~Hebrews 4:12-13
“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but are all naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account”
So, I’ve been in Hebrews since the beginning of the country and have been taken captive of these two verses. I learn something new every time I read them… guess that’s why it says the word of God is living and active. Though there is so many things to glean for these verses this post will be focused on heart posture.
Costa Rica is an all squad month… meaning C&C and TNT collide. As a squad we are fasting something new every week. So, I have Hebrews 4:12-13, fasting, and heart posture twirling around in my brain and they connect. God’s cool like that, everything always points back to him even when the thoughts seem so obscure to you.
Starting from the beginning, I am reading through Hebrews and get caught up in the verses above. I began to dissect them one line at a time. Because I love definitions I will give you some key words that caught my eye:
- Discern: to detect by sight or with other senses
- Thoughts: an idea or opinion produced by thinking, or occurring suddenly in the mind
- Intention: the state of mind with which an act is done
These words were what brought the words heart posture to mind… which posture means:
- Posture: a particular way of dealing with or considering something; an approach or attitude
Then to put the cherry on top the action of fasting came into play.
- Fasting: starving the flesh (desires) to feed our spirit (aligning our will with the Father)
So, as a squad we are fasting but the Lord wanted me to take it to another, more personal level… for Costa Rica I am fasting my hat. That probably doesn’t seem like that big a deal for some but I love my hat. I wear it all the time. It hides my hair and shades my face, more like a shield rather than an accessory. So the Lord is taking me on a journey of why I am needing to fast from my hat and what fasting really is about. Above is the definition of fasting, which is a pretty good definition, and other definitions that play into my thinking process but I wanted to see what scripture said about it. My fabulous SQL Erica played a huge part in helping me putting my train of thought on tracks (shout out E).
The first thing God taught me before I started this process was that fasting is not a “spiritual thing”… it’s a relationship thing. Meaning that when I want what I’m fasting I check my heart, ask why I want it, and talk to God about it and ask what he wants instead. Realigning my thinking and my heart so that my focus is on God. There are multiple purposes for fasting but I’m working on the realigning of the heart. In Isaiah 58:3-5, it talks about how not to fast. Grumbling and complaining to God about why he hasn’t noticed it, only doing it for the praise of others, no growth or understanding. What a crappy attitude, it’s kinda sad really. Let us skip forward a couple verses… Isaiah 58:8-12, is about what happens when you fast with the proper heart posture. When you go into fasting with a hungry heart you grow in ways you didn’t know you could. Verse 11 says that, “you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail”. When the fasting period that you set is over doesn’t mean you fall back into the same routine you were in, that means you did not archived what you learned. You transfer what you learned over into your everyday life and continue to grow in that area, cause you can never learn to much about the Lord.
Back to the personal fasting of my hat… wearing a hat is not a bad thing. I will most likely wear one after my fast is over. It’s the heart behind why I wear it. Ryan (shout out) brought to my attention something I had not thought of before… what other hats could God want me to wear? At the present moment we are talking about crowns. I am a daughter of a king, that makes me a princess, right? He is teaching me about myself, why I am the way I am. What my crown looks like… God is shaping my crown in front of my eyes, telling me why my crown is silver instead of gold, a simple band instead of an embellish masterpiece. God’s love for me is mind bending and I cannot wrap my head around the fact that he made a crown just for me to make me feel beautiful. So when I leave Costa Rica and I put on my lovely polo hat I know that it is just a hat. God has crowns and helmets underneath my baseball cap and when I take the cap off the spiritual headwear God has given me will still be there.
That’s about all I got right now… cause God and I are still talking about crowns and such, don’t have the full picture yet. Comment if you wanna hear more about the whole crown thing cause I’d love to hear y’all’s thoughts on it. So… yeah, the end, till next time y’all.
