True Fasting

Many churches begin the new year with a period of fasting... at least, ours does. It's a great concept, but the problem is sometimes two-fold: one, we don't really understand what fasting is, and, two, we limit it to a couple weeks a year.

Several years ago, I was reading through the book of Isaiah (which is one of my favorite books, by the way!) and came across this passage regarding fasting:

Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?
"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Isaiah 58:5-8

Sometimes we, and myself included, think that fasting means just giving up something for a day or a week, or maybe even three. It means going about our normal life with the absence of whatever it is we chose to fast—food, television, dining out, video games, soft drinks, etc. The point is to eliminate something that has a strong hold over you day by day. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Most of do watch too much t.v., play too many video games, spend too much money going out to eat, or find ourselves addicted to caffeine. Eliminating or reducing the influence of those things in our lives is a great cause, but what do we fill their void with, instead?

Sadly, I must admit that, here on week 2 of my 3 week fast, I have spent very little time filling my fasting void with God.

Fasting is meant to be a time of self-denial, of humility and repentance for sin. The purpose of eliminating what has the strongest hold over us is to clear the way for our mind, body, and soul to join in uninterrupted attention to God. Fasting is meant to be a two-part action: giving up our flesh and then giving in to God.

The Israelites in Isaiah’s time were having a hard time with this concept, too.

‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
    ‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
    and you have not noticed?’
“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
    and exploit all your workers.
Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
    and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
    and expect your voice to be heard on high.
Isaiah 58:3-4

Now, true, most of us aren’t involved in fasting-induced brawls, but the point is still the same: you may fast in your flesh, but is your spirit unchanged? The Israelites fasting was only skin deep. They were willing to give up the physical for a little while, but they weren’t willing to surrender the rest. And then, they wondered why their quickly uttered prayers remained unanswered.

God then asks a very poignant question: “Is this the kind of fast I have chosen?” Is it the kind of fasting we see Jesus participating in in the desert? Did He just lie around all day, complaining of how badly He wanted a coke, wondering what was happening on His favorite shows, or making a list of all the restaurants He was going to hit up after His fasting was over?  No. He spent His days communing with His Father, praying, and refreshing His soul. His fasting was an outward expression of His inward renewal.

God tells us in this passage what fasting is to Him. It is an everyday action of seeing God’s will accomplished in the earth, of providing for those in need, of defending the helpless, of showing love to the broken hearted, and leading our families to follow after Him. It is the embodiment of the righteous in Matthew 25:34-40:

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

So, I encourage both of us, if you are going to fast, do it right! Give up your Pepsi and your life! Take the money you're saving not dining out and use it feed the hungry instead. Spend the time you'd normally be watching T.V. reading your Bible or serving others. And, when the fasting period is over, don't leave it all to do again next year. Make it an everyday part of your life, and an expression of the goodness and love of God at work within you.

Anger and Bitterness: Post 1

            Anger is a natural part of our human existence. We’re angered when things don’t go our way or when we feel we’ve been treated unfairly. We’re frustrated when we strive to achieve a goal that seems just out of our reach. Women who live through infertility and miscarriage walk through a cycle of emotions, but probably the most powerful is anger.
            When it began to be apparent that conception was not going to be an easily achieved goal, I began looking for someone to blame. Sometimes it was me, sometimes it was my husband, but most frequently, it was God. As with most problems in life, it is easier to be angry at their existence than to do what’s necessary to address them. There were times I remember sitting on the bed, rocking back and forth, burning tears streaming down my face, screaming: “I hate myself.” And I did. I hated this body, this feeble, dysfunctional body I was inhabiting. I was angry at my inability to control my own circumstances. I was angry at myself for wanting a child in the first place.
            Sometimes it was my husband that felt the brunt of my anger. If he could just be a better sexual partner, perhaps our chances of conception would be greater. It seemed to me sometimes that he just didn’t share the same desires as I did; that having a child wasn’t that important to him. And I was angry that he didn’t seem to be suffering as much as I was.
            Most of the anger I felt was directed at God. I had good reason, I thought. He was the one who created me. He was the one who gave me the desire to be a mother. He was the only one who could do anything about my situation, and He seemed to be sitting on His hands. This anger intensified after my second miscarriage. The day I found out that the pregnancy was failing, I attended a prayer meeting service at our church. Many  men and women of God were there—people who were known as effective prayer warriors—and they prayed over me and my child, imploring God to intervene and calling forth life within the tiny embryo that was struggling within me. I left in full confidence that I was about to witness a miracle.
            But days later, I left the OBGYN’s office in a flood of confusion, and anguish. My pregnancy, the one I had waited so many years for, was over. There was not even a trace of the tiny mass of life that had so quickly sprung into existence and faded away.
            I had been betrayed. My anger burned so hot that I could feel it’s warmth rising up into my face and expressing itself in my tears. I had trusted God for a miracle and none had come. We wrestled with one another for days. I knew in the midst of it He was trying to speak to my heart but my ears were closed. What could He possibly say that could atone for this breach of trust between us?
             It is important that I mention one thing: I tell this story as it was. It is tempting to sugarcoat it, to gloss over the uglier parts of my bitterness towards my Creator, but that wouldn’t do you or I any good. I do not condone my attitude during this time, but I also know that many of you reading this have wrestled with theses same thoughts and feelings. They are situations we hesitate to mention in our Christian circles because we are afraid of how we will be perceived, so we go about pretending that we don’t fight them until one day they consume us. The truth is that we are reactive creatures who too often find ourselves in a volatile situation. The head knows that God is good, but the heart is easily affected.
                        "Is God's comfort too little for you? Is his gentle word not enough? What has taken away your reason? What has weakened your vision, that you turn against God and say all these evil things?”                                                                                                     Job 15:11-13

Timing

When you’re trying to conceive, timing is an ugly word.

Well, maybe not at first, but by the time you are diagnosed “infertile”, it’s a word that signifies your consistently failed efforts. We obsess about it, we fret about, we read about it, we second-guess about it; we just can’t stop thinking about it. Time passes us by as we wait for the right time.

Timing is all about plans and schedules. For us, it’s all about waiting for that perfect 48 hour window in which we can reach again for the desire of our heart.

But the thing about time is, while we always seem to think it’s under our control, it never truly is. Time belongs to God. He created it; He perpetuates it; He planned out every moment of it; He’s unbounded by it. Time can’t be mastered or controlled or bottled up. It can’t be bent to our own will, or made to conform to our plans. It trudges on, with us or without us, as it has since the first moment of its existence.

As humans, we live our lives subjected to time, and those of us struggling against infertility feel it slipping through our fingers with each failed attempt. We begin to wonder, then, why God’s timing doesn’t seem to match our own. “How much longer, Lord, until you fulfill my longing? When will I realize the desire of my heart? Why don’t You, the Master of time, make it mine?” Month after month, the questions erode away our patience and hope until we are left with bitterness and despair as our only companions.

As a Christian, we believe that God has a plan for every moment of our short time on earth; but when His plans and our plans don’t seem to coincide, we can’t help but feel that He’s refused to answer our most pressing request. We grow impatient and we grow weary. We grow angry, and we refuse to listen to that still, small voice that’s whispering, “just wait”.

God always fulfills the desire of our hearts, but sometimes it’s not in the way we think it should be. I've never given birth to a child, but I have three beautiful children in my home who bring joy to my heart each time they call me Mommy. They didn’t come to me in the way I had planned for them to, but they came nonetheless. God didn’t use my timing, but His own. He’s really good at changing our best-laid plans into something better than we ever imagined.

God promised in Psalm 37:4 to give us the desires of our heart. I made sure I reminded Him of that frequently while we were trying to conceive. “You promised, Lord” I would say, “And you are not a man that you should lie, so You have to keep Your promise.” To me, that meant a pregnancy and a healthy baby, but God saw something deeper in my heart, something not even I could yet recognize. He saw the true desire of my heart—a desire I didn’t even know existed.

That’s not to say that my heart didn’t long to be a mother. Most certainly it did, and that longing was God-ordained. The confusion came in, not because what I wanted was wrong, but because I was looking to the fulfillment of that desire as the ultimate source of my joy and purpose. Having a child was A desire of my heart, but it wasn’t THE desire.

Today, I realize that the deepest desire of my heart is to serve God in the way he created me to. As weird as it might sound to say, I am beginning to be grateful to Him for my infertility because of all that it has opened up to me, not only in my own life, but in the life of others who are hurting. My infertility brought me to a deeper relationship with God than I think I would have had if I had been fertile. I don't think God created me to be infertile, but, in knowing the limitations this sin-infested world would place on my body, he lovingly crafted a plan for my life around it, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

His timing is perfect.