Fast

We've all heard of a "fast" before. It's when you stop eating for a while to return your attention to God in prayer and worship. Actually it can be a little more than that, but we won't go too much into it here.

Well, I'be been on what I call a "tech fast" for the last week. I've found that I have become geek-level crazy over technology news, podcasts and websurfing and I just didn't realize how much it got in the way. God shined His spotlight onto this issue in my life recently and I decided to do something about it. So what I have done is return my homepage back to the average google website, turned off all my podcasts that aren't related to Jesus in some way, and thrown away all my bookmarks that I usually surf throughout the day.

This may seem like nothing to most of my readers, but I figured that these things take up about 9 hours a day on average. I found ways to multitask these things into my workday, evenings and weekends. That's a ton of time wasted, that God wanted to get back! He deserves it back! He deserves my focus on Him!

At the beginning of the fast, I found it hard to ignore but simple to stick to since I was able to just throw these things out. They were gone so I wasn't tempted. (This is much simpler than your normal food fast, I guarantee.) As I distanced myself from those distractions, I was able to return my focus to God. The many hours of useless podcasts have now turned into wonderful hours of bible study with my favorite teachers. The hours of surfing, have turned into time of reading God's word and fellowship with my family. My prayers aren't just dreams and vapors anymore because I can focus with a clear head and heart.

I dedicated myself to this fast for 2 weeks, but I might just have to make this my new lifestyle. (Again, with a normal food fast, you cannot continue to fast for more than 2 weeks.) The lesson learned here is simple: When God points out something that gets between you and Him, with prayer and fasting he will remove all distractions. We are to be in constant fellowship with Him, and with prayers never ceasing. I encourage you to ask God in prayer if there are any distractions that He can reveal that need to be removed to allow Him to fellowship with you fully.