Three Dreams {fasting series}
Three weeks into the fast, I had three vivid dreams, three nights in a row. Now, I’m not much of a dreamer, but last summer, when praying about the Ark, I had two very vivid dreams that were significant to the Ark journey, so I wrote them down. Other than that, I haven’t really ever dreamed much. But these three really stood out. At the time I wasn’t sure what they meant, so I just wrote them down, trusting that their significance would be clear eventually. These are the three dreams:
- We were driving to a ballet performance of Romeo and Juliet. It was about 7:05pm and the show was at 7:30pm. Suddenly, just before we arrived, I realized with utter horror that I was IN the ballet. Not only that, I was Juliet! Gah! I was so frustrated that we were late, and that I didn’t know I was in the play. We arrived, and there was all this bustle getting me ready, makeup on, costume ready, then I realized that I didn’t have ballet shoes! Then, just as the curtain was about to open, I realized I had never even seen the script (it was a ballet with words). I had no idea what my lines were, moves were, steps were…nothing. I was racking my brain trying to figure out how on earth I could pull off a total improv. of the entire performance. It was the most sickening feeling.
- I was sitting on a hot beach, with a certain group of people. I wanted to serve ice cream for everyone to celebrate someone’s birthday, but when I opened up the ice cream carton, it was all eaten except for a tiny bit at the bottom. I was frustrated that someone had eaten all the ice cream, but figured I’d make due and just serve small amounts to everyone. Then I realized that we needed cones, so I headed off to the store in search of cones. All I could find was a Coldstone, so I went to the counter to see if I could buy cones, but someone was ahead of me in line. This person took twenty minutes making up their mind about what they wanted, and I was beside myself with frustration. Then, when I asked about buying cones, the worker just stared at me and said she’d have to go ask her manager. She left for a long time looking for her manager and I’m beside myself in frustration at this point. Then she comes back and says they’ll sell us cones but they’ll be $6 each. Gah! That’s like $30 just for the stupid cones! So I leave the Coldstone and finally find a store where I can buy a box of cones. Then I return to the beach, and of course the ice cream is totally melted, and I’m trying to make ice cream cones about of a small glob of melted ice cream, and all these other kids on the beach keep coming up and asking if they can have cones too, and I’m explaining there isn’t enough, then when I finally get the cones made, the person who’s birthday it is says, “Oh, I don’t want any.” And I feel hurt because I worked so hard to get it, and I look around and all the other people there are lounged back in their lawn chairs staring off, like half-asleep, totally oblivious to this whole ordeal, and I’m completely exhausted.
- I fell in love. *yikes* In this dream, I fell in love with a man (not a real person, by the way), and just remember being totally enraptured with him. It was completely pure, but we were in love, and I remember beginning to make plans to get married, and being so excited, and him going to my dad to ask if we could get married. And then, there was this moment of horror when my dad says, “Kari, you’re already married. You already have two children! What are you doing??!!” And I was absolutely horrified. I had no idea. I had completely forgotten that I was already married! How on earth did this happen?? How could I have forgotten? I was devastated.
Yikes, huh?! Not exactly the most sweet and peaceful sleep. Next I’ll share some thoughts on what they meant for me…
{Thanks for reading.}
“Did it work?” {Fasting series}
“Well, did it work?”
This was the most common question we received, in a number of different forms, when someone heard we’d done a 40-day fast. Understandably. We certainly don’t just go without all our favorite foods for fun. There was a purpose to this. It was meant to accomplish something, right?
So, most people want to get to the bottom line: Was it worth it?
I much prefer the latter question over the first. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Did it work? Let’s talk about that question for a minute.
In The Jesus Fast, Lou Engle speaks from experience and encourages aspiring fasters to remember that most often, spiritual revelation and breakthrough comes after the fast, not during. He said he has rarely experienced a supernatural “answer” during a time of fasting. Occasionally he has had a significant breakthrough occur around day 20-21, but more often than not, he wasn’t even aware of the spiritual significance of the fasting time, until afterwards.
I am so glad we knew that going into this. I didn’t have expectations of lofty dreams or visions. What I did have was a full assurance of faith that this was God’s plan, and faith, by definition, believes that God rewards those who diligently seek Him. So, I was confident that there would be a spiritual blessing by setting aside this time to diligently seek Him, but I didn’t necessarily have expectations of any certain thing happening during my fast.
But, things did. A lot of things are personal in nature, having to do with people and relationships, but I saw significant spiritual breakthrough in relationships. I saw people I had been praying for, making choices to lay things down, to turn more fully to Jesus. I saw issues surface and be dealt with. I saw answers to prayer for my children and family.
One team member saw a miracle. Like, a real one. I hope to share it with you soon.
And I had several dreams. I’ll share more about those on Monday, but just from a practical standpoint I want to emphasize, and hopefully encourage anyone fasting, not to be discouraged if they don’t have some big spiritual high or breakthrough, or feel like they have goosebump experiences the whole time. Fasting is hard. It’s the dying of our flesh and self and it isn’t always a ra-ra pep-rally experience. The Christian walk isn’t this. Just as marriage isn’t always butterflies and Hollywood sex, so our love relationship with Jesus isn’t always goose-bump encounters and spiritual highs. I love those things, but the stuff of devotion, the stuff of marriage is often the day-to-day choice to love no matter how you feel. Fasting was a clear picture of this truth. It didn’t matter how we felt that day, we chose to follow through, by faith, believing God is who He says He is and will do what He says He’ll do no matter how we felt.
Our faith falters when we focus on results. Our faith flourishes when we focus on HIM.
So did it work? Not sure. Does God work? Absolutely. Always.
He promises to reward those who seek Him (Heb. 11:6). That’s enough for me.
{Happy weekend! Thanks for reading.}
“I’d never do that.” {Fasting series}
Here’s another story from another dear friend. In case you’re saying, “I’d never do that…” she said that too. 😉
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This has been such an interesting journey for me. I have never fasted in any shape or form before. Growing up super legalistic I have spent a lot of my adult life relying on myself and thinking of God as someone far away that is always ready to condemn you.
Over the last year God has been slowly and painfully tearing down the walls around my heart and I am so thankful to no longer be guarded against Him and fellow Christians. It has been amazing to be able to say I “heard” from God and realizing that He speaks to us through so many ways, especially His scriptures.
I definitely hadn’t planned on fasting and it was one of those things I was “never” going to do (kind of like speaking or praying in front of the church). Obviously God had other plans. Our family has a lot of big changes coming in the next year and I felt God asking me to prepare myself because it was going to be a rocky season. Every time I would ask God how He wanted me to prepare someone would talk about fasting or I would read about fasting in my Bible reading that day. Hmm, strange I thought.
Fast forward to a couple of months later and we were at the Women’s Getaway. I went into the weekend feeling ready to receive what God had planned for me and through prayer and conversation, felt really convicted that fasting was how He wanted to prepare me. If you know me you know I am not a halfway kind of gal, so I decided to go for it and started the day after we got back.
I love the fact that I came back and told [my husband] that I was going to fast for 40 days and instead of questioning me at all, he just says, “Okay, let me know how I can encourage you.” It is such a blessing to be married to someone who can say that, especially with how our marriage started out.
Fasting is such an eye opening experience. You realize that it’s okay to be hungry. You realize that God really can be what you desire. You also realize how broken the world is. I thought this time of fasting was going to be about our lives. It is in some ways but for me it has really been about interceding in prayer for our broken world. I used to be so accepting of sickness, divorce, etc. as just a part of life. These past three weeks God has told me no! You need to fight! You need to get on you knees and intercede for the world you live in. It is easy to see the brokenness in world. It is in your face every day. Now I feel like I am seeing it through God’s eyes and I am so excited to be able to enter into this battle with prayer and fasting.
My faith has increased more in this short amount of time than ever before. It may surprise you but I can get really focused on getting things done and being motivated. Being hungry has definitely slowed me down and made me more focused on what God has for me in the moment. It has also been a great way to share with people what God is doing in my life, instead of letting that mom’s night out be really awkward. I was reading 1 Corinthians this morning and this just resonated with me:
“Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 1:31
That is what I want. I want people to know and see that anything that happens in my life is not my own doing but God’s.
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I love this: “You need to fight! You need to get on your knees and intercede for the world.” Amen, sister. Well said. Thanks for reading.}
From legalism to freedom {Fasting series}
Fasting started out being really challenging for me and I felt less joy and more disconnected from Jesus than I had previously and nothing in my life or circumstances had changed except for fasting, so I summed it up to spiritual attack. When Jesus fasted, Satan came and tempted Him, so I figured that was it.
But then I went to the beach with some friends who all stopped to get ice cream and candy, and I was internally struggling. “Maybe the store sells something yummy that doesn’t have sugar,” I thought to myself, and lo and behold they did. So I got the sugar free chocolate (which was still sweet and yummy) and ate two bites and immediately felt convicted. God showed me that I was being legalistic about the fast, but missing the heart of it. I immediately repented, threw the rest of the chocolate away, and moved on.
Fast forward a couple days and we are at community group and I just start munching away on chips, and after eating about six chips, I realized I had completely forgotten that I was fasting from said items, which was then followed by me berating myself for being such an idiot and how could I forget and so on and so on.
The rest of the evening and driving home, I felt like I was being pounded by shame and under major spiritual attack. As I was pouring my heart out to [my husband], I felt like the enemy was yelling in my ear, “Just quit. You’ve already messed twice, why even bother continuing? You might as well just give up or otherwise you’ll have to start completely over again and do it right this time. But you know yourself, you’ll never get it right, so really, just give up.”
“How do you think God will use this?”“I don’t know” I snarkily replied.“Well, maybe God wants to teach you about grace.”
Oh man, you know those moments when it feels like the Holy Spirit whacks you in the head and says, “Pay attention.” That was this moment. It’s such a simple concept and my mind understands it, but I really struggle to receive grace. I love that God gives it, but I spent so many years of my life abusing His grace that I tend to swing so far to the other side of trying to achieve perfection that I have a hard time receiving grace. Anyway, I spent some quality time with Jesus that night and realized that this fast was started out in my flesh (trying to be good enough to get some spiritual result for the lives of others) and what the Lord showed me was that fasting isn’t to get something (even if it is something good) or even become something good/better (legalistically following rules), but to just rest in Him and His grace. Jeff’s quote so perfectly sums up what God has been teaching me so far:
“Fasting is never about how faithfully we abstain from food, but rather how faithfully God breaks into our weakness if we will only give Him the chance.
So do this: Know that a call to fast is not a call to perfection, but do not take the fast lightly, either. Our flesh will fail, yet God is full of grace. He loves the simple Yes! toward Him that a fast represents. So if you have previously tried and failed, be renewed and return to your consecration in His strength. Learn from my mistakes: There is simply no such thing as failure in fasting—the whole purpose is simply to break into a realm of faith.” (page 84, The Jesus Fast by Lou Engle & Dean Briggs)