Day of Prayer and Fasting Wednesday 18 November

Dear All,

As I have called for a day of FASTING and PRAYER, it might be helpful to share in more detail why I have called for it, what I am trusting God with from it, and how best we might all go about it.
Fasting means going without food or drink, or any other pleasures to give us more time to spend fervently and faithfully on both seeking after God, for our own spiritual renewal, and asking from God that which we are truly burdened that He does something about.
I recall being told that fasting is like tying a knot in your handkerchief. Every time the hunger pangs hit or the urge to turn on the TV gets strong, seeing that knot on the handkerchief is the reminder of the priority to pray.
It is the priority to pray that matters most here. Please do not go without food or drink if it is a threat to your health, and do not get so legalistic that you feel you cannot even answer the phone or open your post. The important thing to remember is simply to turn your heart and mind to God.

There are many reasons we might want to fast and pray but for this day I am suggesting just two. First, because we need God’s wisdom and guidance. In (Acts 13:2-4) we see this is the practice of the early church and which led to the gospel going out into all the world. In these COVID times how we do church and what the church best needs to push forwards fruitfully demands the wholehearted time and attention fasting and praying can bring forth. Secondly, it is because as (Isaiah 58:6) highlights, there needs to be breakthrough in areas that only the Lord can deliver to us. Souls that need saving, bad habits that need breaking, sins that need repenting, injustice that needs sorting, lives that need healing and oppressions that need lifting. We need to fast and pray for captives to be set free.

Finally, plan your day properly. Decide where you will pray, for how long you will pray and specifically what you will pray for. Write it down and make it known. I have mentioned two general purposes of this fasting day, but please feel free to explore in the Lord what He might be saying to you in prayer and then wanting from you by means of prayer. Read a Psalm to focus you mind and play a worship song to calm your heart, but more that getting taken up with the logistics of the day, get taken up with the Lord and see where He leads you. How exciting is that?
The day of fasting will start at 9am and finish with our Zoom prayer time at 7:30pm. For some that may not be enough time, for others long enough, but whether you take just ten minutes out of every hour to pray, or give over whole hours to it, the most important things is to make sure that at some point in the day you refrain from doing something you might normally do and give the time to prayer. After all prayer can do anything God can and as (Job 42:2) says, “God can do all things.”

If you need any further help to plan your day, then just ask me for it, but I pray that the Lord will bless you as you seek to be a blessing for Him.

Your Friend and Pastor

Shaun