May 2, 2009
I’ve been meaning to fast and pray for quite some time, but I just never seem to get to it. Until Thursday. Now it was urgent. And maybe that’s what it requires in the first place: an urgency. One of our House Church members had a “suspicious mass” show up in a CAT scan, so he was referred down to Mayo for a closer look on Thursday. Our group was stunned when we heard the news. Larry is so healthy! Since our group had just started to study fasting, we decided to just do it. We would fast and pray on Thursday, throughout the day, for Larry while he ran through a battery of tests. That Tuesday evening in our group meeting we anointed him in the name of Jesus and prayed for our brother. He said it was already bringing him great strength just to know that we would be fasting and praying throughout the day. I didn’t remember it being so difficult. Fasting, that is. The morning was pretty normal. But around lunch time my stomach went on strike and let me know it for the rest of the day. Which is what a fast is all about: giving up something as an act of faith and sacrifice. Our House Church gave up food for a day as an act of sacrifice to demonstrate our sincerity before God as we prayed for Larry. The lack of food functioned as a constant alarm clock, reminding us to pray throughout the day. The act of fasting itself demonstrated our oneness with our brother. We would voluntarily suffer a few hours without food, while he involuntarily suffered an invasion of his body by unknown forces. We received the preliminary results around 3:15—an encouraging prognosis! That night I savored plain white rice with a little butter. Rice never tasted so good. Unity with my brother Larry never felt so good either. And the prayer-mode that I entered into that day was new, and rich, and deep.