There’s been a lot written about fasting. The most reliable source, of course, is the Bible. Jesus even fasted. In fact, He often sought to be alone in the wilderness to pray and be with His Heavenly Father. During these times He was often fasting from sleep and sometimes food. We can even fast today.
Recently, at a leadership conference, God placed on my heart the call to organize a group of men to gather once a quarter on a Saturday to go out into a nearby wilderness to pray and fast for a day. Nineteen were invited, but only four of us could actually do it.
So a few Saturdays ago, the last time ESPN College Game Day was in Eugene (guess what I fasted from?), we headed off into a beautiful wilderness area in the Willamette Valley. Just four guys, none of us with any special accolades or major national awards, just four guys desperate for God, stomping down paths into the wilderness to seek a deeper sense of His presence in our lives.
Not surprisingly, God showed up. Each of us had an encounter with Him. What’s funny is He didn’t call any us to step into some big movement or give us any massive idea for outreach. Instead, God encouraged each of us to shed the distractions of our lives and culture to more fully pursue Him. I was specifically shown that through these several months of trials, I’d become prone to kind of “checking out.” Just relaxing a little after dinner was my excuse, but God showed me that I was really sliding into neutral, disengaging from life and family, shutting down my mind and heart. Perhaps I felt I just couldn’t take any more so my protection was to just withdraw for a while. Have you ever felt that way? What do you do? Do you need to shed a little clutter out of your life too?
God reiterated on my journey down that Path of Fast to keep shedding the distractions of life. He encouraged me to have the courage to continue the inventory of my life that started in the ER after my accident. Clear out the clutter and lighten the load of the useless stuff and junk in my life was the encapsulation of His message to me.
Accomplishing this isn’t some mystical ceremony with flickering candles and fog; instead, it’s really a phone call to Comcast to pull the plug. It’s cleaning out my iTunes of old secular songs that crept back in. It’s ceasing the comparison of my stuff with someone else’s. It’s cleaning out the cabinets in the house and in my mind. It’s not caring how big my house is or how cool my car is how exotic my vacation. Dross was weighing me down and cooling relationships with both Jesus and my family. And on that forest path at the foot of the Coast Range God showed me now was the time to initiate the clearing out, for if not now—then when? Without the intention to start, it would never get done. And for me to truly give my best to God, I had to remove the cultural clutter clouding my spiritual vision.
So the cleanup has begun. And, yes, I’ve lost weight, quite a bit, actually. Oh, not in pounds, but definitely weight off my shoulders and out my life. I don’t need to compete or compare myself with anyone, I’m here to please Him, God; not my neighbor, not my colleague, not anyone—only God. Once the clutter is clear, then the Holy Spirit can run freely in my soul, and I will be at my top spiritual condition once the barriers of clutter and of distraction are removed.
So, yes, it’s good to slow down and fast now and then regardless of how vibrant or dormant your walk with the Lord may be. As we earnestly and intentionally seek God, He will honor that by impressing His presence deeper into our souls.
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