Oh to have the want-to <3

Picking up from yesterday’s post, I can not improve on God’s written word as to what happened to our knee-shaking, brow-wiping King Jehoshaphat on the direct heels of his decision to set himself to seek the Lord.

Picking up at the end of verse 3 of 2 Chronicles 20, we read…

“…and {Jehoshaphat} proclaimed a fast throughout all of Judah. So Judah gathered together to ask help from the LORD; and from all the cities of Judah they came to seek the LORD.”

Can we just stop and absorb that passage and imagine what it would have looked like?

This may be breaking all kinds of copywriter laws but I took this pic on my phone so…to me it’s just a snapshot of what happens to be a map of Judah and surrounding areas about this time frame.

We can see the names of all the forces that are descending on them from all directions.

Now picture the first battle strategy the King engages in.

He calls for all the inhabitants of Judah to collectively fast.

Do without food.

And we read that all of Judah gathered together from “all the cities” and did just that.

Please.

Look back at that map and imagine a world without smartphones, cars, planes, trains and automobiles…and people coming from all the cities to fast and seek God’s help together as one.

And I think to myself, what if.

What if we…the Body of Christ…were called to gather together and to fast.

Not protest.

Not debate.

Not carry plaquards.

But we all gathered from all the cities and we fasted and sought God.

And then I think…what about me?

What kind of desperation would cause me forego eating and to put aside all other endeavors and seek the help of God?

Because I used to do it.

But I don’t anymore.

I confess it has been a long time since I proclaimed a fast and sought the help of our God for this broken and hurting and conflicted world.

And if you hear something tearing right now, it just might be my heart.

Because I have cried some desperate prayers in the last few years.

But I can tell you that I have come to a place in my life where I must confess, I am not prone to answer the call to fast.

Let me be clear – fasting is not a “tool” to get God to do what we want.

Fasting is a way to humble ourselves by literally denying our flesh and turning to God in our  spirit.

It is a way to position ourselves before Him in a tangible way of abstaining from our life-giving, comfort-supplying need for sustenance and saying…

God, You …ALONE…are my life…my food…my source of all things and I am seeking Your help now, with all that I am and all that I have.

And I don’t know any other way to put it, but I honestly lately have not wanted to do it.

I have come to a place in my life where food is not only a requirement for keeping my body running, it has become a place of comfort and solace for me.

I look forward to dinner with Russ at the end of the day, meals with family and friends, snacks…treats…and I have to pray to God for the “want-to” of self-denial.

Perhaps our whole country has come to such a place as well.

We feed greedily on food, beverage, entertainment…

eye candy for the soul in the form of visual beauty through Instagram and Pinterest..

and I am not picking on those things but I do wonder just how desperate I will have to become…

this country will have to become…

this world will have to become before we declare that we have reached a place where only God can help us…and we will take our request for His intervention seriously enough that we will truly humble ourselves and cry out to Him with all that we have.

Not a fun one today, my friends.

Not pleasant to tell you that I, who well know the need to practice the disciplines, have developed dragging feet and a faint heart.

But in my weakness…in our weakness…we can turn to Him who loves us, who made us, who knows we are but dust…and He will strengthen us to turn from our idols and renew our love and dedication to Him.

Oh LORD, even though I long to serve You with my whole being, Thou knowest I falter in my flesh. Change my want-to’s today to want only Your will for us. I ask in the most precious Name, the Name of Jesus…who denied all that we all might live in Him <3