Today I had signed up to take the Sunday noon fasting and prayer spot in Kimberly Hoffman's Fasting and Prayer Group, praying for our nation and about the election. Also Franklin Graham had called for today to be a day of fasting and prayer. So there were lots of reasons to fast and pray today. I arrived home from church and helped my daughter and her friend get some lunch on (the others have been gone hunting), while answering questions about fasting. "Aren't you going to eat anything? Hannah worried.
"I will eat later," I assured her.
My fasting lasted exactly two hours, when I became so faint that I knew I had to eat, especially since I had to drive my daughter's friend home through snow squalls that afternoon, and had to help with evening chores in the evening. I hadn't expected weather in the single digits and snow squalls and company when I offered to fill a fasting spot.
I
did spend about an hour praying when I could finally get away from the
kitchen. I walked in my room and in the hall to keep awake. I wasn't on
my knees like Nash prayed. I followed a prayer guide I'd typed up
earlier because I was having trouble coming up with new words. At two
o'clock I had to warm up chicken soup on the woodstove and eat it. That
was all the fasting I could manage.
I didn't feel very full of the Spirit either when I went out to the barn this eveing with a pan of warm mush and milk for the pigs and warm water for the goats. The pigs nearly knocked me over and certainly knocked each other out of the way as they fought for the first and most mush, spilling part of their feed in the process. Pigs definitely know nothing about being spiritual and unselfish. We did our best to make sure all the animals had water and hay and feed before closing pens up for the night (me lifting up one heavy gate by leveraging a pitchfork under it so Hannah could line up the gate latch). Then I had to feed and water two of the dogs (could hardly get their latch to work, either) and put down towels and rug in the garage for the dogs since it was so cold.
Finally I sit down by the fire to relax and read, and I read this article.
I can't relate to Nash except to the first part of his life where he
struggled with church people problems. Who can't relate to that? He left
that church and went to pieces. Or else he went to pieces and left that
church, not sure which order. I relate to that, too. But then he spent
weeks in nothing but thinking and praying in a dark room with an eye
issue, and came out "overhauled" and full of the Spirit, never preaching
again, but looking up Finney and becoming a partner with Finney in
prayer, resulting in thousands of conversions.
That is where I can't relate anymore.I am out in the barn pushing pigs around and then coming inside and mopping up mud. I am playing a game with my daughter and working on her attitude when she pouts because I cross her. I am washing dishes and washing dishes and washing dishes, unless it is laundry or windows that I am washing.
Most days I don't feel full of the Spirit at all.
But
is it possible that many times, maybe much of the time, living in the
Spirit is more about willingly doing humble things than doing great
things? Is it possible that being filled with the Spirit will result in
just putting on your duds and doing what has to be done, even if it
means fighting with the most selfish pigs you ever saw and the most
cantankerous goats, and the most rowdy dogs and the poutiest kids?
Is it possible that being filled with the Spirit is about filling the pig trough and the chicken waterer and the dog dish and the woodstove and the kitchen sink? And then just offering these humble services up to God as a sacrifice of love, with no fame, no prestige, no power, no converts, just humble work that needs to be done being done?
Lord, if being filled with Your Spirit results in that, let me just humbly keep doing my work and trust You with the results.
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