Fasting

If a doctor came in he would say “you people are out of your minds!!!”

John 15:18-27

Fasting- “when a pillow and a sandwich lose their significance and
foothold”

                For
a whole week I felt like our whole group of about 30 missionaries had just
gotten comfortable in where we were and became complacent, which in turn caused
many of us (including me) to just be loose with what we said to each other and
more and more people were getting their feelings hurt. A leader asked me to do
worship while they were gone one night and I told everyone the way I felt about
the week and that I was not willing or able to stay in the same place or
continue down this road and that we needed to do something about it. In saying
this we had a time of worship, yelling, confession, repentance,  and prayer, the body of Christ in action!!

A leader overheard how we felt and
the leaders prayed and prayed for about 8 hours and they came back to tell us
that they were totally thrown off because our group continually causes them to
not live by a schedule they had previously set and that we are really being led
by the spirit. The next thing they had to teach us was about simplicity and
instead of having talks about it we had expressed that we would rather live it
out at this point.

 

So Monday many people started
fasting from everything but water, and devoting relentless time to the bible
and prayer. Monday night the leaders told us that on top of everything else
that we were going to do along with teachings and such that we would just look through
the bible and “do what Jesus did”. So they found that several places throughout
the bible Moses, Abraham, and Jesus “got up to pray while it was yet still
dark” and that’s what we would be doing. Monday-Friday we went to bed around 11
and took 1 hour shifts to wake up and pray/worship or whatever ( my shift was
at 2a.m.). We would wake up at 5 a.m. to go to an unknown spot for a time of
solitude and reading the bible, then get together and pray as to what we would
do to walk like Jesus walked throughout the day. We went into communities and
prayed talked and played with people. (in mexico the language barrier and how
God moved through languages alone was AMAZING, but another story) We walked
around praying for God to lead us to people and my team of 6 was led to two men
who we would share lunch with and this was the second day in a row that God led
people to these two cousins out of work to buy them lunch, they were blown
away…

Just short of all the stories that
where accumulated throughout this week, it was honestly really hard and I was
very hungry… But I have never been more satisfied with no food in my stomach
and seen God move in some of these ways before.

As one of my teammates said fasting
in this way “is like amplified learning time”.

To anybody reading this I would
encourage you to evaluate where you’re at and to challenge yourself to search
scripture and live a day, a week, a month, “doing what Jesus did” it will knock
you on your knees. Just follow the spirit.