Prayer and Fasting

A word of warning:  Some parts of this blog may not be suitable for all audiences--you may think part of this is gross.  It'll be worth it, but it is kind of gross.

I'm not really sure how, when, or where, but at some point today, I picked up a tick.  It latched onto my side, under my shirt and I only noticed an odd itch for most of the afternoon.  I did not realize that it was a tick until bedtime.

I once again felt an itch and went to scratch and (skip the unnecessary details) ended up with a dead tick stuck to me.  I tried to just pull it off, but I didn't want the head to come off under my skin, so I didn't pull very hard.

So there I was, looking at this thing and thinking something like "What Would Jesus Do?"

Well, I thought about it and decided that a blood sucking parasite fell rather well into the same category as a demonic manifestation, so, I prayed over it and rebuked it in Jesus's name.

It didn't fall off.

I take a certain, small amount of pride in myself for actually being surprised that it DIDN'T.  I really believed that it would. . . . But it was still there.

So, I pulled again.  I figured that I would have to any way, so why put it off?  It didn't want to come, but eventually it popped loose.  With its head intact.

And I thought: "Why didn't it come out when I prayed?"  and I immediately heard: "This kind only comes out with prayer and fasting." (Mark 9:28-29)

And then it hit me.

We frequently want God to deliver us from things right away and to do all of the "hard stuff" for us. Especially in the case of habitual sins.  We pray and we rebuke and we "cast out," and we keep dealing with stuff.

As with the tick, God releases the "head" of the problem so that it can come out, but we still have some things to do as well.  Some problems/issues are not only spiritual, but physical/mental as well.

Smoking for example.  There can be a spiritual stronghold involved with a smoking addiction.  This is easily broken.  God gave us the authority over all things to overcome obstacles that leave us outside of His will.  We can claim God's promises in Jesus's name, and be free from spiritual bondage.  The trick is that, while we are spiritually free, we still have thought patterns and lifestyles and habits to overcome.

This is where prayer and fasting come in.  Prayer is communication with God.  This communication is TWO-WAY (even if you don't realize it).  This communication is good for you because the presence of God, in ANY way, in your life is powerful and life changing.  It allows you to speak to God (maybe get things off your chest) and to confess true things about God (praise and worship) and profess God's point of view about things in your life.

Fasting is a double-hitting tool.  First, let me explain that fasting is NOT simply not eating.  The idea is that you give up food and replace the eating time with devotion time.  At breakfast time, instead of Wheaties you read your Bible and pray.  Same thing at lunch and dinner.  In fact, you let each physical reminder of food be a signal to direct your thoughts toward God.  This is an EXCELLENT way to get your mind on things of God rather than being wrapped up in things of this world.
The second part is a self-discipline issue.  Most of the problems that we face in this life are because our spirits are willing, but our flesh is weak--weak to the will of God, that is.  The flesh is STRONG where satisfying its desires are concerned.  Fasting is a way to train yourself to put your physical desires and motivations in a lower priority than the spiritual desires.

In the story in Mark 9, Jesus did not stop to pray and fast.  He already had that lifestyle.  We cannot pray and/or fast once and expect to be ready whenever there is a need.  This must become a lifestyle.  We must train ourselves to put our thoughts in line with God's thoughts and our bodies in submission to our spirits.

God DID do the hard part.  He made it possible for any of this to succeed, then He made sure to live the example to show how to proceed.

As a side note: I realize that skipping food or meals is complicated for some people.  My suggestion is to pick something that you do regularly/habitually/compulsively (like watching T.V. or *gasp* facebook time) and give that up for a time and replace it with devotional time.  This is just my suggestion.  Pray about it and do what God leads you to do.

As always, Be Blessed!