This month (January. I wrote this blog last month!) my team is working with Bots Cru, the new name for Campus Crusade for Christ in Botswana. We live about 5 minutes away from the University of Botswana, the largest university in the country. So far we’ve had the chance to flyer the campus, try our hand with outreach evangelism, and spend time at a student retreat and training in Kasani, about 12 hours north of the city.
Last Wednesday, after coming back from campus, the Cru team told us that Thursday would be our “Day with The Lord”. Once a month the staff will dedicate a day to fasting and prayer, meeting to begin their day together, then leaving to spend the day with God. The day ends with an evening meeting where the fast is broken and the day is debriefed. We dropped our plans for the next day and began to speculate.
“Will we be able to talk to one another or should we be in complete silence all day?”
“Does coffee count when I’m fasting?”
“What will we do all day?”
Thursday morning, after the early devo led by Nikki (one of the Cru staff) Melody and I headed for a Cru apartment, leaving more space for the rest of team FireBreathers to spread out around the Cru office and to get out of the house for a bit. Plus they have kittens at their apartment. I’m all in.
Once we settle in, most of the staff is off to hammocks or quiet places or simply to their rooms to spend their fasting in solitude. I go through my devo (I’m working with good ol’ My Utmost for His Highest), keep reading the Bible (I’m working through the Old Testament this year), pray some, play with kittens, pray more, read more, kittens don’t want to hang out anymore, read again. Spending time with God is hard. Silence is hard. Kittens not loving you back is hard.
The Old Testament talks about ‘consecration’ a lot. Priests had to be consecrated in order to serve their duties. The people of Israel had to be consecrated before the presence of The Lord would present itself in front of the people and descend on the new temple. Consecration is an act of holiness, of setting ones self apart for a purpose, from the everyday. Consecration was necessary for The Lord to speak, a requirement before God’s presence was made known. Throughout my day of fasting and prayer, I journaled a lot. And prayed a lot. And was ignored by kittens a lot. And God taught me a lot about consecration. How he wants us to set apart time for Him. To set apart our resources and efforts and tithes for Him. But even more than that, to set ourselves apart for His purposes. To dedicate our everyday lives to His will.
In the Bible, consecration was usually associated with blood and sacrifice. An animal had to be brought into the temple as an offering in order to consecrate a person or a place. How crazy is it that our “consecration” is already “payed for”. Blood was required, and blood has been payed, the blood of Jesus Christ. Throughout my Day with The Lord, I was reminded that sometimes taking the time to consecrate myself to The Lord is required. And that first step, the part that requires blood, has already been taken care of. All I have to do is decide to take the next step.
