Day 40: Finish line

Well, it’s over. Our church’s 40-day fast has officially ended and life can return to normal. But hopefully not.
 
I’ve used the metaphor of a race to describe the process of our fast, but in this instance the finish line isn’t so much a finish line as in “it’s all over” as a finish line as in “we’ve reached a new level of polish.”
 
Living with God is about polishing – not so our outsides will look all clean and shiny, slick, gleaming, spotless, and glowing, but so that our insides are always growing to a higher level of completeness. The Lord wants to constantly refinish our interior life, sanding down the rough spots, patching up the crumbling parts, replacing the broken mechanisms, oiling the squeaks, caulking the holes, clearing away the debris, and wiping us clean with His embrace.
 
Coming to the finish line, therefore, is as much about beginnings as endings. I’ve gone through the process and emerged a renewed and renovated me. Where do I go from here? How, then, do I live?
 
In the first few days after ending a fast, it’s hard to go back. My husband Dan who has a sweet tooth fasted from desserts for the 40 days, and when he had the opportunity to break the fast even he said that it felt strange. I think that’s a good thing.
 
There is something about remembering the times of testing that builds resiliency in us. A self-imposed fast is, of course, artificial in its hardship, and yet it still calls us to look for and rely upon the faithfulness of God.
 
That faithfulness can only be known by experience, and we relive and rely upon it through story telling, remembering the when of how God did the what without explaining the why.
 
Our friend Christy recently had an image or vision for Dan and I while she was praying for us. She said it was of Dan “going into a jungle with a big knife (or sickle?) chopping your way through the bush and jungle. Pam has binoculars and is walking behind you looking the other way behind you.”
 
I interpret that as God’s message to us that going forward in the path that God has for us in its immediacy will be tough and require a lot of pushing forward with strength and perseverance, but if we need look back, using binoculars to look way back into the past through where He has taken us, we will see His great faithfulness and how far we have come with Him.
 
Remember God’s faithfulness.
That’s a lesson for Dan and I, but it’s also a lesson for every person. When we stand with God in the present, we can look back into our past and see what God has done to get us to here, to this particular finish line. We need to be reminded, we need to tell each other the stories of God in our lives and of His unfailing love.
 
That’s the lesson of Hebrews 11, one of my favorite passages in the New Testament. It starts out with,  “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” It then goes through a catalogue of faithful believing by the patriarchs, the men and women of the Old Testament who looked for and trusted in God’s promises, then pushed ahead without knowing exactly what the future looked like. Just like trying to hack one’s way through a dense jungle.
 
Hebrews speaks about the patriarchs looking forward—and then it tells us to look back, look back at them and their stories, their examples, to see God’s faithfulness over the millennia.
 
Where do we go from here?
We go forward. We keep taking that next step even in the entanglements, and maybe especially because of the entanglements, towards God’s freedom. And we go forward even better equipped and stronger and filled with more faith because of what lies behind us.
 
I am reminded of what Paul writes in his Letter to the Philippians. He writes to encourage them after they had heard of his imprisonment for openly sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ—something he cannot help but do. He writes in Philippians 3:12-14:
 
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Many of us know this passage well. But hear it again as told by Eugene Peterson in his modern translation, The Message

I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back.

Not turning back. That is the attitude I want to continuously hold. I can’t quite see what lies ahead, but I’m not turning back. I’m finished with this stage of the race, but I’m not finished yet, and I’m not turning back. I’m well on my way, though sometimes the going is slow, but God’s winds are blowing me in His direction. The race is good. The goal is worthwhile. God is beckoning me onward. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.

Posted by email from 40 Day Fast (posterous)