Fasting

Wow! Busy and fun weekend with a few college friends in town. Courtney stayed with me (my former BU roommate who now lives in D.C.). She was so excited to be in Waco amidst the Baylor spirit (1st home game and Parents Weekend at BU, so the green and gold was "flung afar" as our alma mater that no one knows the words to says!).

We went to the bookstore and I bought a shirt for the game, a long sleeve alumni shirt, and a decal that says "Baylor Alumni." Been meaning to get a decal for a while now. I'm actually really surprised that the Call Center has not hit me up for $$ yet. I don't feel I owe Baylor anything right now since I've got student loans to pay. I did have to pay $35 for a ticket. There, I contributed. The game was fun, had 2 groups of friends there and kind of flitted between them. We lost to UCONN. Boo.

So our Elevate readings right now are Leviticus and Numbers and a book called "God's Chosen Fast" by Arthur Wallis. I just read the first 49 pages of this book tonight. It's pretty basic so far, but hopefully I will learn some things about the physical and spiritual aspect of fasting.

There were many types of fasting in the Bible. The longest was Moses' 40 day fast when he was given the 10 Commandments, then he came down from the mountain for a day and saw the ppl were worshipping idols and went right back up to be with the Lord and fasted another 40 days. We are talking NO FOOD and NO WATER. Yikes, an absolute fast. All I can say is, God must have supernaturally equipped his body...I mean he WAS meeting face-to-face with the Lord Almighty. I love that scripture says the Lord spoke with Moses clearly and not in riddles. Sometimes after he was done meeting with God, Moses had to wear a veil over his face b/c he was too bright for the Israelites' eyes to behold!

Moses was a humble dude. In fact, he was "more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth." Wow, yet the Israelites wanted to stone him, choose another leader, and not listen to the words of the Lord even though they had every reason to fear God seeing how he didn't always hold back his wrath from them for their rejection of His authority.

One good thing Wallis has noted thus far is that there's a new generation arising that wants the apostolic power back in the church. His point was, "But how can we recover apostolic power while neglecting apostolic practice?" (in reference to the practice of fasting). Come on folks, fasting kind of seems like a way of antiquity to today's society, even today's church. Truthfully, it kind of scares me, especially the effects of long fasts.

Matthew 6 reflects Jesus' expectation that his followers would fast...he says WHEN you give alms, WHEN you pray, WHEN you fast.

Oh the Pharisees had it down in practice. But they flaunted it, and had false motives.

Of course, historically, there have been different reasons for fasting. Sometimes when a nation was in great turmoil, or other times in mourning, or other times to seek understanding about a vision or clarity about some pressing dilemma, etc.

Anyway, I hope to learn more about fasting b/c I'll be honest, I don't like it. I usually fast on Mondays and my work friends that I eat with know it, but they kinda think it's weird. Not that they chastise me about it, but they do have questions that I don't always have great answers to and it can quickly become an uncomfortable subject. Just wait until I have to explain my week long one! eeks. The most I've done so far was 3 days with just juice and water.

And as far as Leviticus and Numbers...well they are challenging as far as extracting a message that would appear to be relevant to my life...but I am hoping the Lord changes that. God says it's useful:

"And from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." (2 Tim 3:15-17)

Gotta have that down by tomorrow!! Ok goodnight for now. I need to finish up my reading and get to bed!