When you hear the word fasting what comes to mind? For me I think of it as the personal choice that someone makes when they chose to spend a certain amount of time not eating but instead devoting that time solely on filling themselves with the life and strength that comes only from the Lord. Sounds pretty intentional, right? Yes, it is 100% intentional in this sense but, God taught me this past week that sometimes we can be sent into a time of fasting unintentionally. What in the world does that mean? Before last Thursday I would have been totally confused like you might be right now but because of the work that God is doing in me I can explain this “unintentional fasting” concept in a little more depth.
A little back story on where this lesson from God is coming from starts last Wednesday night when my team got back from our adventure day where we visited a beautiful waterfall (check out my El Salvador album on Facebook to see pictures!). I wasn’t feeling good all afternoon and to keep the details at a minimum I’ll just tell you that I got sick 7 times in a short amount of time, so my body was drained physically and I quickly had no energy. After taking a day to rest, a trip to the hospital which consisted of getting my blood taken to be tested for dengae fever, and being minutes away from having to get a shot in my butt (gotta love miscommunication through language barriers), I thankfully didn’t have dengae and we were told that I was really dehydrated and exhausted. So I ended up taking two days off ministry to rest and I learned so much in this time.
Towards the end of last week I was asked the question by one of my squad leaders, Katie, “what do you think God is teaching you in this time of being sick?” I had never thought of it in this way because normally when I’m sick I get grumpy and my attitude isn’t the best (sorry for making you deal with that all these years mom), but while being on the Race I am learning that sickness can be a spiritual attack when something in our life is off and God is trying to get our attention. When I really started asking God what He was trying to show me, it was so crazy what He revealed to me. Since getting sick on Wednesday I wasn’t able to keep water or food down for a day and a half after so this lead to me not having a lot of strength. That’s where God stepped in with His lesson for me. He sent me into a time of unintentional fasting to teach me that my strength for everything I do needs to come solely from Him; not from the things of this world. It wasn’t my choice to fast at this time but God had this time for me to refocus on Him and learn that the things of this world bring death (or sickness in this case) but the things of heaven bring life. After having this revealed to me it made so much sense because early last week I hadn’t made my quiet time a priority in my day and it really affected my attitude in everything I did. It’s funny how God does that; He makes us aware that what we’re doing isn’t helping us but when we refuse to do anything about it, He steps right in and gets our attention in whatever way necessary. No, being sick was not fun; but the lesson that I learned through it was something that God knew I needed and I am now aware of how important my personal time with the Lord each day is.
Coming into the World Race I was looking for personal growth and intimacy with the Lord. I am in my second month and I have experienced so much of both those things. Yes, ministry is a part of the Race but I have been getting so much out of my personal time with the Lord and I have learned to truly listen to Him and He has revealed so much to me through that. Some days are a lot harder than others to be away from home but me taking this 9 months to focus on this growth and intimacy with the Lord is exactly where I need to be in this season and I’m so thankful for His faithfulness in providing what I needed to get to this point.
Prayer Requests: the health of my team as well as the other teams in my squad; an overwhelming peace in my heart about being away from home and all the big events that I’m not there for (that it won’t consume my thoughts and lead me to wishing my time away here; that is the biggest thing I don’t want to do)
Thank you for faithfully praying and for following this journey that God has me on!
Blessings,
Julie
