A few years ago, I went on a ‘speaking fast’. That is exactly what it sounds like…I fasted from talking. For 21 days! Let me assure it, it was hard, really hard! But sometimes, you need to silence every voice, including your own, and just listen. Matthew 12:34 says ‘for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks’. If you are ever wondering that is going on in your heart, stop talking… and pay attention to the things you want to say.
I am preparing to embark in a few short days on this journey called ‘The World Race’. I have been considering and discussing what I want this season to look like with the Lord. And, I want this to be a year of less talking… and more doing. No, I don’t plan on fasting from speaking for a year, but I do plan on ‘doing’ a lot more than ‘talking’.
One of my precious friends who is a missionary in Turkey refers to prayer as one of those things that people know and talk a lot about…but don’t actually do. I believe there are a lot of things that people talk a lot about and don’t actually do. I know a lot of people who talk about praying for the sick, but pass by people with hearing aids and wheelchairs every day. I know a lot of people who talk about preaching the gospel to people, but keep their mouths shut every day. Whatever the reason, we miss opportunities all the time.
So, for me, 2014 will be a year of fully relying on the grace of the Lord to fully live and embrace every moment. And, as cliché as it may sound, people’s eternal destinies really are in front of us every day. And, at the end of the day, we cannot practice on people. We cannot have the mindset of ‘oops, I should have prayed for that person, but there will be another sick person’ or ‘oh well, someone else will come and tell that person about Jesus’. Because, what if there isn’t another chance, what if no one else prays for that Swazi baby with AIDS, what if no one else tells that woman in Thailand about the hope of Jesus and her next ‘customer’ abuses her beyond recovery. What if you pass up an opportunity to tell your co-worker who secretly abuses pain medication about the Light of the Gospel?
There are opportunities all around us. Let’s stop talking about living the Gospel…and lets start doing it!
