Originally published February 8, 2009

My mind is racing at about a billion miles an hour right now, so bear with me as I sift through this stimulus overload.

The Bible is filled with stories where people of faith have fasted during trials in an effort to become closer to God. Jesus went into the desert to fast and grow closer to his Dad up in Heaven and to prepare for his ministry (Matthew 4). During the Babylonian captivity, Daniel fasted by only eating certain vegetation and praying fervently for his people (Daniel 1, 10). King David fasted in repentance after his son, born out of David’s adultery with Bathsheba, fell ill as a punishment for his sins. God called David a man after His own heart. Moses and Elijah also fasted, as did Paul, and many, many others.

For each of them, there was a reason. I have, for the past few months, been struggling with my relationship with my Heavenly Father, my ABBA. I’ve felt left outside looking in. I have been living in a pool of envy for my dear friends, who each love the Father and serve Him with their lives.

I’ve also been feeling resentful for my constant state of being single. I have felt alone. I have felt abandoned. I felt bitter because I was being denied the joy of loving, compassionate relationship.

How emo of me, right?

I recently read Starving Jesus, by Craig Gross and J.R. Mahon (of http://www.XXXchurch.com) and felt a stirring in my heart to fast.

I looked at the calendar and saw that February was only two days away. With March 1 being my birthday I felt that I would hand Elohim my guts for 28 days, the entire month. In exchange, He would show me where to go, how to get there, what to do there, and who I would spend my life with. He might also shrink down my appetite, and my stomach, just a little bit.

Yeah, I had the whole thing figured out.

I’ll be honest, the days on the fast sucked. Not because of hunger; I never really felt the hunger. Not even because of being sick, and weak – even though that sucked pretty badly too. What sucked was I knew in my mind that I was so desperate for His attention that I had to resort to this. That upset me. How could God leave me out in the cold?

What I failed to realize, was that He never ignored me. He never left me. He never turned away from me. I have been fighting for my own independence. I want the Word AND the world. You can’t have both. Immanuel, God with us, is the perfect name for Him.

But I left Him out in the cold. I put Him aside to figure out how I could be most useful to Him. I spent every waking moment, and many moments I should have spent sleeping, agonizing over how I could use my future and potential as a servant to a Master.

I wasn’t on a fast. I was on a hunger strike. I wasn’t going to eat until God gave me EXACTLY what I wanted. I put Him on my time frame – 28 days. I expected results. I expected for God to make me into a different person, a more efficient servant. I had fallen into the trap of works and the idolatry of worshipping my labor on Earth, totally neglecting the gifts laid before me here in the present.

Gifts in the present…

I found out that there are three different ways you can live life:
You can bury yourself in the past.
You can always be staring into the future.
You can enjoy the gifts of the present.

Living in the past gets you nowhere but dead. It is unhealthy to only remember what once was. Likewise, living for the future denies you the gifts of things you are currently experiencing. To live in communion with Father Time requires you to stop, and enjoy the gifts of the present. Cherish each moment you spend.

I learned that this week. It rocked my world.

You know what else I learned? I learned it doesn’t matter who I am, or what I do. God doesn’t care about how quickly I can spread the Gospel. He doesn’t care about how many languages I can share my faith in. He doesn’t even care about how many books I’ve read about Him. He cares about me. He loves me and wants to know me, and wants me to know Him. He has no expectations of me. He just loves me.

He wants to go swimming with me, go on drives to the store with me, hang out with me at work, help me with my homework. If God had Verizon, we’d be texting back and forth all day long. He yearns for me to want to spend time with Him. He wants me to ask Him questions. He wants me to appreciate the greatest thing He ever created: unconditional love.

How have I missed out on this?

How have I neglected my time in the now with the friends He gifted me with? Each person I encounter isn’t there by random chance, but as a gift from God. My interactions with the people I know should be filled with joy and wonder, not guilt or trepidation.

It’s like I told Josh while we hunted this year. The joy for me is not killing an animal. The joy for me is the community of people that are brought together. The joy is the shared beer and stories around the cutting table.

I may never be in full time ministry. I may never sell off every thing I own and give the money to the poor. I may never write a best selling Zondervan book that changes the world. I may never fall in love and get married. None of those things will change the depth of love that God has for me.

If any of those things happen, then great. If not, oh well. As long as I live with Love at the center of my very being, I will be with Him. He will be with me. I will need nothing more.

There is no darkness, only an absence of light. There is no cold, only an absence of heat. There is no evil, only an absence of Good. As such, there is no failure, only an absence of success.

I ended this fast on Day 7. When the Word spoke the world into existence, He rested on the seventh day. While I set out to fast for 28 days, I have found that in 7 days I was shown the light, the warmth, and the goodness. I would call this a success.

God is beyond our time. What He saw in seven days was a lonely and desperate man yearning to grow closer to Him. He lifted His little boy and sat the boy on His lap and embraced him. The sum of the difference between 7 and 28 is insignificant. The change is what matters.

Today I found love, and it hit harder and faster than anything I’ve ever felt before.

I love you. I love you, Lord.

Thanks for all of your prayers. I love you all. For real.

Rosh