Fasting: Failing...Winning?

I won't be so pedantic as to reference a certain pop-culture phenomenon about #winning...but I wanted to share something I learned today about #failing.

I mentioned on Sunday that my church is participating in a Week of Prayer and Fasting for the next few days (It's not really a week, it's Sun-Wed, but you get the idea). I also mentioned that, in the past, I've approached this as an opportunity to prove to God how much I loved him by giving up food for a few days.

It never worked. The prayer time was good, but I've always felt like I missed out on something very cool.

I think that something cool was failing.

See, we are taught early on that the worst thing that we can do is fail. We are taught to be strong, self-reliant, and successful at any cost. Even if we have to "fake it" we have to be strong. But that's not what I read today.

...God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world...
1 Cor 1:27-28

This is subtle and may not make any sense if you're not a crazy perfectionist like me:

I would rather give up on something than try and fail.

So I'm trying something new and I'm letting myself screw up; I'm letting myself fail. In fact, I failed tonight just to demonstrate my new commitment to failure. 

In all honesty, I'm very disappointed with myself (thus the attempt at humor). Still, I'm not quitting; I'm going to try again tomorrow.

I you would like to jump on board with the week of prayer and fasting, you can visit www.prayandfast.org and watch live webcasts Tuesday and Wednesday night at 7 PST. If you're in the Grant County area, stop by Ephrata Foursquare Church and pray with us in person.

And even if you're not participating, I'd love to hear what you're learning about being weak. I'd love to hear your crazy stories of perfectionism and fear of failure and share some more of mine. 

You can leave a comment below or find me on Facebook or Twitter (@sarah_e_brewer, I'm tweeting with the tags #prayandfast and #learningtobeweak.).

Let's learn to be weak together.

--Sarah Elizabeth

Fasting: Receiving not Giving

Tonight at 7:00 PSD, my church, Ephrata Foursquare Church, is joining Horizon Christian Fellowship in San Diego and hundreds of other congregations nation-wide in week of prayer and fasting via www.prayandfast.org. Each night of the "week" (which is actually 4 days) we come together in body and online via webcast to pray and encourage each other. It's always a great time.

Inevitably, however, I approach this time as a challenge to "prove" how important God is by showing I can and will make this sacrifice for Him. Please don't believe that this is just another demonstration of my pride, though that is part of it. It has more to do with my constant need to offer God something.

I have a fear of weakness and serious issues with receiving gifts. I am compelled to do and to give in order to prove, mostly to myself, that "I'm okay." That I can hold myself and my world together. This doesn't work. Not as a Christian. Not as a human.

It certainly doesn't fit with the nature fasting and it ruins this awesome week for me every year.
So, in keeping with this time my life, God is offering me a chance to learn something new about Him. He's letting me learn about not being strong, about humility, about not being enough. He's giving me a chance to learn to receive.

We're all neurotic in some way. If your neurosis sounds a bit like mine, let me invite you to learn how to be weak with me. Even if you aren't doing it through fasting (though I'd welcome the company!), let's learn how to receive from God, together.

You can listen to an encouraging message on prayer, fasting, and this upcoming week by my pastor at www.efcnet.org.

Even if you aren't fasting, even if you jump aboard late, even if you don't participate every day, I'd love for you to join me and hear how things are going for you as well! Visit www.prayandfast.org to join in the live webcast and I'll be posting on twitter via @sarah_e_brewer using the tag #prayandfast.

How can I pray for you this week?