 or 3 more times as I laid there, and I just got the sense that we were getting really really close to breaking through – close enough to smell it! This wasn’t just an ordinary smell. It was the same thing I experienced at the Calvary Campground: An aroma that permeated your nostrils and throat, but wasn’t abrasive. It was so strong you could taste it, but it wasn’t irritating. It was heavenly!

Lord, let us endure this thing, even if it means being hungry every day for the next 29 days, we’re not giving up!

Chris

 

From the Mall

So I write this while sitting on a cooler a few feet from the stage of The Call DC ‘08. Things get rolling here in about 2 hours, and there’s not nearly as many people here yet as I would have expected.

This is the morning of the 9th day of our fast, and all 3 of us have been struggling pretty bad. We were hoping it would have gotten much easier by now, but our resolve is set and we’re going to see this thing through.

The Lord has really been speaking to me a lot about transition, and I believe that for me this fast marks the transition that I’ve been waiting for. I don’t know what that looks like, but I’m expecting some really great things from God over the next season of my life.

 

Pressing On and Pressing In

This morning is pretty tough. It started out pretty well with a good time of prayer at church, but afterwards I was completely drained and dead tired. Even a nap in the car didn’t help. Oh well though, this is worth it. Pressing in to God is always worth it. 

I had some good times with the Lord yesterday when I was able to sense His presence very strongly, sometimes to the point of being overwhelming. Looking forward to that increasing!

Chris

 

Headaches all around

I’m glad to be wrapping up this day as well… I spent the morning doing some work at church, which left me pretty drained. A 2 hour nap this afternoon helped out quite a bit, but I spent most of the day feeling pretty lightheaded and exhausted. I hung out with my brother, who is fasting (and hopefully blogging) with us, this afternoon and evening and we had to ride in a car with our younger brother while he was eating a sandwich and fries from Chik-Fil-A. Talk about torture, the smell was just heavenly. I also developed a headache this evening, but it doesn’t sound like it was anything close to yours Dustin.

I’ve been finding myself getting ‘bored’ rather easily, because I’m fasting from entertainment in addition to food so I can really focus in on my walk with the Lord. So this evening I was laying down just asking God to draw near and bring me into a closer relationship & friendship with Him and fill me up more and more with the Holy Spirit. As I did I began to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit and a peace just came over me. My headache went away, as did my hunger for quite a while. As I laid there just basking in His presence, both of my hands began to burn with an intense heat. I asked the Lord what it was, but didn’t get a clear answer. It wasn’t just in my head though, it was happening in both hands simultaneously.

—
Chris

 

The Best Part of Waking Up…

You thought I was gonna say something about Folgers, right?

So I awoke today to the lovely aroma of bacon & eggs wafting through the bedroom. My wife then realized how cruel that was and furiously lit every candle in the house, but it was too late. The cat was out of the bag!

Actually though it didn’t bother me too much. I wasn’t very hungry upon waking up this morning. Today is going to be a good day!

 

One day down…

Well today was quite a revelation…and not in a good way. Today felt like day three of the fast. Normally I become irritable and impatient on day three not day one. Today was absolutely frustrating. hah Everything was getting on my nerves, but I was patient at the same time. 

The morning started off where I was protected from an accident that could have been really bad. Two cars t-boned and I could have been right in it. Thank God for His angels that were watching over me. Maybe I will get to see them during this fast? hmmm 

After my semi-close call with an accident I went to work. It was quite a frustrating day for numerous reasons, but I’ll just pass on by with those events. During lunch I went to the DMV to get my drivers license renewed because it expired yesterday, my birthday.

Side Note****If there was one thing that I hate in the world it is the DMV. I have such a passionate hatred that it rivals that of Satan. HAH I REALLY REALLY REALLY HATE THE DMV! 

Ok, back to the story. As I was standing in line behind 10 people who were annoying not because of anything they had done, but because I just thought they were annoying. The guy in front of me turned around and looked at me not once, not twice or even three times, but five times! I wanted to just punch him in the face. Ok, by this point your thinking, “Jeez this guy needs Jesus and this fast!” Your absolutely right. I’m not normally so easily irritated, but today sucked. The revelation that I mentioned in the beginning was that of my true self. 

The problem with what happened besides the obvious is that those things that I was experiencing were in me already. The people (AND THE DMV!! CURSE YOU DMV!!!) simply brought it out of me. I was sad because that stuff was in me, but at the same time I’m thankful that it came out. I don’t want to be like that. For everyone who knows me probably would say that I’m not like that at all, but I guess this is just part of God’s refining process. I seriously don’t experience things like that, but I think I’m just being bombarded with attacks by the enemy. He has tried to discourage me all day telling me that I’m not worthy to do this fast, or to seek God in the ways that I am. I am going to hold his face up to the DMV and destroy them both! Ok, not really, but I will get the enemy back. 

Trust me that I have already asked for forgiveness for my flesh rising up like it did, but I know that God let it happen to show me who I am apart from Him. Needless to say I don’t like who I am apart from Him. I love who I am in Christ and I love who I am becoming. I am seeing how incredibly loved I am, and how incredible God’s love for people is.

Sorry for my honesty, but that’s what this is about! heh I’m going to love people….and I guess the DMV. GRRRR

 

Dustin

 

And we’re off…

Well, its finally here. I’m excited, like really excited. As I got up this morning and began to think about the fact that I won’t be eating again for over a month, the Lord dropped a thought on me: Rather than thinking about not eating, etc, I need to really concentrate on dwelling on Jesus. Simple, but profound. This isn’t about not eating. This is about being consumed by Jesus, and feeding nothing by my spirit. 

On a more practical note, at Dustin’s suggestion I’m allowing myself a couple of glasses of chocolate milk today only to ease the hunger pangs, then for the next few days I’m going to allow myself some pure juices, then finally cut back to water only. I’m really glad we’re starting this on a Friday, so that we have this weekend to really get past the hard days.