Well, day five has been a great day in a lot of ways. As I sit here sipping on a cherry almond smoothie (remember this is a liquid only fast) I am thinking of all that I am learning in the natural and spiritual realms.
Today I “practiced the presence of God” all through my day. (see yesterdays post) It’s not that I haven’t done this before but today was different. It was more intentional. One thing I learned is that we make talking to our Father entirely too hard. Have you ever “practiced” your prayer in your head before praying it to God? Y’all know what I am talking about, just go ahead and admit it. You think through and rehearse what it is you want to talk to Him about. This is so funny to me and I would like to think that the Lord just smiles when we do this because He is the One who is hearing us practice! He wants us to just talk to Him and there is no rehearsal necessary. Of course we must never forget that we are approaching The Holy God and we should always have reverence and awe of Him. But He really does want to hear from us, He is always waiting and ready.
So, like Brother Lawrence, I just talked to Him. I thanked Him, I laughed with Him, I praised Him, I worked with Him by my side. He is always with us yet we leave Him out of so much of our day. I guess we think He is not interested in our mundane tasks, but He is the One who gave us those tasks. There is something about being aware of Him all the time. Some people are scared by that thought. Like He is a big bad man watching and waiting for us to mess up. The beautiful thing is that He is BIG and He wants to be BIG in our lives. He is our very present help at all times. As we become more and more aware of Him we start to act differently, talk differently, handle people and situations differently, we start to do things with a much higher standard of excellence because the God who made us is with us. He wants to help us and He keeps us in check. When you realize you are entertaining Royalty all day, you will act differently. You will drink a smoothie at 9:00 p.m. instead of eating a bowl of ice cream.
Speaking of ice cream, did I mention it snowed today? In Mississippi people, it snowed in Mississippi. This rarely happens and when it does it is glorious. At the sight of the first snowflake my first thought was, from Isaiah 1:18
“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.”
The fact that it snowed while I am fasting just blows me away. Pure, white, bright, clean, snow. God wants a Holy vessel to be used to glorify Him. He wants a Holy people that are set apart and white as snow. And what about the reference to wool? Have you ever thought about the prophetic foreshadowing of our Savior in this verse? In John 1:29, John saw our Lord Jesus coming and he said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” From the first words, “In the beginning God” to the last Amen in Revelation it has always been about God’s redeeming love. We were made to be a Holy people in fellowship with our Holy God and sometimes it take a fast to remind us of this.
“Amen, Come Lord Jesus.”
Living Free,
Rene’
