I’ve forgotten how to pray – or maybe I never really knew how? Prayer and Fasting are really a new subject for me because I’ve truly never humbled myself. Fasting to hear from God is a new thought I’ve been chewing on recently. I don’t talk about these thoughts out loud – but I think about it. I recently read Isaiah 58 – really let it soak into my mind and heart – so I have a challenge for my friends. But first read Isaiah yourself – if you don’t have the scriptures I’ve provided a paraphrase (Message) below:

“Shout! A full-throated shout! Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout!
Tell my people what’s wrong with their lives,
face my family Jacob with their sins!
They’re busy, busy, busy at worship,
and love studying all about me.
To all appearances they’re a nation of right-living people—
law-abiding, God-honoring.

They ask me, ‘What’s the right thing to do?’
and love having me on their side.
But they also complain,
‘Why do we fast and you don’t look our way?
‘Why do we humble ourselves and you don’t even notice?’

“Well, here’s why:

“The bottom line on your ‘fast days’ is profit.
You drive your employees much too hard.
You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight.
You fast, but you swing a mean fist.
The kind of fasting you do
won’t get your prayers off the ground.
Do you think this is the kind of fast day I’m after:
a day to show off humility?
To put on a pious long face
and parade around solemnly in black?
Do you call that fasting,
a fast day that I, God, would like?

“This is the kind of fast day I’m after:
to break the chains of injustice,
get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
free the oppressed,
cancel debts.

What I’m interested in seeing you do is:
sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
being available to your own families.

Do this and the lights will turn on,
and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’

“If you get rid of unfair practices,
quit blaming victims,
quit gossiping about other people’s sins,
If you are generous with the hungry
and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.
I will always show you where to go.
I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—
firm muscles, strong bones.
You’ll be like a well-watered garden,
a gurgling spring that never runs dry.
You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You’ll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community livable again. “If you watch your step on the Sabbath
and don’t use my holy day for personal advantage,
If you treat the Sabbath as a day of joy,
God’s holy day as a celebration,
If you honor it by refusing ‘business as usual,’
making money, running here and there—
Then you’ll be free to enjoy God!
Oh, I’ll make you ride high and soar above it all.
I’ll make you feast on the inheritance of your ancestor Jacob.”
Yes! God says so!

If you’re anything like me fasting was about you and God hearing you and moving on your behalf. It had little to do with you acting on God behalf. I spend most of my fasting avoiding food and going hungry – little time overcoming injustice, exploitation, freeing the oppressed, feeding the hungry, inviting people into my home, clothing others, or being available to my family. Fasting (prayer for that matter) needs to change in my life – and I bet you too. So I challenge you to have a day of fasting and fast in a new way. The way Isaiah 58 outlines. One day and see what God does in the lives of others and yourself. I’m planning a day of fasting soon – one day could change my world.

I’ll admit it. I used to make fun of my “upbringing.”  Coming from a small Arkansas “village” wasn’t the thing I was most proud of.  I left the city of 5,000 as quickly as I could….in hopes of becoming a big city kind of girl.  And I did. I love what a city can offer.  I also hate what a city can do to your time/effectiveness in life.  At least in mine at this point in my life.

I recently was able to visit my family in Arkansas.  A trip home is always enjoyable to catch up, but in the past I’ve been ready to rush home.  Ahhhh….to be back in my lovely big city, busy life, important life (so I think it is/or want it to be).  As though the small city “folk” aren’t important in their own right.  This trip was different. This trip was insightful. This trip got me to thinking.

I appreciate and love my family.   Every aspect of them.  I used to be so quick to return to my “important life”, so that I could get away from past memories, old hurts, long time wounds that haven’t been healed.  Family issues that don’t ever seem to be talked about or confronted. You wonder why I hate conflict.

I was able to spend time (oh that “time” word….) with those that I truly love.  I saw my 80 year old grandparents get on the floor with Tatum and play play play. They laughed, they sang songs…I don’t think I’ve ever seen them that happy. Or maybe I was too busy to notice their happiness.  I looked into the eyes of my grandfather (”Daddy Bill”), and thought, wow.  I don’t know that I would have been able to describe his features before this weekend.  When was the last time I really looked at my family?  Really was “there” to see them….not just rush in and rush out….not just to make an appearance.

I returned to my Austin home Sunday, and I realized: I am ready for a slower pace of life.  How sad it is to me that 12-13 hours of my day are spent working and driving in traffic.  Away from my family.  Away from time that can and needs to be effective time.  I hate the fact that I have to write a LIST of things I need to talk to Chris about sometime before Thursday, because our schedules conflict so much.  I don’t enjoy arriving to my home at 6:00 pm, still stressing about work, feeding my baby, and hoping that I myself will get to eat dinner before 8:00 pm.  It breaks my heart that the time I do have at night is a struggle of “ok, what is priority….dishes, dinner, washing clothes, getting the mail, play time with Tatum, feed my dog, and try to stay awake before 9:30 to say a quick: i love you to my husband?”  I do not enjoy that when a friend wants to grab coffee, dinner, or go for a walk, I literally have to STOP and think “when can i do that this week?”

This blog is not to complain the entire time, yet its meant to express that the quality of life that I want to HAVE is not yet had.  I am unsatisfied.  I do not fill fulfilled.  I admire those that take each moment of their day to make it worthwhile.  I yearn to be a person that can just sell all their belongings and move to Europe….to start totally over if they wanted to.  What keeps us from having that freedom?  Time. Money.  But why?

There is more to life than what & how I am living currently.  I feel like I’m trying to swim the ocean, only I’m treading water about 10 miles off shore.   Anyone else with me on this?