Pre Fast: 01-13-2026


As the Lord prepares me for this fast I felt the urge to write. To document the process of the fast as well as reflect on past fasts in which I have failed. To better understand God's plan, my involvement, and simply know myself in a new light.

Leading up to this fast I did not know much about the topic. Although, I have tried to implement the practice before. In these trials I believe I had every intention of completing the fast as prayed upon yet my flesh won in each match. I did manage to fast monster energy drinks for a month during a family wide fast so I did have at least one success story to spur the confidence in the direction of positive. But realistically probably starting at a baseline of somewhere close to zero.

I have just tried fasting something a week prior and failed day one and while my heart meant it, my mind and body did not follow. What typically would follow a failure like this is a crushing sense of doom. Awaiting punishment and a lashing from a father I have let down and angered. A disappointment needing shunning or violent and loud correction. You know, the exact opposite of what the Bible tells me God says I am and exactly what not to expect, yet.

Instead however I felt a calm hand on my shoulder and a whisper to learn more and not to give up. So I agreed to the invitation but as it would turn out it was time for one of my depression showers. You know the ones where you kind of just stand in the water like a sad frog? Yeah, one of those. Again my heart might be willing to accept the invite from God but my mind was less than enthusiastic.

As one does in any bathroom in 2026, I scrolled through YouTube searching for something. Anything, to take my mind to some place other than those introspective reflections of failure.

So God, as gracious as He is, presented me with a gift. A wink. A nudge. A pretty on the nose presentation of exactly what I was lacking. He showed me a video of what fasting is. How to do it biblically. Why Jesus showed us its importance. He gave me knowledge and a plan, he gave me the playbook to jumpstart not only our relationship but my prayer life into something it has never been. Or at the very least he gave the invitation to. This is exciting to the brain He created me with. This is new. This is perhaps a bit of what I've been missing. A call both to and from God for something more. Deeper. More true?

What are my intentions?


God, I pray in your holy son Jesus Christ's name that the Holy Spirit lead my mind, heart, body, and soul. That you use this vessel for your betterment not the other way around. I pray that you remove from me the things that hinder my growth. That you remove the thorns that have plagued me. That you remove the wicked and in its place you put whatever it is you intend for me to carry. I pray that through this not only do I see your hands at work but others see through my experience what you desire for them. I pray that my family will be witness to works only you can do, Lord. That not one person can look to me as the cause of the good you brought but that they can only see, and in turn only seek to find, you God. I pray you put onto me whatever you need to say and that I write it here. I pray that you bless this life you have given me. For as many times as I have cursed it and wanted to end it you have gone to show me 3 times the amount of reasons to stay. I pray my sons grow to love you deeper and truer much younger in years than it took me to find and trust you. May you let them see what you do for their father. May they know in their souls it is you that blesses them. Renew my heart for these children, soften it and show me better ways of raising them. Show me Father how to be a father. Bless this marriage I am about to walk into. Allow our relationship to blossom due to your rains and your sunshine. Allow me to place you before all else and may my marriage be blessed because of it. Please God allow me to become the man that each of them deserves to have in their lives. I pray that you hold my family close and protect and grow them. I pray that you help me become the husband that Heather deserves. I ask you God for knowledge to know best for all of the above and to have the discerning voice of the Holy Spirit to tell me when I stray from what you have given me. Renew my mind and my heart and allow me not to return to who I once was instead each day turning to follow you into the man I am called to be. God I pray you direct my steps. And I pray I follow them.

Amen.

My fast will be structured as such.


7am - 8am : water, bible, and coffee
8am - 8pm : only water
8pm : fruit, veggies, water.

My intentions as of now, 10:29pm, is to become closer to God and His word. I am a Christian who has a tendency to jump without much thought. And while some may call that acting out of faith, I would have to challenge that. It would be faith had I actually had faith when I acted. However that's not exactly what it is. Perhaps it can be argued there was some level of faith or zero action would be taken at all but my actions in the past have more closely resembled frantic, spastic, or impulsive appearing reactions than that of faith. As Jude put it I am/was probably closer to one of those “who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.”  But I digress.

I want my journey to lead me closer to God. Over the last 5 years I have been able to witness God creating something new and I feel this to be one of those new things. In sharing my thoughts here I hope He plans to help someone else learn from my folly? Hubris? Divine ineptitude? Whatever it may be, may it help something in someone, somewhere.

In January 2021 I planned to kill myself. Without giving away all the details (of a story I intend to tell at a later date) and to cut an incredibly long life story short - pun not intended but morbidly amusing - my life had become a bit of a disastrous disappointment and by 33, after other attempts and legitimately an uncountable amount of instances spent pondering the concept, I was going to end my life. I would have rather been dead than to live. To be gone rather than to be stuck. I had seemingly become an audience to, rather than an active participant in, my own life. I wanted the show to end. Now I am grateful it didn't.

The enemy got to work with me early. A product of the seemingly normalized single parent household by the age of 2 weeks, my mom did the best any teenage mom could. She finished high-school, went to college, and worked her tail off. If I had the capability, as a baby, I probably resented it. I resented most good things in my life up until somewhat recently.

By 3 I had been adopted. He left after his damages were done. Acts that I truly wish on no one. No child should face such things in childhood however the enemy has made it a normal occurrence. Despicable acts against the ones God most wants protected have been commonplace behind closed doors for far too long and far too many boys and girls have had to deal with its implications. Many choose as I did, suffer silently until your mind no longer allows it.

I chose drugs and once old enough, alcohol. Abusing prescription meds before double digits and alcohol as soon as I discovered what it did was my route out. Ironically, growing up I wanted to be a cop. More specifically, a NARC. What's the old saying we make plans and God laughs?

Well, if he doesn't chuckle about that, then I suppose I shouldn't either but, I do. Unfortunately for me (a color blind, asthmatic, that abuses prescription drugs, and does too well driving in the drunk goggles during Explorer training at the local sheriff's office) those plans ended. Not because blue is purple and green is orange but because I make the decisions that one would expect the person described above to make. Awful ones. (And because God wanted me to be a color blind photographer but that is its own story.)

During my childhood and well throughout my adult life I have failed to be a good person when it mattered and to who it mattered most. My mother, my grandmother, my aunts, uncle, cousins, friends, girlfriends, bosses, coworkers. Everyone I was in contact with left the interactions worse off than before they began. Of course this wasn't upfront, that would have been honest and nicer. No, the enemy worked me well. Anger, bitterness, resentment, a detachment that would be cold and uncaring met all that stayed long enough to encounter it. Once they saw that “me” they all left. I couldn't blame them, I wanted to leave me too.

Memories are a strange thing. I don't think about these times much any more but I would be lying to myself if I said that they never cross my mind. It's these people that I wish could know me now. Not to boast and not for any pleasurable experience on my end. But to tell them that I am sorry for who I was, but not sorry for who their influence and loss made me become. I hurt them and there are some things you do not get to experience due to your own actions. But I'd say that if they ever read this. You will know who you are. I am sorry I treated you less than you deserved and I am sorry my negative actions shaped your lives the way they were altered. I hope you all found healing and that you do not miss nor spend too much time in memories of who I was.

After a miscarriage with an ex, I went on a bender that started with only one goal in mind, death. It lasted about a month. About 2 weeks in, things got darker than they had ever been. I wanted everything to change but I did not stop drinking. Every dime I had went to alcohol and my phone turned me into the worst bridge burning arson you have ever seen. I spoke to everyone with two goals this time! Burn the bridge and say good bye. So I did that. Until I got to my Aunt Debbi.
She prayed.

After she hung up, I prayed.

God listens.


God heard me that night. Somehow through the tears, snot, and drunken screams of a broken man, God heard me. I ended up in a rehab where I heard a catholic priest say never discredit the prayers of a drunk man at his most desperate. He is correct. I have prayed many things,  many different ways, to probably many different gods. This was different.

This prayer was desperate. This prayer was either saving my life or condemning my soul to hell. At that time I didn't care which. The enemy would have loved my company had God not heard my plea. It is there in rehab I found God, sobriety from alcohol, community, rediscovered photography. My future developed because God hears us. It's this simple principle I am putting on display with this fast. GOD WANTS TO HEAR ME. He wants to hear from all of us long before the enemy leads us to our ends.

And with that it is my intention to recognize where God has led me from. The bondage. The hate. The self loathing, self defeated, melancholic, frustrated little boy. To a father of four walking closer to God learning what it means to be a disciple of His son Jesus Christ. Getting married. Walking with the Lord into blessing not following Satan into defeat. I pray to get closer to the God that saved me like he saved so many of my ancestors. I pray that if someone reads this, they get something themselves.

Bed.