#iGrowchallenge: Fasting On Good Friday

Over the past months we have been participating in a challenge to engage in practices that draw us to Christ and focus us on grace. As we end the #iGrowchallenge during Easter week I want to encourage you to practice another discipline that the faithful have been practicing throughout the millennia and that is fasting. As we approach Easter week and Good Friday I encourage you to take a Fast on Good Friday to remember Gods love in your life and also to give your concerns and struggles to God. 

WHAT IS FASTING?

Fasting is an intentional giving up of anything else that occupies our time.  Food is often the focus of a fast but there can be other fasts such as giving up TV, or social media, or other things as well.  Usually a person fasts during a specific period of time and is for a specific purpose. The Israelites fasted to repent, to mourn, to seek God, and to listen to God.  Jesus began his ministry with 40 days of fasting and the Newt Testament church fasted when they sought Gods will or needed the grace and strength to stay faithful to Gods work.  Lent has often been a time to fast in various Christian traditions.

WHY FAST?

James Earl Massey writes: “Fasting is important in Christian experience because it deepens within the whole self a sense of ones dependence upon the strength of God. Fasting is more than an act of abstinence. It is an affirmative act; it is a way of waiting on God: it is an act of surrender. “

Fasting is not a magical way to manipulate God into doing your will or a spiritual way to lose weight or control others. Fasting clears us out and opens us up to intentionally seeking Gods will and grace in a way that goes beyond normal habits of worship and prayer. When we are fasting we are opening up to God and offering him the time and attentiveness we might otherwise be giving to eating, shopping, or watching television.

Especially during Easter week or Good Friday fasting is a way to remember the church of how Jesus gave up everything –even his life-for us.  It is also a way to pray for your life, the church, or your world. During a fast we are reminded throughout our day of our need and during those times we can come to God in prayer or seek God in the scriptures. Adele Ahlberg Calhoun writes “Deny yourself a meal and when your stomach growls ‘I’m hungry’ take a moment to turn from your emptiness to the nourishment of Christ (Matt 4:4). Feed on Jesus the bread of life. Skip the TV, video games, or listening to music or podcasts and become aware of how fidgety you are when you aren’t being amused or diverted. Then dodge the remote and embrace Jesus who is the ‘bread of life’. (John 4:34)”

HOW TO FAST

There are many ways you could fast on Good Friday:

Fasting from food. Don’t eat anything for a 24 hour period or for a whole day. So you could fast from  after dinner on Thursday to breakfast on Saturday.  Or you could skip dinner on Thursday and fast till dinner on Friday.  So you could miss either two or three meals.  Make sure to drink a lot of water during this time and be aware if you are feeling sick. Do not fast if you are pregnant or have any medical conditions.  When you break your fast don’t do it with a large meal. Eat a smaller portion of food.

Fasting from media. Take an intentional 24 hour period without TV, or video games, social media, or music or the internet. Put away the phone or the computer for a whole 24 hour period.  You could do this from Thursday evening to Saturday morning.

Fasting from something else. If there is something else that you particularly hold onto or that you can’t go without for a day, spend 24 hours without that.

WHAT TO INCLUDE IN YOUR FAST

Use the time to draw near to God. If you are giving up food then use the time you would usually eat to pray and draw near to God. Take a walk and pray for those around you, read a devotional book or the scriptures, write concerns or thoughts in a journal.  If you are giving up media use the time you would be watching TV or surfing the internet to focus on God and listen to His leading.

Attend a Good Friday Service.

Praise God throughout the day. Relax and breathe deeply. Place yourself in the presence of God. Offer yourself and your time to God. Praise God for where He has come through for you Psalm 103:1-5 is a good starting point for praise.

Intentionally pray. 1. Pray for yourself and your needs. Repent of your sin, ask God to meet you in your need. 2. Prayer for friends and family. Pray that they might be blessed and know peace. 3. Pray for the church. Pray for the leadership of the church, pastors, elders, and deacons, and all who serve. Pray that the church might be a place people know Christ and are welcomed. Pray that our church is a body that cares about our community and seeks to follow Christ into the world.  4. Pray for the world around you and its needs. 5. Pray for your enemies and those you cannot forgive or who frustrate you.  If you have a hard time praying read the Psalms and pray those to God.  This Good Friday I want you to encourage you to participate in a practice that the faithful have participated in for thousands of years and that is fasting.

Look for Grace. All day as you are fasting just be looking for Gods grace. What grace has been shown to you today?  What circumstances or people showed you grace and what did not show you grace. Be aware of when you experience consolation and desolation and give those to God.

Fasting makes me vulnerable and reminds me of my frailty. It leads me to remember that if I am not fed I will die. …. Standing before God hungry. I suddenly know who I am. I am one who is poor, called to be rich in a way that the world does not understand. I am one who is empty, called to be filled with the fullness of God. I am the one who is hungry, called to taste all the goodness that can be mine in Christ.  -Macrina Wiederkehr

#iGrowchallenge: Centering Prayer

Centering Prayer is an ancient practice of meditative prayer that focuses on not saying things to God, but just being with God. This can be hard for some people because this form of prayer relies very little on words…..it is just focuses on being with God and giving Him our undivided attention.  Sometimes this type of prayer may not seem like ‘real’ prayer because we are not giving God our concerns of petitions, but when we pray this way we are concerned with ‘dwelling’ with God and letting God give us a greater awareness His work in the world.

I encourage you to use this type of prayer at least once during the week as a way of just sitting at the manger to glorify God and let God work in your life.  Below is a short method for practicing centering prayer.

1. Set aside a minimum of 15 minutes (increase the time if you can). Set a timer if that helps you to be less concerned about when to stop.

2. Settle into a comfortable position.

3. Intentionally place yourself in the presence of God, in the center of His love.

4. Choose a simple word, phrase, or verse of scripture that expresses your desire for God (e.g., love, peace, grace, Jesus, etc..) Let this word guard your attention.

5. Take time to become quiet. It is not unusual for the first minutes to be filled with many noisy thoughts. Don’t worry about them or pay attention to them. Let them go. Gently return your attention to the center of God’s presence and love by repeating your word. Let that word draw you back to Jesus. Just be with Jesus. Listen. Be Still. When distractions come think of this image to return you to Jesus:

-imagine that God’s river of life runs through you. Deep down the river is calm and slow, but on the surface it is raging and rushing with debris. Imagine that the distracting thoughts are debris floating down the current. You don’t capture these thoughts…..you just let God’s river of life take them away. Then gently return to Jesus with your prayer word.

 6. Rest in the center of God’s love throughout the time allotted. Trust that the Holy Spirit , who abides in the depths of you spirit, will connect you with God.

#iGrowchallenge: 12 Easy Steps to Increasing Your Anxiety

This is an old blog post from a friend of mine, Tim Blackmon. I think he captures well the ways we can nurse anxiety and let it grow in our lives. 

12 Easy Steps To Increasing Your Anxiety

By Timothy Blackmon, chaplain at Wheaton College

As a father, husband and as a leader of an organization, one of my biggest challenges in daily life, is handling anxiety. How do I prevent being maxed out, stressed out, freaked out and bummed out? Living without worry and anxiety is hard work. Living with worry and anxiety is even harder. If you insist on letting stress run your life, here are twelve practical steps that will guarantee high levels of anxiety and worry. 

1) Keep going. Don’t take time-off. Sleep as little as you can. Work on Sunday. Leave no time for quiet reflection and play. Keep the pace high and the margins narrow.

2) Try to fix tomorrow’s problems today. Even though you may already feel depleted and overwhelmed, start thinking about how you can solve tomorrow’s problems. When you are done, begin worrying about the problems of others.

3) Keep your daily focus on the worst traits of the most immature person around you. Focus on what is wrong with them. React instinctually to them. Commit to changing them. Find two other people who will criticize their faults and who will validate your complaints.

4) Focus on everything you do not have. Talk about it. Dream about it. Hone the skills of dissatisfaction and murmuring. Think about all the good experiences you are missing out on. Somewhere, someone is having a better time than you are. They have a nicer home, more money and a hotter wife. Think about it.

5) Nurse your grudges. Keep track of all the ways you’ve been wronged. Don’t reconcile, forgive or make amends. Keep your distance from the people that have wronged you. If necessary, cut them off. Plan to retaliate. Never admit wrong-doing.

6) Make sure you never let people see the real you. Keep your true self hidden from others. Through careful image management you should be able to create the illusion that you have it all together. Keep this appearance up at all costs.

7) Let the opinions of other people control you. Ask these two questions every day: What are they saying about me? Is there anybody who really loves me?

8) Let your imagination run wild. Every single, negative event is surely part of a never ending pattern of defeat and difficulty. Every positive experience is probably a fluke. Even though you have no definite facts, feel free to jump to conclusions.

9) Ignore small but crucial details. Expend energy in putting these essential tasks off until they are past due. Keep working on them in your mind but don’t do anything about them.

10) Betray your deepest sense of what is right and find a way to justify it. Act contrary to what you feel you should do. If necessary, blame others.

11) Stop breathing. If you ensure that your breathing is shallow, you will reduce the oxygen to your brain. This will certainly prevent you from having a calming response to the stressors in your life.

12) Do not ask for help. Not from anyone. Assume that you are to tackle all your challenges on your own. Do not depend on God, trust in God or ask God for help.

#iGrowchallenge: The Discipline of Service

Spiritual Practice for the Week: The Discipline of Service

Service is a way of offering resources, time, treasure, influence, and expertise for the care, protection, justice, and nurture of others. Acts of service give hands to the second greatest commandment: “love your neighbor as yourself”.  Practicing service as a discipline this week gives us a way to practice a lifestyle of service that we are called by God to live out as followers of Christ.

The spiritual discipline of service is primarily rooted in a different way of seeing: seeing others as God see’s them.  The spirit of Jesus is a compassionate, serving Spirit that always works for the good of others…..we are called to see as God see’s and then demonstrate that with our actions. This is not just religious rhetoric that we simply endorse as a rule of thumb. The Christian discipline of service is the way the world discovers the love of God. We are the way God blesses the earth.

This week, as you practice the discipline of service, here are a few practical suggestions. Feel free to try a few or think of some other way you could think/pray more about service and involve yourself in intentional work that benefits others.

1. Every morning for the next week or two ask your spouse, roommate, friend, or collegue, “what can I do for you today? Then do it. Talk to God about what this is like for you. What do you see about yourself?

2.  Divide a paper into three columns. Above one column write “for me”. Above the second write “for others” and above the third write “for God”. Review the past week or month and write down in each column the things you have bought and done for yourself, others, and God. What does this inventory reveal about your life?  Take time to read Luke 23. What has God given because he loves you? How would you like to see the columns change over the next months? Listen to your longings and God’s promptings.

3. Think through a monthly and yearly practice of intentional service that you could involve yourself in, such as a missions project or relief project.  Consider which type of project speaks to some of the longings in your own heart.

4. Ask those who know you this week what your spiritual gifts are. Plan a way of using your gifts to benefit others in the next week or month.

5. Get to know a missions organization or another organization helping those in great need either personally or over the web. Ask them how you could serve.

6. Give a small micro-finance loan of 20 euros or more to one of the poorest of the poor around the world trying to start a small business through www.kiva.org.

7. Sponsor a child so that they can receive schooling and the love of Christ in some of the poorest parts of the world through Compassion International: www.compassion.com (or compassion.nl).