REMEDY: Fasting Practice for Week Four

Agreement with the Will of God

Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?

Amos 3:3

In the heart of every believer is the desire to walk closely with God. We know that He, too, desires a close relationship with each one of us. A key to having a strong level of spiritual intimacy with God is living in agreement with His will for your life.

In Genesis 5:22, we read of Enoch and see that his life modeled a long journey, walking consistently with God, for it says, “Enoch walked with God three hundred years.” Enoch lived a powerful life. He was a man who walked in agreement with God’s will and lived a life pleasing to God (Hebrews 11:5).

The level of our agreement with God will determine the closeness in our walk with Him.

It is one thing to know God’s will for our lives; it’s another to live in agreement with His will. In order to enjoy the best life that God has for us, we must first understand that God does not change, but we sometimes must. Let’s earnestly seek to know and agree with God’s will. The level of our agreement with God will determine the degree of closeness in our walk with Him.

I believe firmly that the moment our hearts are emptied of pride and selfishness and ambition and everything that is contrary to God’s law, the Holy Spirit will fill every corner of our hearts. But if we are full of pride and conceit and ambition and the world, there is no room for the Spirit of God. We must be emptied before we can be filled.

—D. L. Moody

Prayer Focus: Pray today that you can walk in agreement with God and enjoy the life He desires you to have in Christ.

--adapted from Awakenings 2011 fasting devotional

REMEDY: Divine Hours for Week Three

Fixed-hour Prayer

The Divine Hours is a soul-training practice for fixed-hour prayer. It presents the prayers to be prayed at the divine hours of every day:

• Morning prayers, for prayer between 6 and 9;
• Midday prayers for praying between 11 and 2; and
• Evening prayers to pray between 5 and 8, and help us gently close the day.

A website to help you with the Divine Hours can be found here. This website also provides an iPhone app which you can download here. If you know of apps on other platforms (Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry) please let us know, and we will try to pass that info along as well.

REMEDY: Contemplation Practice for Week Three

Be Still and Know

Preparation

You may wish to prepare yourself for this time of contemplation by:

• Making sure your attention is not required by anything else. For example, not driving a car, crossing a street, talking with someone else
• Consider finding a quiet place where you’re not likely to be interrupted. Awareness and attention are fleeting, jumping from one thing to another and one thought to another. So, a quiet place with few distractions seems to work best.
• Eliminate as many visual stimuli as possible as they tend to distract and draw our attention away.
• Use a timer to help you keep track of time

Practice
"Be still and know that I am God" is Psalm 46:10. This practice is one of repetition (chanting) and presence to the words of the biblical text. Chant — repetitive chant — creates space to let our spirit open deeply as we repeat words that enable us to get out of our heads and into our hearts.

• Start slowly with one tone and say the entire verse: “Be still and know that I am God.”
• Then take one long inhale and exhale
• Then repeat the scripture with the same tone but drop the last word. Say: “Be still and know that I am”
• Then take one long inhale and exhale
• Then repeat the scripture but drop the last phrase. Say: “Be still and know”
• Then take one long inhale and exhale
• Then repeat the scripture but drop the last phrase. Say: “Be still”
• Then take one long inhale and exhale
• Then simply say: “Be”
• Repeat this process at least twice and then simply “be” in the presence of God for 10 minutes.

Share with us what you are experiencing

-adapted from Alice Fryling in The Art of Spiritual Listening

REMEDY: Journaling Practice for Week Three

Going Back in Order to Go Forward

A Deeper Look
Joseph was born into a complex, blended family where Jacob, his father, his two wives, two concubines and their children, all live under one roof. Joseph was Jacob’s favored son. As a result, his brothers grew jealous, leading them to sell him to a merchant who took him to Egypt. For the next 13 years, Joseph lives first as a slave, and later, as a prisoner falsely accused of rape.

Read

• Genesis 50:15-21

Study

• Imagine yourself in Joseph’s shoes sitting in a prison cell without any hope of freedom. What thoughts, feeling or doubts might you have about your family? About yourself? About God?
• Through miraculous intervention, Joseph is pulled from the pit of prison and made the second most powerful person in Egypt. After their father dies, the brothers begin to worry. What assumptions are the brothers making about Joseph?
• Why do you think Joseph weeps?
• Joseph responded with forgiveness. How might you have responded if you were in Joseph’s position?

Journal

• Divide your journaling with three boxes. Journal about each question in the appropriate box.
• Box one: List the life messages you received from your parents (e.g. don’t be weak. Education is everything. You must achieve to be loved)
• Box two: List any “earthquake” events that sent “aftershocks” into your extended family (e.g. abuse, premature or sudden death/loss, divorces, shameful secrets, etc)
• Box three: Look at the first two boxes and summarize what messages about life/yourself/others you internalized. Fill those messages in the third box.
• How do these messages compare with messages about who you are and how life is to be lived in God’s family?
• What might be one specific message from your family that God is revealing to you today that you want to change?

-- adapted from Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Workbook by Peter Scazzero

REMEDY: Lectio Divina Practice for Week Three

Psalm 42: Panting with the Deer

There are a lot of ways you can pray Scripture but the tradition of Lectio Divina uses the following four phases, these are the ones used in the classical Benedictine model established in the sixth century. Lectio offers a natural flow from one phase to the next rather than a lock-step march.

Phase One - Lectio: reading

What does the text say?

TURN to the text and read it several times slowly, gently, out loud. Savor the reading, feel the words in your mouth, listening for the “still, small voice” of a particular word or phrase that says, “I am for you today.”

Phase Two - Meditatio: meditation

What does the text say specifically to me at this point in my life?

TAKE the word or phrase into yourself. Slowly repeat it to yourself, allowing it to interact with your inner world of concerns, memories and ideas. Let your imagination engage the text. Images are not necessarily distractions, but invitations into dialogue with God.

Phase Three - Oratio: prayer

What does God say to me and what do I say to God through the text?

SPEAK to God. Interact with God as you would with one who you know loves and accepts you. Experience this God-breathed word or phrase as a means to bless and transform the thoughts and images that God’ Word has awakened in you. Give to God what you have found in your heart.

Phase Four - Contemplatio: contemplation

Being still, resting in God’s presence, and letting God work through your mind and heart.

REST for 10 minutes in God’s embrace. Let go of words and images. Rejoice that God is with you in silence, spiritual rest, and inner receptivity.

REMEDY: Fasting Practice for Week Three

Fasting Removes Unbelief

Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”

—Matthew 17:18–21

When we pray and fast, we don’t do so to change God or His will; by praying and fasting, we are the ones changed. Coming into alignment with God helps us curb our doubts and fears. When we pray and fast, the thing that leaves—the thing that goes out—is our unbelief. It is when we have faith to believe that we can pray with confidence and know that “nothing will be impossible.”

When we pray and fast, we don’t do so to change God or His will;

by praying and fasting, we are the ones changed.

Ask God to strengthen your heart to fully believe Him and His Word. It is okay to recognize and acknowledge if you struggle with unbelief. That’s the first step in allowing God to strengthen your faith and bring you into alignment with His plan for your life.

Beware in your prayers, above everything else, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do. Expect...“above all that we ask or think.”

—Andrew Murray

Prayer Focus: What do you need faith to believe for? Align yourself with God’s Word and will during this fast. Release your unbelief. Pray with confidence, knowing “nothing will be impossible” for you.

--adapted from Awakenings 2011 fasting devotional

REMEDY: Divine Hours for Week Two

Fixed-hour Prayer

The Divine Hours is a soul-training practice for fixed-hour prayer. It presents the prayers to be prayed at the divine hours of every day:

• Morning prayers, for prayer between 6 and 9;
• Midday prayers for praying between 11 and 2; and
• Evening prayers to pray between 5 and 8, and help us gently close the day.

A website to help you with the Divine Hours can be found here. This website also provides an iPhone app which you can download here. If you know of apps on other platforms (Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry) please let us know, and we will try to pass that info along as well.

REMEDY: Contemplation Practice for Week Two

Silence and Solitude Again

Preparation

You may wish to prepare yourself for this time of contemplation by:

• Making sure your attention is not required by anything else. For example, not driving a car, crossing a street, talking with someone else
• Consider finding a quiet place where you’re not likely to be interrupted. Awareness and attention are fleeting, jumping from one thing to another and one thought to another. So, a quiet place with few distractions seems to work best.
• Eliminate as many visual stimuli as possible as they tend to distract and draw our attention away.
• Use a timer to help you keep track of time

Practice
We want to build on our experience from last week by adding additional time and practice to this soul-training exercise. Once again we will begin with silence.

• Take a comfortable posture.
• Close your eyes.
• Try and attain stillness and silence of body and mind for a period of ten minutes.
• At the end of ten minutes, open your eyes.

If you find yourself struggling to be still, don’t be discouraged. It takes time to develop the spiritual muscle this practice requires.

• Close you eyes again and become aware of your wandering mind... for just two minutes...
• Now sense the silence that makes it possible for you to be aware of the wanderings of your mind...

It is this minimal silence that you have within you that we will build on. As it grows silence will reveal yourself to you. Let's continue...

• Close your eyes. Seek silence for another five minutes.
• At the end of the exercise note whether your attempts this time were more successful or less.
• Note whether silence revealed something to you this time that you failed to notice last time.

Consider sharing with others online about your experience and whether you felt more successful in this week’s attempt.

REMEDY: Journaling Practice for Week Two

Know Yourself That You May Know God

A Deeper Look
In this famous story, the army of Israel faces the great army of the Philistines. For 40 days, Goliath, described as nine feet tall and dressed in powerful weaponry, challenges any Israelite soldier to come out and fight him. No one took him up on the challenge. We pick up the story after David hears, for the first time, Goliath’s humiliating challenge to Israel’s army.

Read

• 1 Samuel 17:26-45

Study

• What are some of the challenges, accusations and messages David is getting from the people around him?
• What feelings might you be experiencing if you were David?
• How does David live out his true self against he powerful forces and pressures that seek to mold him into someone he is not?

Journal

• What forces and pressures from circumstances and people cause you to shrink back in fear or “wear armor” that does not fit your true self? Many of us are so unaccustomed to distinguishing our true self from our false self that it may seem difficult to know where to begin. Try completing the following sentence as a first step: I am beginning to realize about myself...

-- adapted from Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Workbook by Peter Scazzero

REMEDY: Lectio Divina Practice for Week Two

Psalm 27: One Thing I Ask

There are a lot of ways you can pray Scripture but the tradition of Lectio Divina uses the following four phases, these are the ones used in the classical Benedictine model established in the sixth century. Lectio offers a natural flow from one phase to the next rather than a lock-step march.

Phase One - Lectio: reading

What does the text say?

TURN to the text and read it several times slowly, gently, out loud. Savor the reading, feel the words in your mouth, listening for the “still, small voice” of a particular word or phrase that says, “I am for you today.”

Phase Two - Meditatio: meditation

What does the text say specifically to me at this point in my life?

TAKE the word or phrase into yourself. Slowly repeat it to yourself, allowing it to interact with your inner world of concerns, memories and ideas. Let your imagination engage the text. Images are not necessarily distractions, but invitations into dialogue with God.

Phase Three - Oratio: prayer

What does God say to me and what do I say to God through the text?

SPEAK to God. Interact with God as you would with one who you know loves and accepts you. Experience this God-breathed word or phrase as a means to bless and transform the thoughts and images that God’ Word has awakened in you. Give to God what you have found in your heart.

Phase Four - Contemplatio: contemplation

Being still, resting in God’s presence, and letting God work through your mind and heart.

REST for 10 minutes in God’s embrace. Let go of words and images. Rejoice that God is with you in silence, spiritual rest, and inner receptivity.

REMEDY: Fasting Practice for Week Two

Tune In

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.

John 10:27

Have you ever tried to tune in a radio station only to be frustrated by finding static rather than music? And when you fiddled with the dial again, suddenly you hear a clear signal. The fact is that clear signal always existed on the airwaves. The difference is that now you have adjusted your tuner to the right frequency.

In our hectic lives, there are so many signals bombarding our senses that it can become difficult to distinguish God’s voice from the deafening static noise of life. Fasting enables us to tune out the world’s distractions and tune in to God. As we fast, we deny our flesh. When we deny our flesh, we become more in tune to the Holy Spirit and can hear God’s voice more clearly. If you truly listen for God’s voice, you will hear it. And when you hear it, your faith will increase.

Fasting enables us to tune out the world’s distractions and tune in to God.

If you desire to tune out the static of life and really tune into the voice of God, come to Him first and foremost with ears willing to listen and a heart ready to obey what He says (Psalm 34:18; Isaiah 66:2). The more we practice being in His presence, the clearer and more recognizable His voice becomes.

Fasting is more important, more important perhaps than many of us have supposed.... When exercised with a pure heart and a right motive, fasting may provide us with a key to unlock doors where others may have failed; a window opening up new horizons in the unseen world, a spiritual weapon of God’s provision, mighty to the pulling down of strongholds.

—Arthur Wallis

Prayer Focus: In this time of fasting, what is your mind tuned to? What distractions do you need to remove so that you can focus on God? Prepare your heart to hear the voice of God, and ask Him to help you remove distractions that keep you from focusing on Him and hearing His voice clearly.

--adapted from Awakenings 2011 fasting devotional

REMEDY: Divine Hours for Week One

Fixed-hour Prayer

The Divine Hours is a soul-training practice for fixed-hour prayer. It presents the prayers to be prayed at the divine hours of every day:

• Morning prayers, for prayer between 6 and 9;
• Midday prayers for praying between 11 and 2; and
• Evening prayers to pray between 5 and 8, and help us gently close the day.

A website to help you with the Divine Hours can be found here. This website also provides an iPhone app which you can download here. If you know of apps on other platforms (Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry) please let us know, and we will try to pass that info along as well.

REMEDY: Contemplation Practice for Week One

Silence and Solitude

Preparation

You may wish to prepare yourself for this time of contemplation by:

• Making sure your attention is not required by anything else. For example, not driving a car, crossing a street, talking with someone else
• Consider finding a quiet place where you’re not likely to be interrupted. Awareness and attention are fleeting, jumping from one thing to another and one thought to another. So, a quiet place with few distractions seems to work best.
• Eliminate as many visual stimuli as possible as they tend to distract and draw our attention away.
• Use a timer to help you keep track of time

Practice
We are accustomed to think of Scripture as the revelation of God. And so it is. We want now to discover the revelation that silence brings. To take in the revelation that Scripture offers, you must expose yourself to Scripture. To take in the revelation that silence offers you must first attain silence.

• Take a comfortable posture.
• Close your eyes.
• Try and attain stillness and silence of body and mind for a period of ten minutes.
• At the end of ten minutes, open your eyes.

Share with us online (if you wish), what you did and what you experienced in these ten minutes. Tell us what attempts you made to attain silence and how successful you attempts were. Describe this silence if you can. Tell us what you experienced in this silence. Tell us anything you thought and felt during this exercise.

The experience of people who attempt this exercise is infinitely varied. Most people discover, to their surprise, that silence is something they are simply not accustomed to. That no matter what they do they cannot still the constant wandering of their mind or quieten an emotional turmoil they feel within their heart. Others feel themselves approaching the frontiers of silence. Then they panic and withdraw. Silence can be a frightening experience.

-adapted from Anthony De Mello by R. Martoia

REMEDY Newsletter

Some of you have inquired about more details on how to approach the "Soul Training" practices we are working through here. Pastor Dave has written up a newsletter-styled introduction to the practices, the schedule, and why we are doing them. You can find and download that newsletter here.

REMEDY: Journaling Practice for Week One

The Problem of Emotionally Unhealthy Spirituality

A Deeper Look
Saul, king of Israel, was instructed by God to fight and completely destroy the Amalekites. He succumbed, however, to the wishes of his fighting men and did only part of God’s will due to a lack of self-awareness (emotional health) and attentiveness toward God (contemplation).

Read

• 1 Samuel 15:7-24

Study

• Verse 11 describes God’s and Samuel’s response to Saul’s actions. What about their response impacts you?
• How does this differ from Saul’s response in verse 12 and 13?
• What might have been going on beneath the surface of Saul’s life that he was unaware of?
• What are some examples of how you go through the motions of making “burnt offerings” and “sacrifices” rather than “obeying the voice of the Lord?”

Journal

• What challenges keep you from slowing down your life to be with God?
• In what ways is your life out of balance between contemplation and activity?

-- adapted from Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Workbook by Peter Scazzero

REMEDY: Lectio Divina Practice for Week One

Psalm 1: Like a Tree

There are a lot of ways you can pray Scripture but the tradition of Lectio Divina uses the following four phases, these are the ones used in the classical Benedictine model established in the sixth century. Lectio offers a natural flow from one phase to the next rather than a lock-step march.

Phase One - Lectio: reading

What does the text say?

TURN to the text and read it several times slowly, gently, out loud. Savor the reading, feel the words in your mouth, listening for the “still, small voice” of a particular word or phrase that says, “I am for you today.”

Phase Two - Meditatio: meditation

What does the text say specifically to me at this point in my life?

TAKE the word or phrase into yourself. Slowly repeat it to yourself, allowing it to interact with your inner world of concerns, memories and ideas. Let your imagination engage the text. Images are not necessarily distractions, but invitations into dialogue with God.

Phase Three - Oratio: prayer

What does God say to me and what do I say to God through the text?

SPEAK to God. Interact with God as you would with one who you know loves and accepts you. Experience this God-breathed word or phrase as a means to bless and transform the thoughts and images that God’ Word has awakened in you. Give to God what you have found in your heart.

Phase Four - Contemplatio: contemplation

Being still, resting in God’s presence, and letting God work through your mind and heart.

REST for 10 minutes in God’s embrace. Let go of words and images. Rejoice that God is with you in silence, spiritual rest, and inner receptivity.

REMEDY: Fasting Practice for Week One

Return to Me

That is why the LORD says “Turn to me now, while there is time.
Give me your hearts. Come with fasting, weeping and mourning.”
Joel 2:12, NLT

If we look at the kind of fasting that took place in the Old Testament, it would be easy to assume that the reason for fasting is to gain forgiveness. In the book of Joel, the Israelites had wandered far from God, and their sinfulness had resulted in famine and pestilence in the land. Through the prophet Joel, God called them to repentance, ordering them to declare a sacrificial fast, which along with mourning and weeping, would show God the sincerity of their repentance. In return the prophet said that perhaps God would “send you a blessing instead of this curse” (verse 14, NLT).

Such a fast of repentance is seen in the Old Testament time and again, because under the Old Covenant, man had to rely on his works and sacrifices to avert the wrath of God. But under the New Covenant, we don’t have to fast for forgiveness. Every wrong we have done and will do was forgiven at the cross, and when we accept Christ, we live under the New Covenant of grace and forgiveness!

First Thessalonians 5:9 tells us that “...God chose to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not to pour out his anger on us” (NLT). So then, why do we, as people under the New Covenant, devote ourselves to fasting and prayer?

We don’t have to fast for forgiveness.
Every wrong we have done and will do was forgiven at the cross.

As we walk with God, there are times that we feel far from Him or disconnected. Joel’s words resonate with us, even if we live in a context of grace: “turn to me now while there is time.” There are times we realize that though we have chosen to follow Jesus, the flame of our love for Him has grown cold.

Your replacement of meal times with time spent in prayer today can result in a new richness, a rewarding connection with the Father. No matter where you are on your journey with Jesus, you can always take a step closer toward Him.

Prayer Focus: As we begin this time of prayer and fasting, let’s turn our hearts toward God. Make a commitment to seek Him daily. Pray that your love for Christ will be increased and your passion for Him will be reignited over the 8 weeks of REMEDY.

--adapted from Awakenings 2011 fasting devotional