Sometimes I look for answers in the powerful rushing wild rivers, when it actually lies in a small gentle stream barely tumbling over the rocks in a hidden little cove. Recently I have been in a phase that involved extended fasting on my quest to get my health back & reclaim my life. This was the first time in many many years that I had even attempted a fast of more than a few days and to be honest after a couple weeks I began to whine to the Lord. I felt deprived at times, hopeful at times, but overall I just wanted to eat something! I realized that my flesh is very strong about what it wants! To deny the flesh… Whew not that easy of a thing for me. I would occasionally get frustrated with myself at how much of a struggle I felt through especially the last couple weeks of the fast. Funny because the whole time, though I prayed and told the Lord it was as much a spiritual fast as a fast for my health… I felt like it was pretty much about “me”.
However, it was at the times where I was the most frustrated and deplete that I would cry out to God in frustration. In those moments it was like the red sea parting… All the “stuff” simply parted and I was left with the most humbled me crying out to HIM, completely vulnerable with realization that within myself alone there was not a whole lot I actually could control in my life anyway! In those moments it was no longer about “me”. In those moments it was about HIM and about the people I felt led to pray for, to lay at His feet. It is hard to explain what happened in the final period… The toughest period in the flesh… But somehow in that time of struggle and vulnerability and frustration I would come to that end of “me” and end up somehow headlong in HIS presence, without my even being conscience of it, HE was doing things, changing lives, changing me, changing others… All of a sudden I began to see some break-throughs happening. It stunned me. Things I had prayed for, for quite some time and all of a sudden different people were reporting break-throughs. I was and am astounded at God’s love and care for those HE loves. Here I was crying out in my struggles and only in getting to the point of forgetting myself and lost in just crying out to HIM did things truly begin to happen. And that is when I “got it”. THAT is what fasting is supposed to be about… About coming to the end of you, only then can GOD really take HIS most powerful place without human interference!
I have the movie “Seabiscuit” on right now. I almost turned it off a couple of times in the first hour or so. It was slow moving and I guess I was looking for more immediate gratification. But something said keep watching… It has become an experience this movie. It is an awesome thing to see people arise from hurt and pain and even in inability to be all we should be, to come to a place that without even realizing it, we shine in our most humbling moment(s). The movie is about triumph for the humble, the common, the unlikely winner. In a way I think that is what GOD is about. HE is about breathing life into the foolish things (like me…) and using this old clay pot even when there are beautifully glazed vessels HE could choose to use instead. Isn’t that amazing… It boggles my mind. I don’t have to be the perfect expensive vessel to be used by the King of Kings. He is the not only the King of Kings but also the King of Hearts. The King of my heart who has chosen to use a humble, misshapen clay vessel. I am overwhelmed with gratitude for this God whom not only do I love but the mysteries of all mysteries… HE loves me. Can you imagine such a thing? HE loves me… Wow… HE loves you as well… Take it in because therein is the source of life and hope and love… HE is amazing this God of love…
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