I'm going to let you know before-time that the next however many lines you are going to read will most likely be a hodge podge of all the craziness that happens to be a regular thing in my life now a days. First let's begin with how....I FINISHED MY FAST!!!! Two or three days before my fast I realized...well...it was two or three days before my fast ended! I had some awesome quiet times with the Lord and during them He instilled in me this pure and joyful excitement for the ending of my fast or in better words, the beginning of the next few months after my fast. He instilled in me the urge to really celebrate! One of the readings towards the end of my fast was about remembering that all that I had been through was for the Glory of God. This was an awesome reminder because it just made all that I had been through good and bad so much more than it already was. The reading also reminded me that... although I was fasting in the Lord. I can also, every day, feast in the Lord. This was SUPER exciting! I had to think about it a little bit though. Think about what this really meant.
Recently at Large Group for InterVarsity the speaker has been talking about evangelism. One thing he said that really hit me at the Large Group on Friday was to live out God through all you do. To do it FOR the glory of GOD. I was like...we'll yeah Jesus rules! I thank Him for pretty much everything. And I appreciate it too. But living for the glory of God in all you do means so much more! The speaker gave the example of ...if you played a sport. Say football. Popular enough right? :P Oh America. Anyway, to play football in order to glorify God doesn't simply mean praying before the game, making Jesus shirts, not cussing when you lose, or getting to know each other and appreciate each other. All those things are awesome, but to really glorify God through playing football, it means so much more. It means to enjoy the sport and play it for what it is and for what it was made to be. To appreciate the essence of football. To treat it as the gift from God that it is. To appreciate your body and what it can do for you. To play with heart and mind. To grasp your agility, strength, and speed and appreciate it, use it, and love it. To play football for the something beautiful that it is.
Thats pretty intense right? But it's awesome! Imagine if we did that with everything in life! Football or sports doesn't have to be the extent of it. Painting, drawing, fashion, paying music, listening to music, singing to music, laughing, sleeping, eating, looking outside, walking through the park, brushing your teeth, (heck!) writing an essay for school! Fasting is glorifying God. But so is feasting!
I've been thinking about this concept for the past three days now and I still havent even fully grasped the extent of it, let alone been able to actually do it to the extent of it. But I knew that this morning, at 12:00 AM I was going to celebrate. And feast for the glory of God!
For my last day of fasting I barely ate anything. I had an apple for breakfast and a cold can of mushed peas and corn that I ate out of a hole that I cut in the top of the can with my pocket knife. I did concessions during the Home Coming Game for Colleges Against Cancer and lost my voice yet again hawking up and down the stands. This was actually super fun...until it started raining and all the sudden became really fraggin cold. I arrived home in a frenzy: irritated, cold, tired, and starving. We rushed to D hall and all they really had was rice with a spicy tomato sauce. Emily, my suite-mate who I'd been fasting with, and I were almost too tired to even reminisce over the past 21 days. We ate, left, and went home. She went to bed early and I hung out kickin it for a few hours with some friends. Then...dun dun dun.. 11:45! HOLY MACKREL! 15 minutes! My friend Caroline and I rushed home. At 11:55 I ran form the kitchen into my room and sat down with God. I spent the last 5 minutes with Him. And it was the best part of my night. Erin, Anna, Lauren, Caroline, Erin's sister, and eventually the entire upper level of my dorm ended up coming to feast with us. We made brownies, ate old pizza, launched old dried cake we found across the room, snacked on m&ms, nutella, poptarts and pretty much anything else we could find. By 2 AM we were all sprawled out in the hallway sitting in each other's laps while a few people played guitars and banjos, singing. I loved it.
God, meanwhile, was seriously doing work. Here's a few things I forgot to mention. After I spent my last 5 minutes with God I rushed into the kitchen in excitement. Quickly He set my heart to work. One thing that I pray for everyday, and probably most people pray for, is for God to work through me, to use me to the best of His abilities so that I can serve Him and the people He's made and loves. Like I always say, God goes hard. I've been told this by a few people, but apparently my "spiritual gift" is service and empathy. My friendships and relationships mean the world to me. I literally almost cannot explain the love I have for people. God has put me in people's lives to listen to them and to speak through me to them. God put me to work last night. And I became tired. By 3 AM I felt lost. I felt stretched thin. "God I'm not strong enough for this. I feel emptied, I feel drained. I was just filled. You think too highly of me. You're expectations for me are far too great. I can't do it." I started to resent my heart. Resent how easily I can empathize with people. I'm sure most of you can relate, but it hurts to see the people you love hurt and confused. It hurts. And I started to run from it.
One thing that I've been praying for lately is for God to just get down here. So that I can physically hug Him. So that I can physically sit in His lap. So he can physically be my Dad. And last night all I wanted was that: to just give up and go sit in my Dad's lap. With a little bit of me freaking out/venting matched with jokes and reassurance from Keith and a few more prayers to Mr. Almighty, I went to bed at 5 AM with a lighter and more positive heart.
This morning I woke up thinking about God, singing to God, and praying to God. He had different plans for me when I wanted to go to church. So I ended up once again with my Bible and Journal at my desk with my Jesus Music playlist on. This morning He gave me these words from Paul in 2 Corinthians:
"But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ's triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma fo knowledge of him everywhere. For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing."
"You should know that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts."
"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with every-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
MAN! Paul rules. Oh the comfort of the Lord. Oh how He amazes me. Today is going to be a good day. And so is tomorrow ;)
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