My Fasting Experience - Week 2 - The Paradox of Strength

My original plan was to fast for 21 days, then break the fast a few days before Easter so that I could operate at full strength on our biggest day of the year.  Unfortunately, I realized too late that I started late and in order to fast for an entire 21 days, I would have to break the fast on Easter morning.  Ugh!  That would be like a quarterback showing up to the Superbowl not having eaten in a week! For a preacher, Easter calls for protein, calories and caffeine! So I decided to fast for only 20 days in order to get one day of recovery before Easter.  Until this week...

The second week fasting went remarkably well.  I felt no hunger pains, and the heartburn and stomach pain was minimal.  By the end of the second week, though, I started to consider how and when I would break the fast.  From what I am reading, how you break an extended fast is just as significant as the fast itself!  Having digested no food for three weeks, I will need to take it slow.  In my research, I am finding that it takes 4-5 days to resume eating normal food.  I have a plan and will stick to it.

Last Sunday was not easy.  Preaching twice was extra hard - I just didn't have the energy to project my voice and to be as animated as usual.  However, at the end of the service, so many people shared that it was a powerful message and that God really spoke to them.  One guy in his twenties came up to me with tears in his eyes telling me how he really heard from God!  Then, to cap it all off, a friend whom I trust very much told me that I preached differently....his words were "slower" and "more deliberate."  While I felt very weak, people were hearing from God like never before.

The apostle Paul tells about a spiritual encounter that left him in awe and how, in order to keep him from becoming conceited, God allowed him to struggle with what he called a "thorn in the flesh."  While we don't know exactly what it was, this "thorn" was a source of frustration, pain, and weakness for Paul.  He didn't like it.  But he grew from the experience. In 2 Corinthians 12:8-10, he wrote this:

 "Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I like this, but I don't like it.  I like to be strong, not weak.  As I look forward to Easter, I want to be strong!  I get to meet a lot of new people.  I will have the privilege to baptize eight Jesus-followers!  I get to share the good news of Jesus and invite people to make a life-long commitment to follow him!  I want to be strong, and "on my game!"  But I want God's power more than I want my own strength.  And if I can somehow experience God's "perfect power," then I am willing to be weak.

So, I will fast for the full 21 days and break the fast on Easter morning.  Then I will carefully follow my post-fast plan.  And I will pray like crazy that God's power will work in people's lives like never before.