21 Day Challenge
Hey church,
I am always encouraged by the Lord’s timing in our reading and things happening so timely in our world and in other areas in our church. Last week our students attended summer camp and were challenged to fast from all Social Media for 21 days and to use the time they normally spend to dig into the Scriptures and time with the Lord in prayer.
Richard Foster defines fasting as “the voluntary denial of a normal function for the sake of intense spiritual activity.” Donald Whitney, in his book ‘Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life‘ says, “sometimes we may need to fast from involvement with other people, or from the media, from the telephone, from talking, from sleep, etc., in order to become more absorbed in a time of spiritual activity.”
My heart stirred as I read Esther leading up to Sunday. She made a courageous decision to go before the king and asked Mordecai to call others to fast along with her as she courageously sought to use her position for good and God’s Kingdom work (Esther:4:15-17). My hope is that we would join as a church along with our students in declaring our dependence on the Lord and desire for Him to move among us. Would you consider fasting from something these next three weeks and using that time to pray and dig into the Word.
Check out these interesting statistics that I recently heard shared about the amount of time spent on things that are possibly crowding out the most important things in our lives.
- Social Media – The average person spends 706 hours/year on Social Media. If you look at that from the perspective of an 8hr work day, that is approximately 4.5 months of working hours
- TV – The average person spends… get this… 2700 hours year watching television!
- Video Games – The average male, by the age 21, spends about about 10,000 hours on computer games.
The list could continue, but the reality is that many of us can see how we are spending time on things that don’t have significance, at the expense of the most significant things in our lives. Will you consider what you could fast from these next few weeks as we seek the Lord in prayer. We certainly can’t manufacture a move of God in our midst, but we can be ready if He sees fit to move.
Find helpful resources to help with your time in prayer and in the Word at https://www.cowee.church/disciple/.
Thank you for prayerfully considering joining together as we fast and pray.
Pastor Jason
