I’m not going to lie. I don’t like to fast. Part of me hates it. It is hard. Fasting is one of the hardest things I have ever done in my entire life. It is strenuous and tiring and sometimes I feel like I am going to go out of my mind with emptiness and hyperactivity. People who have never fasted don’t know what it is like. Food is God’s Prozac. I am naturally hyperactive to start with. When I don’t eat I can’t calm myself and I can’t focus.
For the record this fast has nothing to do with Lent or with Easter. I don’t follow those rituals. I don't esteem one day higher than another. The kind of long term fasting that I do is such a sacrifice for me that just fasting for the sake of Lent is a foreign concept.
Yet I know that God is calling me higher and for that reason I have learned to love it. Not love it in the same way that one loves a baby, or a puppy, or an ice cream cone. But to love it with the knowledge that in it there is something that is so secret from man and so open with God…. so tenderly precious toward my Jesus and so rock hard solid against the powers and principalities of the air.
I have been so misjudged in the past, and it hurt me so much. So much that at one time I thought I might die from the pain that just wouldn’t leave my heart no matter how I prayed and how I forgave. I never searched my soul so completely before or examined my own mind and motivations so thoroughly. It was a trying time that I never want to go through again. I will, mind you, if I have to, but I don’t want to.
The forgiveness is complete now. I know that it is. I know that if the ones that have wronged me came to my door I would welcome them, I would feed them, and I would love them. God has given me such a love, so deep down in my heart, that if they just came to me, even without a word, I would hug them, and I would kiss them with a holy kiss, and I would welcome them into my life. I would not allow them to abuse me again, the same way a wise woman would not allow an abusive husband to hurt her again even though she has forgiven him, but I would love them. I know I would, because I do. I do right now.
I know that they are not my enemy. They never were, even when I thought they were. They were the tool that Satan used to hurt me, and they were the answer to the prayer of my soul that God would allow me to grow up and show me how much He loves me. Had they not abandoned me, and slandered me, and left me outcast and emotionally bleeding, I would never have found His Spirit calling unto my spirit. His deep calling unto my deep. Never. I would forever have leaned on them. Not Him. Maybe others can learn these lessons a different way. I believe He knew this was the only way for me.
People are such fools. They sing these simplistic songs in church. They sing, “Make me like Jesus. Give me Jesus hands. Give me Jesus feet. Let me walk where Jesus walked.” What fools. Don’t they KNOW what they are saying? Oh my God! Don’t they understand what they are requesting? You better count the cost first baby! This is not a game and God means business. If He let His own SON go to the cross, do you think He will demand anything less from you? Not a literal cross maybe, but ask our brother Peter whether God may ask that of you. They hung him upside down!
We wonderful church going folk sit in our padded pews, with our nicety nice program, and our Sunday clothes on and we sing in these lilting, happy, sing songing voices. Oh, don’t get too excited Connie, don’t jump around too much. You might wreck your make up. You might start crying and your eyes will get red and puffy and your face will get splotchy. Wouldn’t THAT just be the WORST!? Wouldn’t it just be SO horrible to get SO full of the Holy Spirit that you lose control of your tear ducts? Heavens, what an embarrassment! Gee, you might make a complete FOOL out of yourself in front of all these respectable people. All these well-dressed country clubbers who are all dressed up with nowhere to go.
Where ARE we going? What ARE we doing? What kind of Christianity is this anyway? It doesn’t resemble ANY kind I ever read about in the Bible! Don’t worry my friends, I can be WAAAAAY more undignified than THIS!!
OH MY GOD! Jesus went through HELL! Have we forgotten that? Are we really so ignorant that we don’t realize that to grow up in Him….to TRULY walk, and talk and use our hands like Jesus did, we too are going to GO THROUGH HELL! His hands and feet had NAILS in them, have we already forgotten that?
We Christians have the NERVE to talk about Christ and His sufferings while we sit in our lazy boys and our brothers in China are on a cement floor at the bottom of a jail cell. Do you really think that guy in Afghanistan is the only Christian being persecuted for his faith? NO WAY! He is just the only one that made it onto TV!
The Body of Christ is being persecuted all over the world and we Christian Americans are watching American Idol and getting upset because our favorite got booted off this week. Has it occurred to anyone that the name of this favorite American pastime has the word IDOL in it?
Our brothers, our very own brothers are laying on the floor, right now, right this very minute, praying that God will just take them from their earthly shells and let them come to be where He is, and we are worried about what we are going to eat for breakfast tomorrow. Gee, will I have Cheerios or Froot Loops? Who CARES! They are existing on bread and water, when the guards actually feel like giving it to them, and we are planning the next spaghetti supper for a bunch of obese, slovenly, tired out, depressed and complaining so-called Christians.
I am on a mission. I am on a mission from God. I don’t know where I am going…I don’t know what I am going to do…I don’t even know exactly what I have been called to. All I know is I have been called. Called to pray, called to worship, called to intercede. For what I’m not sure yet. I will leave that with the Lord for now. But, take my word for it, I will know. I will. My goal is to know Him. To know Him only. To know Him in Spirit and in truth.
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