One of the things that really stood out to me today is in 2 Chronicles chapter 20. Jehoshaphat (Judah's king) is being confronted with war from the Moabite and the Ammonites. Alarmed at the vast army that is coming against them, he is “resolved to inquire of the Lord” and “he proclaimed a fast for all Judah.”
After really looking at this passage, I observed five things that Jehoshaphat did in response to this threat:
1. He resolved to inquire of the Lord (verse 3)
2. He called a corporate fast (verse 3)
3. He acknowledges God’s sovereignty (verses 6-9)
4. He admitted their powerlessness and turned their eyes upon God (verse 12)
5. Worshipped and praised the Lord (verses 18-19)
It seems to me that this response is one that we can take to heart and glean much wisdom from when we are facing insurmountable odds in our own lives.
God has truly been speaking to my heart much in the last 30 days about fasting, and the fact that, generally speaking, as Christians we don’t often inquire of the Lord with fasting, especially corporately. Why is this? As I've been reading through the OT passages, the number of times that fasting is mentioned just leaps from the pages. It’s not that I haven’t practiced the discipline of fasting in my own life at times, but fasting for God’s people was a regular accompaniment of prayer, particularly in matters of great importance.
So what’s keeping us from this seemingly lost discipline? Anyone?
I'm your first comment! Whoohoo! Nice blog, BTW. :)
ReplyDeleteCan I joke and be serious at the same time...? Fasting is unAmerican. It's so depriving and inconvenient and not fun. It's everything we usually strive to avoid, and it's easier to just forget about it or consider it irrelevant. Probably all the more reason we should embrace it.
Just let me know before you start a super-long fast, because I want to have coffee with you before you do. ;)
Good question, Laurie. And I think Ellen has a good response. I think it's also because we don't understand what fasting will accomplish -- why depriving ourselves of something for a little while is going to make any difference in how God chooses to act in a situation. It almost has the feel of saying the magic words, jumping through the right hoops, etc. to appease a capricious God so he'll pay attention to us. I know it's NOT that, but the whole concept is so foreign to our culture that we don't clearly understand what it IS. Does that make sense?
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