Day 2 01-15-2026
God today I pray that you move me closer to you. I pray that while I study, while I work, while I play with my children, while I fast, you will move closer to me and my family. God you tell us you want our first and our best and I want to give it to you Lord. As a sinner, a stubborn, and selfish man I beg you to show me the errors in my ways and allow me to notice. Allow me to bring those issues to you God and take them from me or work them to your good. If it's your will I want to help get it done. Watch over my family and friends. Lord, they each have their own struggles and pains God and they each need you. I pray they find you and they are able to experience your love. God today keep my mind focused where it should be and allow me to be a good steward of the time you have given to me. In Jesus's mighty name I pray. Amen.
12:15 pm
Laying my kids down for a nap can sometimes be a lovely experience. They listen with little blankets and tired eyes. They will curl up in bed and rest without much struggle. Today wasn't those days. One twin wouldn't stop babbling nonsense words through the pacifier perpetually hanging out of his lips and the other, well, you would think the boy's legs weren't allowed to quit moving or he would be at risk of spontaneous human combustion. The frustration builds up inside as I want to scream. “Why don't you just listen to me? Lay down, be still, and just listen! My instructions are clear and simple. What is so difficult?”
These questions come with a weight that hasn't always been there prior. As soon as they leave my lips I feel this weight of something pushing back. Forcing my perspective away from my own children's behavior and onto my own.
I don't listen to my Father when he instructs me.
Why wont you listen is what God probably shouts at me thousands of times a day. And If that's how he chose to handle things I'd understand. But it isn't how he operates.
The trap of the familiar.
If you stay where you are you'll never get where you are meant to be. We are not meant to be where we are familiar. The more I have looked into myself and the more I have read the Bible the more obvious it becomes. The only two people that were ever here with the intention of the world being familiar AND comfortable changed the script for the rest of us pretty much as soon as it was handed to them. Since the enemy twisted God's words and Eve, and in turn Adam, disobeyed God we have been on a journey.
A journey away from the familiar world and towards what God intended in the beginning. It has been my downfall sticking myself in a state of familiarity with the mediocre and mundane. The familiar trap of playing the worlds game, by the worlds rules, experiencing the worlds empty promises. It was here in this familiar territory my life was turned sideways. Not until I willingly redirected focus on what God has said did my outlook change. Not until obedience to what was being said was shown did I see movements of my own.
The familiar has rarely been where God works His best. How many people were told to move? How many were told to act in accordance to what was said rather than what they already knew? How many stories from the Bible take place because someone was told to say or to go do something unfamiliar?
Unfamiliar does not necessarily have to carry negative connotations. It holds negative meaning due to our minds' amazing ability to catastrophize and over think. It works over time to out think and out maneuver your own self. Sometimes I think one of the mind's best super powers creates one of its worst super villains.
We associate the unfamiliar with the bad due to our brains being fantastic at pattern recognization. In our pasts our actions, within the unfamiliar, have led to disappointment, loss, and pain. We have conditioned our minds to be afraid of the discomfort associated with unfamiliarity and have become familiar with the comfortable. That is the trap silently awaiting us.
Hearing, believing, and acting upon what God has instructed you to has become such an unfamiliar practice that it has become something people are afraid of. “Be not afraid” but yet when you hear someone speak of the works of God outside of a church's walls we become afraid. So afraid of what is said, and who the person speaking is, that we miss the point. Perhaps God did speak. Perhaps God has never stopped speaking. His creation has created their own built in earmuffs out of fear. Fearmuffs. Heh nice.
How many in the Bible write about their own calling to bigger? How many books were written by men and women who Jesus spoke to? Did Jesus not say it is important for a man to work but works bearing no good fruit are evil works? Did he not say that He would send in His place something more powerful than himself that would speak for him and give the same healing and even more than what he showed during his ministry? How many before Jesus's birth were spoken to? How many of them listened the first time? How many were called crazy when they listened? How many were told not to follow? Point being, either you have to deny one truth of the Bible, God speaks, and toss the entire thing out or you have to decide that it is the truth. God wants to speak. He not only wants to speak He wants His creation to know when he speaks. Jesus said they will know His voice! Why would we be given ears to hear if he doesn't have words to speak?
God has been calling me out of my familiar for the past 5 years (that I've been paying attention, it's been far longer) and the only thing that has become familiar within those days are the problems whose solutions require his input. The only thing familiar to me now is when I am comfortable, and things are too familiar, I am further from where God wants me than I want to be.
Yet lately I have heard a call so unfamiliar that it has had the opportunity to scare me a time or two. I have nothing to be afraid of if I listen. Yet, still I'm hesitant. I have a bad track record of allowing the enemy to beat me into submission by allowing his lies to fester. They are quick to get in. For me it's typically doubt, fear, and anxiety. I feel these things as I reflect on what I do feel God has told me to do. Not in the typical fashion but I do feel these feelings “around” the idea. This time however I feel the Holy Spirit speak against it when I chose to fester. For that I am grateful.
6:45 pm :
I had to retreat to my bedroom. The noises of forks clattering from the kitchen are sharp against the dull hum of the bedroom fan. Unfortunately for me you can't escape smells because the mac n cheese my kids had for dinner permeates all. I'm hungry. I'm hungry for food but also for promises. Promises of new growth, deeper meaning, promises of purpose. Promises made to me, as well as everyone that has come before me, and everyone after.
I think that's one of the coolest things about Christ. He is the only special thing in the world that is for everyone to have. That isn't how something “special” should work. Exclusivity isn't what deems this special. Yet for Christ it does. I think that says a lot about Christ's people. God made us all something special. I see it in people more now that I have kids. Everyone is just a kid who forgot they were kids. Maybe not everyone feels this way, but I was the kid that forgot. The prodigal son story is one I think too many people have to relate to. That was never the design from the outer layer’s perspective. But it ends up being a story we all need because we are all that son. It also leaves me with nice thoughts of family reuniting or Jesus himself running out to meet us with our Father once we come home.
When I left home it was due to ego and unresolved wounds that I unknowingly packed right next to my toothbrush and signed Chipper Jones rookie card. That's a real thing I took with me the first time I left my mother's house. Note, I said the first time. There would be a second and final time that I would pack those same wounds and leave my mothers home forever and I would leave that relationship for over a decade.
Having my own children now, it breaks my heart even thinking about how badly that must have hurt her. To open a door and see that a person she put so much into was packing a bag and leaving. I pray that although it may be deserved, I do not ever experience that side of the exchange. It took a while but my mom and I are actually pretty okay these days. Which is only something I can attribute to the work God's done in me. I should pray.
God you amaze me each day with reminders of where you found me. I remember how lost I was. How long I ran from you. How I hid my face from you Lord. I remember cursing you, cursing your creation. How deeply I hated the mention of your name God. I remember the pain and the longing for it all to end. I remember God the times I thought I didn't need you. I remember looking at my life as though it were a mistake. It wasn't until recently that I have been able to see myself as something other than that lie I believed so long. I thank you God that you not only love me but you delight in my existence. You blessed me with children of my own knowing fully how much love you were giving to my life. You have blessed me with family, church, friends, homes, careers, you have given me a full life God and I am grateful that you allowed me to see it. God this fast isn't about what I get out of it. It isn't supposed to be a diet. I am grateful to you God that you allowed me the opportunity to accept the invitation to grow closer to you. I wouldn't have always heard or felt it. Thank you Holy Spirit for allowing me to hear. Thank you God for every circumstance that leads me back to you and the life you envision for me. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
8:20pm
Broccoli. Tiny green gmo infused bonsai tree of sustenance. Pretty awesome stuff!