Prayer and Fasting

My dad died on June 12.

Those first three words....

This Wednesday is the monthly day of prayer and fasting for my church. Last month I observed the day from a distance, praying and fasting in Detroit and channeling much of the energy of my prayers into praying for the restoration of my father's health and the upholding of his spirit.

I will never again pray for my father.

This is the poison in my ears tonight: To what end did you pray and fast? To what end did you and thousands of others pour out your prayers over a period of weeks, asking God to heal your father? Haven't you experienced God as capricious and deaf to your pleas? Haven't you seen that He thwarts the desires of His people? Isn't it dangerous to ask God for what you want if He is going to give you the reverse?

Oh, God....

This is the antidote: Jesus Christ suffered throughout His life, and at the end of His life He suffered the crushing weight of alienation from God so that my dad could bear an eternal weight of glory instead (1 Peter 2:21-24; 2 Corinthians 4:17). Jesus wept (John 11:35). Jesus prayed to God asking for the worst suffering to be taken from Him, and God didn't do it (Matthew 26:39ff). Jesus endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty, Who has called His children to hear His voice and come to Him (Hebrews 12:2; Hebrews 4:7b).

Jesus told a parable about how God relates to us when we ask Him for things, how even an earthly father doesn't give his child a snake if asked for a fish or a stone if asked for bread. "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children," He says in Matthew 7:11, "how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him?"

I asked for my dad's life, and did not receive it.

But it's "children." Plural. Not just Suzanne.

If in withdrawing a good gift from one of His children He extends a lasting inheritance to others, it is good.

If my dad's death is used to spark or strengthen your faith, it is good.

On June 30, my dad lives. Just not here anymore. The next time I meet him, it will be as a brother, and we will see God our Father face-to-face, along with our brothers and sisters through the ages. What a family reunion that will be!

I fast and pray because life is short, because God exists and is active in this world, and because everything about the way I live--and the way you live--should be affected in light of those two things. Tomorrow I fast and pray because I want you to join us at the family reunion, and because when we're reconnecting there I want to hear that you lived a life of power and purpose.

I am not my own, but belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. Body and soul, in life in this place and in earthly death and in the life to come.

What about you?

"Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it."--Hebrews 4:1