Is there anything more exhilarating than those sacred moments when you realize that the God of the universe has just shown up in your life? No matter how mundane the subject matter–when God inserts Himself you’ve got a miracle on your hands. I experienced this today.
First things first: Prayer. I am a relatively new participant, really, in the world of prayer. I’ve always talked to God, but have never really thrived in the world of intercessory prayer. When people talk about praying all night long, I avoid eye contact. If I prayed all night it would have to be in my sleep. Long periods of prayer for me are usually punctuated by an embarrassing amount of mind-wandering. But, I’m growing! As many of you know, we began a women’s prayer meeting every Monday morning at 6am. This has challenged me and helped me so much. It’s like a weekly reset button that reminds me of the power of getting alone with God in prayer. The other women challenge and encourage me, and there’s so much joy in knowing that the current events of the church, and of our lives, have been lifted up to the God of heaven and earth.
If I felt weak in prayer, I felt hopelessly weak in fasting. For years the word “fasting” felt dreaded to me. I used to fast consistently, but for several years–ever since I got pregnant with Dutch and began this 4-year period of being either pregnant or breastfeeding nonstop–I could not do it for the life of me, and every time I tried it was anything but spiritual. Instead it was me, grumpy and more fleshly than ever, frustrated by the process and counting down the hours until it was done. Nothing seemed accomplished. Finally, I gave up, and told God that I was waiting until He gave me a clear green light. Until then, I was tired of failing.
So, just recently, in a clear-as-day moment during the middle of someone else’s crisis, He gave me the green light. I can explain it in no other way than that I knew with 100% clarity what He was asking me to do. And I kid you not–it was 180 degrees different from before. Joy, purpose, strength (yes, still tired, but in a different sort of way) characterized the time. And when I was done, I knew I was done. So much peace. Though I suppose I was technically fasting “for” someone else, I knew deep down this was God graciously giving me another chance to engage in a precious spiritual discipline that would allow me to experience more of Him. He was blessing me.
Because of that experience, Jeff and I decided to fast and pray together, regularly. Please hear me in this–I share this not to toot our horn but to show you that God is so gracious in our weakness! He wants to show up in our lives and He makes it so easy for us! And personal fasting is supposed to be done in secret (as with prayer), so we are wise to be discreet about it. However, I have learned so much by others who share about their experience with spiritual disciplines. Hence, I’m sharing this.
So, we did this recently, and I happened to have a meeting that morning that was extremely challenging, in a good way. It challenged some of my assumptions about how ministry is done, and therefore gave me some good fodder for prayer that day, as I contemplated what I’d heard. The gist of it was how to get more creative in frugality and financial giving, so that more and more true ministry can take place.
So, the day goes on and Jeff and I have our scheduled prayer time over the phone. I’m praying about lofty things, and to my surprise all of a sudden Jeff starts praying for our sprinkler system (which we were to install this next weekend). Um, ok. Yeah, I guess God even cares about helping us install our sprinkler system. That’s cool.
Later that night, fasting is done, we treat the kids to ice cream and go to Lowe’s to buy all the materials for installing the sprinkler system. Of course nothing’s as it’s supposed to be–they’re missing a bunch of pieces, Heidi cracks her head on the concrete floor, you know the routine–house projects never look quite like the pictures you see on the ad. They should show DIY-manuals with pictures of people crying or punching holes in walls. Anyway…
We buy all the materials–$168–and get in the car. I quickly do all the addition in my head–renting the trencher, buying the materials, the hours of labor. It reached at least $350 and several summer weekends. I get the kids some ice water–they’re hot and tired; it’s past their bedtime. We pull away and for some reason I begin to think of Africa (one of the things we’d been praying for all day).
“What a funny culture we live in. We’re spending almost $400 and hours and hours of labor so that we don’t have to walk outside and turn on a hose-sprinkler. Does that strike you as odd?” Jeff looked at me like I’d just said the most profound thing in the world.
He frowned slightly, in thought. “I guess we don’t have to have a sprinkler system.” I thought about this. We’d figured we had to, since our neighborhood is pretty nice and all the other homes do. It’s an investment, of course, because you supposedly get your money back when you sell. Then I thought of John Piper’s statement about his house, when he was criticized for buying in a poor neighborhood: “I didn’t buy my house as an investment,” he said, “I bought it to live in.” His investment, I suppose, is in heaven. Yes, I’m all for wise investments, but how much better to forget about my personal investment, and instead invest that money in something far greater.
Then, of course, my morning’s meeting came back front and center in my mind. That was it. If we all made little choices, like skipping ridiculous things like sprinkler systems, we could fund God’s kingdom work no problem! I shared this with Jeff and the decision was done. Jeff and I were jumping out of our seats with excitement. We’d heard from God! We’d fasted and prayed and Jeff had specifically prayed about our sprinkler system, even though it seemed odd at the time, and God had a plan that wove it all together–in a way that would leave no doubt that He, the King of Kings, was leading our lives. How exciting is that! And, we now had a chunk of change, to give to that special cause, that we hadn’t had before. Woohoo!
We came home giddy. All of a sudden we realized that our project would now be easy–could probably be finished in a weekend. Topsoil and grass–that’s all we needed. Which also meant we could spend the rest of our summer playing, rather than toting our kids back and forth to Home Depot. As we pulled onto our street we actually rolled down the windows and starting shouting praises out the window. Even Heidi joined in. I’m sure the neighbors thought we were crazy, but we have reason to celebrate. God actually cares about our lives–every mundane detail. Prayer, fasting, and sprinkler systems: that’s exhilarating to me.
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*Of course my point is not that sprinkler systems are evil :), but rather how getting with God transforms our thinking, helping us to be spiritually minded rather than mindlessly going with the flow of the world. In what ways has God challenged you to do things different? I’d love to hear.