Faith and Fasting

Power in the world is obviously the main focus of Satan.  So said, now I will proceed to tell you of the journey I have been having to right my foolish and vain misunderstandings so that I can have that which is of the most worth.  I clearly see that it is not power in this world, unless it is to overcome everything that is in my path and overcome Satan to reach a place with Christ.

My desire to fast and learn from my fasting has changed and increased in intensity over the last 3 years.  I have learned so much that it seems a very small thing what I knew about it in the beginning.

My fasting exposure began as a little girl in church.  We were given the opportunity to participate in a group fast in our ward body once a month for 2 meals.  I do not ever remember doing this until I reached my 30’s.  I have no idea why that was, but the necessity and importance of it never seemed to reach home.

When I saw this invitation to aid others, I still did not fast for that reason. I did want to show my love for God, and I did want to show obedience to Him through the fast, so I would fast frequently for other things, but it would be nearly 30 years more before I recognized that there was power behind the fast. Whatever that was, I wanted to participate more fully in it.  Even today I have another reason for it.

Over the last 20 years I have been given what most people would call a second chance.  I will not go into it at this point, but it is not difficult to see that the Lord blessed me abundantly and I have had the opportunity to repeat some steps in my life where I had not stayed on the path.  Still, I have failed in so many ways, but I stayed closer to the path through it all.

Getting older, slower and hopefully wiser in the journey has also helped me to see the blessings from the Lord.  But I can see, in retrospect, that fasting has cleared my mind and heart from much of the clutter of false beliefs and doubt, as well as taught me many things.  Was it the fast, or was it the Lord being able to access me in greater ways through my fast?  I think it the latter.

I have felt the desire of late to learn more of keeping the first 2 great commandments.  I don’t know how much people really think about them in any kind of depth, and can only ponder upon that question in this fashion because of my lack of depth in the consideration of what God calls the first 2 GREAT commandments.

I have spent many, many hours in contemplation of what it means to love God and my neighbor. I was recently asked to come to the aid of 2 people I knew very little. I was supported by others who I know very little, who supplanted my efforts with the expenses of the ticket. It cost a great deal of money for me to access these people in need, and my other friends all stepped up to the plate with the necessary funds to fly me very far away to this family’s aid.  I definitely felt the Lord in it, but I can honestly say that I felt much like Jonah going to Nineveh. 

I can truthfully say that the Lord will always, if we are so inclined, give us the desire of our hearts, especially if it is in His great and glorious plan of Happiness. I have felt to be ALL the Lord would have me be.  I see more closely that I am so much less than I had ever imagined.  But I can see that through the period of time I have been involved in studying the fast, and every single little attempt I make at fasting (sometimes I do not stay on my fast as long as I had hoped), the blessings continue to pour out upon me as well as those I have prayed for.

One thing is for sure, I have been lacking in faith.  I am well acquainted with the story of the man who asks for a blessing of the Savior for his child.  For the purpose of greater explanation, I include the entire event mentioned in Mark 9:17-29.

And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit; And wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away: and I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not.

He answereth him, and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him unto me.

And they brought him unto him: and when he saw him, straightway the spirit tare him; and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming.

And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, Of a child. And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us.

Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him. And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him: and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, He is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose. And when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast him out? And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.

I look at the many different things that happened in this, and seek to liken it unto my own experiences and understanding.

What could be more apparent to us all, who seek to draw closer to the Lord, the great amount of darkness within us that causes us to subject ourselves to all manner of pain and hurt, whether it be in the company of seen or unseen individuals, poisoned media and music, toxic substances we either ingest or expose ourselves to without even knowing; all these things bring harm to our bodies and our spirits.

There is no doubt about the fact that these things have been coming upon us from the time we were little children, sometimes by well meaning parents, but regardless of how they have entered our lives, they have caused us to pine away and tear at our hearts.  They would cloud the very thought of loving our God and our neighbor, let alone our spouses, children and friends.

I speak from personal experience in all these fields.  It has only been in the last little while as I have pled with the Lord to teach me how to keep these 2 great commandments, to show me what it means to truly love Him and his precious children, that I have seen how blinded I have been from my youth.

I remember the words to a song I told my friend about the other day.

You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught , From South Pacific, Rogers and Hammerstein

You've got to be taught

To hate and fear,

You've got to be taught

From year to year,

It's got to be drummed

In your dear little ear

You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid

Of people whose eyes are oddly made,

And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,

You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,

Before you are six or seven or eight,

To hate all the people your relatives hate,

You've got to be carefully taught!

I was carefully taught all this darkness, which has been as a dumb and deaf spirit within me.  Think how many times Isaiah invites us to wake up, to rise up, to have our eyes and our ears opened. Certainly all of us who have bought into any of the world’s darkness have been possessed to some degree with deaf, dumb, and blind spirits.

I too cried out, just as the father of this bewildered and tortured boy, ‘Oh, Help thou mine unbelief!’

To my joy I can report that my pleas did not go unanswered, but came, as blessings always do, with love and peace.

I was reading in Jakob Lorber’s, The Great Gospel of John, book 5, (http://www.jakob-lorber.cc/index.php?s=raphael+blind&l=en&b= ) where an angel is instructing a newly converted atheist about loving one’s brother to the point of blessing him with healings.

Raphael, the angel, states:

"Suppose you wanted to give the eyesight back to a blind person through the power of the divine will within you, but you might at the same time doubt a little in its success, then that is already greatly mistaken; for the blind man will not achieve sight in this way. But if you are moved in the love for God most powerfully, this highest fire of love and life will not only animate your soul most powerfully, but instead it will spread spiritually far above your sphere of form with an irresistible all-power and there it will work in a very concentrated way wherever your divine will has naturally seized something with all wisdom and intelligence. If then the blind man is seized by your divine will of God and immediately placed in the focal point of the all-powerful love of God, of whom your soul is full, he must also stand there in an instant as perfectly seeing; for in the highest light and fire of love and life from God every death must give in, even that of an eye which has died to light, which naturally is as good as dead without light as the whole body without breath and pulse. Thereby then the awakening of a deceased person is made possible in an instant; for if the divine will which fills your heart, and its wisdom are not against the reawakening of some dead person, you only need to place the dead person under the burning centre of your love for the Lord God and he will live again perfectly!

Never did I understand the greater importance of love than when I read this beautiful example.  No wonder God wants us to love! No wonder this is the crux of the great commandments! It is the greatest power, one that heals and one that can create, both worlds as well as true happiness.

I need to have this love, to understand this love, to feel this love.  I want more than anything to be possessed of this love.

I came across an interesting part of a book describing faith.  Here is a quote from the book:

Faith to be real must be outside the limits of caution, and be fired by something more potent and effective than calculating prudence, or logical deduction, or judicial impartiality.  It must be the fire that burns within, the mainspring that regulates the life, the overmastering force that will not be at rest. This is what braves death and torture, braces up the feeble knees for long and hard endurance, and conducts its possessor safe at last through any perils that may assail him to the goal where faith finds its rewards in fruition.

I love the words of the Prophet, Joseph Smith, when he speaks of faith.  He explains in Lecture 6, verse 7;

Let us here observe, that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation; for, from the first existence of man, the faith necessary unto the enjoyment of life and salvation never could be obtained without the sacrifice of all earthly things. It was through this sacrifice, and this only, that God has ordained that men should enjoy eternal life; and it is through the medium of the sacrifice of all earthly things that men do actually know that they are doing the things that are well pleasing in the sight of God. When a man has offered in sacrifice all that he has for the truth's sake, not even withholding his life, and believing before God that he has been called to make this sacrifice because he seeks to do his will, he does know, most assuredly, that God does and will accept his sacrifice and offering, and that he has not, nor will not seek his face in vain. Under these circumstances, then, he can obtain the faith necessary for him to lay hold on eternal life.

Evidently faith and fasting have a huge, dependent relationship, especially when it is couple with love, the active ingredient that makes all things work together for our good.  If my fasting has brought me anything, it has taught me every time I endeavor to lengthen my stride in the observance of my fast, to feel the Spirit of the Lord by my side, I learn that He is ever present with me.  As I look at my life in retrospect, I can see the some of the results from my fasting.  I feel enlightened by the darkness and deafness, and especially the blindness in my ability to understand God.  I see Him so much more real and alive in my life.

He is teaching me about love.  He is teaching me about faith, the real faith that breaks mountains, heals the blind, the deaf, the dumb, and all manner of other miraculous dealings.  They are a product first of love of God and our belief in His matchless power.

Today I can say with great humility how grateful I am for the law of the fast in my life.  I look forward anxiously for the future.