Class #4

At first when I thought of the fact my residence floor was going to have a group fast. I’m not sure if the group fast is encouraged, or if they we are supposed to be doing it because it’s forced. After thinking about that for a minute, I thought the idea of doing a fast for the reason that you are forced in to it, is just terrible. Fasts shouldn’t be forced, it’s like forcing someone to pray or meditate, and it just doesn’t work unless you have a willing heart. One of my group members commented on this though, he said “We are not in control of our lives all the time… if everything is depended on what we want to do… it’s about us”. In the context of fasting or doing a spiritual discipline I disagree.
I find it strange how fasting helps you make your choices though. I always thought the purpose of fasting was for helping you know that God is the provider, that he can provide you strength. Something that confuses me is that if we fast for whatever reason. Why would we be hungry if God is sustaining us. In Fosters book about spiritual disciplines he goes on explaining how in a few days you hunger pains come, and in by the later days you begin to feel dizzy. But how does this work, how do we get dizzy if we rely on God for strength, does this mean that his strength isn’t working in us, or is he not giving strength? Shouldn’t we be at full strength if God is giving us strength?
I like how in the Nouwen book how the author tells that we are Gods beloved. The book tells us in the reflection part of the chapter that we should just sit, and meditate on the fact that we are God’s beloved, the author tells us to keep repeating it to ourselves over and over again. I tried that, but instead of saying, ‘I am your beloved’ I thought of a praise I can say to the Father as if I was standing in front of him. I may have been shown a vision of the father very close up. I also saw what seemed to be someone of darkness, maybe the enemy or just a demon. I saw them in a standoff and it was strange.
I believe God’s will doesn’t change. I think he will either say, ‘Yes’, ‘no’ or ‘just wait’. It obviously means we have to wait a while but I think God wants us to wait until he feels we are ready.
I am looking forward to reading about the other disciplines, and my goal is to start applying some of these in my life. I just don’t know whether I should practice a few of them at a time, or if I should go over all of them and then when I’m done one cycle, to try going through them again.