Today's post also will be more of a check-in. Today marks two weeks since we as a church began praying and fasting, with two weeks and five days to go.
Regarding fasting:
My abstinence from Facebook, YouTube, ESPN.com (or other sports or news site), 2048, Bible Word Verse, etc. is continuing to go well. It's making a difference, not just for my fast but for my life. When this month of prayer and fasting ends, I intend to continue to abstain from games and most sites. I'm not clear yet what that will look like, how much "relaxing" of the boundaries there will be from where they are currently set.
I am adding (for now) music-making at home to the fast list. I hit a realization that what I started doing to waste time, in lieu of the internet, was to begin listening to my own songs and compositions over and over again. I would do this late at night, or first thing in the morning, just like I would with the other screen addictions.
One other change is that I'm shortening the once-a-week food fast. Today I am planning to fast from food until about 3PM, and then slowly break the fast until evening. Last Tuesday I fasted per my previous set up, ate dinner, and then developed a headache and a bellyache. I'm not putting myself through that again.
Regarding praying and devotionals:
This second week has been much bumpier. My motivation is down, compared with the first week. I've slacked off praying for the items on my own personal prayer list. Moreover, over the last several days I have even omitted the items on my church calendar list.
Something I did discover was that during the first week, I did have the enthusiasm to dive right into praying, reading Scripture, and doing devotionals. It's there, despite what I tell myself much of the time. What I did find, though, about this time a week ago, was that there was so much to write, journal, reflect, that it became overwhelming. There was just too much to catch up, that I fell behind.
Today I'm hoping to catch up, at least somewhat. In addition to getting back on track with the prayers, I'm hoping to get back on track also with the questions from Sunday a week ago's sermon from Matthew 19, as well as continuing through the devotionals in the book of 1st Kings.
Regarding feasting:
Last week, I had chosen to feast more on music-making, since I didn't really do that the first week. While it was really good for one day, it turned out to be more of a distraction than an asset to my prayer and fasting. So it's gone until July.
My aim the next couple of days is to nail down exactly what I'm doing to "feast" for the first week of July. Now that I'm giving up music-making (outside of my work obligations, of course), one possible solution is to then take that week and crank out a few more recordings. We'll see.
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