Giving up Money for Lent

"During Lent, we fast from things sinful things that control us, freeing us from that sin so we can honor God. But we also fast from things that aren't sinful, things that may even be inherently good, but can in their own way also control us. We fast from these good things to reveal what controls our lives and turn the control back over to God."

I'm paraphrasing, but those words were the general idea of what Pastor Rick Edwards of Christ Community Church of the Nazarene in Olathe (TFC's Sponsoring Church) shared during last week's Ash Wednesday service. I hadn't given any thought to fasting something during Lent but Rick's words hadn't even fully traveled from my ears to my conscious mind before I knew what I needed to give up during Lent - money.

Well, not money entirely but the act of counting money. And not counting money the way Ebenezer Scrooge was counting money while dumping his childhood sweetheart, Alice but counting the money the way my financial planner and I do during our annual meeting. A meeting that incidentally, had just happened the day before.

Whenever Brian and I meet, he shows me a chart letting me know how I'm progressing in saving for retirement. If I put X amount of money away each month, I'll have X amount of annual income come retirement. I LOVE those types of graphs. While I'm not as fancy as Brian, I'm always thinking "how much do I need to put away each month to be able to accomplish this goal?"

I've been spending a lot of time thinking and planning lately because I've been thinking and praying about some big plans. I've figured out how much money I need to put away each month to be able to fund about 1/3 of a state university education for my son. I'm currently working toward a French degree. I'm just taking basic level classes this year at JUCO but I think I'll eventually transfer to KU. After looking through all kinds of programs at lots of different schools and running all the financial numbers - I'm pretty sure KU's program will be the route to go.
And the casual car shopping Erin and I have been doing caused me to stumble upon the perfect deal for a Honda CRV. We have the exact amount for that car in savings right now, so I've been running numbers to see how long it would take to build our savings account back up to a safe margin.

I've stopped all of that for Lent.

Yes, I still enter receipts into our monthly spending plan and Erin and I will sit down soon to go over March's plan. But I've stopped thinking, planning and just plain obsessing over our long term financial plans. And I have to say, it's been quite the relief. Let me say, it's hard to have peace when your brain enters the OCD mode brought on by long-term planning. Whenever my mind flitters over to some long term goal, I tell it I'm fasting money for Lent. It's really, really nice. And I'm learning some truth from scripture in a new way.

²⁵ “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? ²⁷ Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

²⁸ “And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, ²⁹ yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. ³⁰ And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

³¹ “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ ³² These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. ³³ Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. - Matthew 6:25-33

⁶ Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. ⁷ Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 4:6-7

Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. - 1 Peter 5:7

⁵ Trust in the Lord with all your heart;
do not depend on your own understanding.
⁶ Seek his will in all you do,
and he will show you which path to take.
- Proverbs 3:5-6

Failure

I had back to back Mondays in which I failed in my goal of fasting one day a week. The first Monday I had a juicy hamburger shoved in my face at 6:30 in the evening and I gave in. The next Monday I had a fridge full of food leftover from a cookout the day before and caved again.
But this Monday, I got back on the wagon and made it through the day.
As a rule-follower like me, it's good to fail sometimes, it reminds me of God's grace.

And my fast on Monday was one of the best of the year. I'm FINALLY living out my 2009 resolution to hourly focus on God's presence (I'll blog about that soon) but being empty of food and filled with God's presence is a pretty good place to be.

Going to bed hungry

I've been consistent with my commitment to fasting one day a week throughout 2009. Although, last Monday I was deathly sick and accepted the grace of chicken noodle soup at 9 PM.

With my newborn's need for every two hours of feeding, changing, burping my sleep hours are all screwed up. Usually one of us stays up till after midnight to feed Dawson. Although last night was a wonderful exception, he's usually most awake from about 10PM - 2 AM.

So I'm sitting up on the nights of my fasts, wondering whether I should eat since it's technically the next morning. The pull is strong, let me tell you. But really, fasting is a mental discipline more than anything, so I've set myself a boundary to stay true to the fast. My guideline is to go to bed hungry. Even if I wake up a couple hours later and have some breakfast (as I did at 3 this morning), I've got to fall asleep the first time with an empty stomach. My hope is that this becomes an act of solidarity, connecting me to those all across the world who go to bed hungry every night, though by no choice of their own.

As I blogged on before, I set a goal fasting one day a week throughout 2009. I hate fasting, but I need what this discipline teaches me. Today was one of the hardest days so far, with all the wonderful food people have brought us and the meeting I had at Austins.

One of the many things fasting teaches us is what we depend upon. Fasting exposes those things in our life we turn to for self-medication. Fasting also makes us more attentive to the voice of God. Both of those realities came to mind while watching my 4 day old son try to soothe himself while waiting for mom to prepare a syringe full of milk.

When Dawson gets hungry (every couple of hours) he'll latch onto anything that comes near his mouth, hoping it will satisfy him. This morning, he was trying to suck on the corner of his sleeve. It was quite funny but also a little sad. He was crying pretty loudly and desperately wanting some food but he was pursuing something that could never give him what he wants. But he couldn't stop, because his rooting reflex prompts him to do exactly what he was doing; latch onto whatever approaches his mouth. Of course, as parents we have the responsibility of making sure his mouth is connected to that which will nourish him.

Dawson sucking on his sleeve is exactly what we do all the time. In fact, our society has conditioned us to pursue things that promise satisfaction but never deliver.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus declared "I AM the bread of life" and "I AM living water." Those who drink and eat from Jesus find true satisfaction.

Are you settling for something false or finding true fulfillment from Jesus?

The Journey of 2009

Building upon the previous post, I'm going to share my personal/ professional direction for 2009. My journey for 2009 is going to be a lot different than 2008's. I'm very much a list person. No matter what it may cost me, I can do a list. I made a list of things disciplines that I knew would grow me in 2008, I did them and I saw the results in both my own life and the lives of people around me.

The downside of lists though, is that they get checked off. Yes, I spent a half hour every day in personal prayer and Bible reading. Yes, God spoke to me in those times. But what about the other 23 1/2 hours of the day? Yes, I prayed a half hour every day for TFC. Yes, I saw God bring some amazing answers. But what about bringing other people along on the journey of prayer? That's leadership, isn't it?

I realize I'm about to make a list but it's a different type of list. I'm going to start some journeys this year. It will be messy, ambiguous, not as measurable and more open-ended than my goals of 2008, but I've been sensing for months that God wants to lead me to a place I've never been before. A place that is deeper than simple disciplines I can check off my list. Being less about what I do and more about who I am.

1) The journey of Fatherhood. This baby is probably going to come early, so I'm possibly less than a month from being a dad. My pastor friends tell me I'll learn a lot about my Heavenly Father by being a father myself. I'm excited about that. I also know, however, that I'm going to experience a different type of fatherhood than most of my friends and colleagues. I'm going to be the father of a adopted child. This will give me a unique perspective into God's love for us, since we read many times in Scripture that God has chosen to adopt us into his family. I am eagerly anticipating what my son and I will learn about God as we go through this journey of adoption.

2) The journey of practicing the presence of God. In listening to the podcasts of Gateway Community Church in Austin and Woodland Hills Church in Minneapolis, I've heard many messages about this discipline. Both pastors talked about the tendency we have to live with a "functional atheism;" God is one part of our lives rather than permeating all of our lives. Both pastors recommended the book, Practicing His Presence (see the sidebar for a link) by Frank Laubauch.
This will be a journey of stopping every hour to center upon God. I still need to get something that can beep every hour to remind me, my cell phone can't, but the plan is to stop every hour and center myself upon God. The end-result of this journey is that I'd walk in communion with God every moment of every day.
I'm very resistant to this discipline. I wanted to stop listening to the pod casts on this topic. But over a period of a few months, God finally wore me down and I told him, "okay, if this is the next step you want me to take, I'll trust you and do it."
I know it's going to be hard. John Burke of Gateway says it took him 6 months to stop hating "the beep" and a full year before he began living into this discipline. It's going to be a long, difficult journey. It's a journey, however that God is asking me to take.

3) The journey of fasting This one is kind of a checklist, but it's more than that. I fasted 24 hour periods every week (but one) in 2008. I started sensing toward the end of the year that God was going to take me deeper in this discipline. I was resistant to that, too because I HATE fasting! I LIKE to eat! I fasted for the first full day last Monday, though. As far as I know, this is the right thing to do. If I decide otherwise, I'll let everyone know. Hopefully I can distinguish whether it's God or my stomach telling me "stop."
What will make this more of a journey than a checklist is the journaling I'll be doing during the fast. I don't want to just not eat, I want to follow Richard Foster's teaching on feasting upon Jesus. I've got a notebook for journaling but I don't know how much I'll blog about it. I need to be doing this for my walk with God, not to create interesting blog posts.

4) The journey of multiplication Again, this is messy and not a 'check-list.' But my 'check-list' mentality has gotten me into a rut. I do a lot of things effectively but because I'm the only one doing them, the overall Kingdom effectiveness of TFC is limited. Prayer is a wonderful example. I prayed 3 hours a week last year for TFC but I didn't bring anyone along with me in that journey. This morning, I prayed with 2 other people. My wife and Joe Kumor. That's what I'm wanting to do. Take the passions and strengths I have and lead TFC into those same Kingdom practices. We had 12 people commit to our prayer gatherings with their Growing Up commitments.
Erin and I have personally lead to Christ and/or discipled most of the new Christians in TFC. How can I multiply that spiritual growth? If it's just us and we stay here 30 years, hundreds of people will come to know Jesus. But if I learn how to multiply myself (establish structures that multiply my own efforts, delegate some responsibilities so I can work more in my strengths) we could reach hundreds of people in the next few years!

These are the journeys I'll be embarking upon in 2009. They're more messy and ambigious than check lists but they'll also leader to a new depth and maturity in my life as Christ-follower and people-leader.