Tis the season to be stressed out

Hans and I are both students. We live with students. We go to church and serve with mostly students. So -- we know. Deadlines and big decisions loom ahead. You don't have to be a student to understand these things. The burden weighs us down, our weaknesses glaring. Tiredness, depression, and panic seeps in. Life seeps out. We are left like dry bones, hearts barren.

'Tis is also the season when God's Word, prayer, and fasting fall by the wayside, and replaced by more urgent, "necessary" things. There is simply no time to read God's Word. Prayers are becoming mostly about me, my fears, my goals. Tell me what do you want me to do? Tell me what is your will for my life? Fasting? Completely out of the question. How am I suppose to get through the day without food?!

Welcome to my foolish head.

He has spoken, but we are not listening. He shows us the way to freedom and restoration, but we do not follow. He tells us his will for our lives, but we do not trust or believe him.

Fast and pray -- this how we must repent. This is how we are to place ourselves once more in the way of grace. Jesus did not say, “If you fast" or "If your pray” but “When you fast” and "When you pray." These are not optional; they are not electives in the syllabus.

When our flesh rebels, when we find all kinds of excuses, when we do not want to fast and pray -- this is exactly when we must fast and pray. Throw ourselves at Christ's feet. Repent. Worship. Bend our knees. Trust. Obey. Simply because he commands us to do so.

Prayer and fasting is the perfect posture to offer this God-depending, God-glorifying, flesh-denying, self-forgetting worship. These are acts of faith. This is the way of grace.

On our knees,
doing nothing,
empty, weak, hungry,
we wait,
we pray.

I am yours;
save me.