Christianity

Daniel Fast – Day 13: Eggplant Parmesan

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Today, I was making a meal for a dear friend, and congregant who has been out due to a knee replacement.  I decided to make one of my signature dishes, Eggplant Parmesan.  It was the first dish I ever made with Eggplant and it was this dish that made me love eggplant.  So as I began to prep and get everything ready, I was tempted to take little bites here and there.

When I cook in the kitchen, I usually would eat bits and pieces of the meal that I am making.  If I’m making meatloaf, I’ll sample some of the beef, and onions.  If I’m making grilled cheese, I’ll take a pinch of the shredded cheese and eat it.  So when it came time to make the eggplant, I wanted to eat it.  take a sample of the finished eggplant product to eat, eat a sample of fresh mozzarella, and the fresh grated Parmesan.

The thing that really tempted me was the smell.  It was that smell that really wanted to dive right into it or make another batch for myself.  It was in that moment that I began to really pray hard. Not praying for myself to not dive into the meal, but I began to pray for people, the church, wisdom, direction.  But the main thing I prayed for was to be still and wait.  As I mentioned earlier in this journey I am a bit impulsive, and waiting is not my strong suit.  But waiting is a discipline that must be mastered to wait on the Lord.

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)

Daniel Fast – Day 12: Prayer Walk

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I went on my very first prayer walk around the downtown section of the City of Staunton.  At first, I debate on doing it, because of the temperature being in the low to mid-teens.  Since the purpose of my fast is spiritual, I decided to brave the temperature and do the walk.  I parked my car at the library and began to walk towards downtown.  At first, it was cold but after a few minutes I warmed up.  The walk was amazing as I would continue to pray to the Lord for his wisdom and insight to what he wanted me and my congregation to do to make a Kingdom impact on the community.

As I walked I only made three stops.  My first stop was on the steps of the courthouse to pray for God’s justice, mercy, and grace through the judicial system.  My second stop was on top of the Stonewall Jackson parking garage.  It was a great site to pray as it was quiet, windy, and I can overlook a good part of the city.  It seemed like a long time I was up there, by myself, praying over the city.  The final stop was at an abandoned restaurant.  Since 2015, I have felt an impulse to investigate the property.  I have a prayer for the building every time I walked by it, but this time there was purpose on the possibilities on what this site could be.

I then made my journey back to my vehicle.  It was on that journey that I ran into a homeless person.  The guy’s clothes were in tatters, he was very timid, and when he asked for money, he just simply asked if I had any change to spare.  I went and gave him a few bucks, which his reply was very shocked.  He kept trying to give me back the amount, but I told him, no, to take it and maybe get something warm to drink at the few shops around.  When I made it back to my vehicle, I checked the time and was out for almost an hour and a half.  I believe that the more consistent I am in my prayer walk, the more clarity from the Lord, I will receive.

Daniel Fast – Day 10: Minister’s Meeting

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The third Tuesday of every month, I have a minister’s meeting where all the ministers in the area get together for some fellowship.  As I was getting in my car to go to this meeting, it occurred to me that there is always a meal provided.  Would there be anything that I can eat?  I get to the meeting and they have a lot of great looking food.  Broccoli and Cheddar Soup (Can’t eat), Salad (can eat, but with caution), garlic bread (can’t eat), cookies (Can’t eat) Cheesecake (can’t eat), and cheesecake toppings (can eat the strawberries and blueberries as they are not in a sugary syrup like the cherries).

So I get a salad and a side of fruit.  During the salad, I had to combat the chunks of chicken, cheese shavings, and croutons, while I ate the lettuce, cucumbers, onions, and olives.  After the meal, the topic to discuss was, “what spiritual disciplines are you participating in?”  The hosting pastor knew about my fast and asked me to share my experiences.  I talked about everything that I mentioned on Day 8 of my fast.  Other pastors talked about vision planning, prayer journaling, and even sitting in silence. As I listen to each pastor share what discipline they are practicing I thought, “Can these other disciplines be heightened during a fast?  My goal for this second week is to try a spiritual discipline and see how it goes.

Daniel Fast – Day 8: First Week Reflections

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Today is one week into my fast.  As I reflect on the fast so far, here are some of the things I have noticed.

Physically:

  • Lost weight
  • more energy
  • more alert
  • less patient
  • less impulsive with snacking
  • slower eating

Spiritually:

  • heighten spiritual awareness
  • increase the intensity of prayer
  • more spontaneous in prayer
  • better at discerning situations

Out of all of the things from my fast thus far, I am surprised at having more energy and more spontaneity in prayer.  With prayer, I would usually pray when a request comes through email, or at certain times (morning, afternoon, evening).  During the fasting period, I would have images of people or situations come to my mind, and instantly drop what I was doing and prayed about it.  Not a quick prayer, but one with conviction and intensity.

Having an increase of energy was very surprising to me, mainly because there is a market for having energy via energy drinks, soda pop, coffee, or any other caffeinated beverage.  There were some days where I would need to lay down for a bit because I was exhausted and could not function properly without a rest.

Even though I have had some weak moments in the fast, I am at a point where I am seeing some of the benefits of it and liking the changes.  Hope this second week will be better as I continue on.

Daniel Fast – Day 7: Supermarket Hell

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My daily meals were getting low so I needed to make a trip to the grocery store. My wife made an attempt to get food for meals for me as I began my fast but when I would look at the label, I would see words like yeast extract, egg, or the big perpetrator; sugar.

My trip to the grocery store was hell. Not because it was crowded or anything bad happened. It was hell because of two things cost and trying to find items I can eat. Every item I would find that would be in the health food section or anything labeled “vegetarian” would have items that I can’t eat. I would find myself being frustrated trying to find something to eat throughout the week. By the time I got ready to check out, it was floored by the cost of everything that would barely last me a week.

I understand why so many people get frustrated when they try to eat healthy because even when something is labeled health it has “sugar” in it. The cost to eat healthy is also ridiculous. I remember an episode on the Biggest Loser where a contestant told Bob Harper that to eat health was difficult for her family when you can get a whole pizza for $5. Bob said during his aside that he cannot compete with a $5 pizza but what he can do is show the results of a healthy lifestyle. With tax reform, health care reform being hot political topics, I think we need to have food reform to make sure people can eat healthy and make it affordable.

Daniel Fast – Day 6: Early Morning, Carbon Monoxide, & The Bin of Shame

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4:00 am.  My wife wakes me up because she hears beeping downstairs.  A few weeks ago, our Carbon Monoxide detector was defective and I replaced it right before Christmas.  My wife thought that the beeping was another defective unit, but in fact, it was warning us that the furnace was producing CO.  So I shut off the heat (luckily we were having warmer weather in VA), moved the kids to our bedroom and I got the last few winks on the couch after I called the furnace repair company to send a worker out.

Since the workers would be coming soon, I went and cleaned up the furnace room a tad bit.  One of the items was to empty out the trash can downstairs where there was just a bunch of packaging from junk food.  As I was looking at each item, I was beginning to think about all the times I had put junk into my body.  As the fast has begun to purge my body of any unhealthy eating habits I have partaken in, I began to search my heart and pray for the Spirit’s guidance to remove any bad habits that have been inhibiting me spiritually.  As the spirit continued to search my inmost being, I have seen how my attitude, impulses, and anger has to lead to unhealthy choices on a spiritual, physical, and emotional level.  It is through revelation that leads to repentance and through repentance is a renewed sense of self.

Daniel Fast – Day 5: Cranky Pants, Prayer Awareness, and Blood Loss.

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5 days in, and I have noticed that I am beginning to be cranky.  Sometimes I can be a bit cranky when there are big stressors in my life, but for the most part, I have a level head and pretty patient.  Today, I was just getting quickly annoyed with the smallest issues.  My prayer is that this does not become the norm during the fast.

One of the most interesting things about doing this fast is that I have had a heighten prayer awareness.  Multiple times throughout the day, I would be in prayer.  Most of the time, my mind would think about a situation or an individual and automatically, I stop what I am doing and began to pray.  Not just a quick prayer, but a focused, precise prayer.

The one thing I was nervous about was my blood donation appointment.  With a few days into the fast, I was curious how my body was going to respond the giving blood.  Typically, after I give, I usually will leave and drive back without feeling light-headed.  But with my fast, I thought it would be best to wait the 15 minutes before I attempt to leave.  It was not until some hours after, where just the simplest of the task would make me a bit light headed.  I also began to crave sugar.  I was beginning to think about sweets, and every sweet item that was in the house was a big temptation.  I was glad that I had church responsibilities to divert my mind from being consumed with cotton-candy fantasies.

Daniel Fast – Day 4: Routine, the root of all evil?

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I’m an extrovert.  I thrive when I am around other people whether I am sitting in a crowded room reading a book, or having conversations with new and familiar faces.  When my son has preschool, sometimes I will go to a coffee house and do work having a nice cup of coffee and soaking in the atmosphere.  So when I dropped him off at school, I drove to the local Starbucks, ordered a drink, and sat down and began working.  The problem?  I’m not supposed to have coffee during my fast.  But the troubling thing was I didn’t realize it until I had to figure out what I was going to eat when I had to take my son to the doctor.  Luckily Panara had some items I can eat, so we stopped there, ate, and took my son to the doctor’s office.

I have had difficulty with fasting, due to my unhealthy relationship with food.  Throughout my family history, we have been a family of emotional eaters.  An emotional eater (EE) is someone who uses food as a way to comfort from any emotional distress or pain they endure.  Going through a break-up? an EE will eat a tub of ice cream.  Bad grade? a trip to McDonald’s is in order.  I didn’t realize I was an EE until my Junior year in college where I went through a battle of depressions and ate out taco bell every night.  So when I do a fast, I tend to subconsciously grab some food and eat it and it takes me a few moments to realize, “oh crap, what am I doing?”  The same thing happened at Starbucks.  Dropping of the kid, drive to the coffee shop, get some coffee, write up reports, read my devotional, leave the coffee shop, go to the office, leave the office, pick up kid, etc.  It’s in those moments of failure, where I decide, “should I give up? I broke the fast!”

Routines are evil.  I am convinced of this due to how repetition can lead to bad habits.  When that bad habit has been established, it then becomes part of the routine.  For those who smoke, we may assume that it is the nicotine that causes people to light up.  But for some, it is part of the routine.  stressed out? smoke a cigarette.  9:45? time for a smoke break.  Even when one tries to quit a habit, more times than not the difficulty is not only the “good feelings” that habit gives him/her, but a routine is also a big cycle to break.

Even though I messed up with the coffee, I continued on track with the fasting for lunch and dinner. Giving up has been part of my routine, but not any longer.

Daniel Fast: Day 3 – Board Meeting, Meatballs, and Stealthy Salsa

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I had my first board meeting of the year in the evening.  It was a special meeting for two reasons. 1) one of our Elders was leaving the Board due to her term limit being up so we were having a party to celebrate her service to the Board. 2) Be able to discuss how God is leading us in the New Year.

At the beginning of the meeting, we prayed for healing for a number of church members, friends, and family and for the meal we were about to have.  It is important to note, that I had not revealed my fast to anyone.  So as I go into the kitchen, there is a counter filled with food; food I can not eat.

We had cocktail weenies, meatballs, chocolate cake, pimento cheese, BBQ potato chips.  I saw a can of almonds on the counter and went after it like a hawk, checking the label to see if there were no “added elements” to them.  I also looked at a jar of salsa to check for any processed junk, sugar, or any ingredients that I cannot pronounce.  One of our elders, who does mission work in Nicaragua, brought some salsa she bought from the country.  Homemade salsa?  I can eat that.  I asked her what was in it.  She then began to go through the list of ingredients.  With each natural ingredient, I was excited until she named two ingredients: Butter and Ketchup.  My lack of excitement was not because of the ingredients, I would try anything once, But it was ingredients forbidden by my fast.

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I often wonder how many things we buy into that we see as “good” or “spiritual” and when we partake in those things, we end up realizing it was a trap, snare,  or sneaky temptation.  I am someone who naturally is impulsive.  If I see something I like, I must have it.  If it is discounted, take my money.  If it looks like it will be a good investment, I’m all in.  But with each impulsive action, had lead to an even worst outcome.  That is why there is wisdom in waiting, especially when it comes to prayer.

Some of the best stories I have heard on the topic of prayer are the ones, that were answered a number of years later.  I read one story in “The Circle Maker” where a mother prayed for all of her 12 kids to accept Jesus as Lord of their life.  When she passed away, 6 of them were saved.  When the book was published, 10 out of the 12 have given there lives to Christ.  Daniel fasted and prayed for 21 days before he received insight into the revelation.  What things will the Lord reveal when we wait with obedience and anticipation?