Répondez s'il vous plaît - RSVP

 

The Apostle Paul tells us in Philippians 4:6-7 - “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

In the preamble to Prayer, Finding the Heart’s True Home, Richard J. Foster gives us a glimpse into the heart of God, “He aches over our distance and preoccupation. He mourns that we do not draw near to him. He grieves that we have forgotten him… He longs for our presence.” I am often too absorbed with busyness, accomplishing the next thing, doing something – anything – and then rewarding myself with some downtime, you know, like watching TV or burying my face in my phone. Too busy to spend time in his presence, talking to him, loving him.

Foster goes on to tell us, “And he is inviting you – and me – to come home, to come home to where we belong. To come home to that for which we were created. His arms are stretched out wide to receive us. His heart is enlarged to take us in.”

We receive invitations all the time for birthdays, weddings, baby and wedding showers, poker games. There is generally an RSVP request with contact information toward the bottom of the invitation. RSVP are the initials for the French phase, ‘Répondez s'il vous plaît’, basically meaning to please respond. The literal translation is ‘Respond, if it pleases you.’

Sometimes I get the sense that the host is begging me, “Please tell me you are coming.” “Please, please contact me at 555-555-5555 or by email at lovemybaby@rsvp.com or using the self-addressed stamped envelope.” They seem desperate for my attendance and are anxious to know if I am coming so they can prepare the house for me, have my favorite drink ready, and to make sure that I am comfortable and relaxed. I believe God wants our RSVP for all those things. Though it is more a longing than a begging.

How should I respond to God’s invitation? What is his chosen method for the RSVP? I need to respond with an open heart to Jesus Christ, his chosen contact and use the Holy Spirit to transmit my acceptance to join him. God’s invitation is not a ‘Regrets Only’ RSVP. If he doesn’t hear from me, he assumes I will not be joining him. If he hears from Me, I’ve already accepted his invitation.

It is important to allow time in a corporate worship service for each person to connect with God in prayer, to touch the hem of his garment in a way that allows power to go from Jesus to the believer. I believe this should be early in the service so that corporate worship and singing flows from a place of personal contact. We need the opportunity to RSVP before we jump into the party, otherwise we are just a part of the din trying to harmonize.

I listen for the invitation from time to time. Most often it is during walks, hikes, bicycle pedals, motorcycle rides, or floats when I have some solitude and I’m away from the requirements of social interaction. There is a meditation technique where I envision myself walking along until I find what I'm looking for. I have two such walks that are effective for me in my prayer/mediation life, such as it is. In one, I picture myself hiking in the Sierras, most times I am wending my way through the forest until I find myself hiking along a rushing stream tumbling down the hillside to spread itself through a meadow and into an alpine lake. At some point, I see myself walking with Jesus, talking as to a friend.

There are times that my meditation takes me up a set of switchbacks to a mountain pass where I hope to find the stream leading from the snowpack to the lake on the other side of the pass. When I find myself on this trail, I often come across a rockslide blocking the trail and I need to clear the rocks, some being large boulders. It is hard work to clear the path and I often fail at it. When this happens, my hope is that my work to clear the path has been an effective RSVP and that he will meet me in my labors.

Jesus himself, being fully God and fully human, shows us the need for prayer to connect to God and he practices the art to show us the way. Luke 6:12 tells us “In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God.” This is how Jesus prepared himself to deliver the Sermon on the Mount and gave us the beatitudes. Should we do any different to prepare us for our day?

Don’t forget to RSVP.

In His grip,

Jerry

Author’s note: After writing my first draft for this post, I went on a bicycle ride. I found it nearly impossible to hear the invitation or to make any meaningful connection. Even riding around the Rose Bowl and Brookside Golf courses where it is a relatively safe place to ride, there are too many things to think about – other cyclists, joggers in the roadway rather than in the pedestrian lane, cars, or golfers crossing the road between holes that feel no need to stop and look. Maybe I’ll get to the point where the pedaling is second nature and hearing and responding to the invitation is first nature…

The Fast That He Has Chosen

 

Isaiah 58:6 “Is not this the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?” American Standard Version

I had a hankering, a yearning, and I longed to take up a spiritual discipline I had sitting dusty on the shelf of underappreciated disciplines. I used to fast on occasion when I was hitched to particularly difficult tasks. It has been several years since I last undertook a fast to clear the way for the Holy Spirit but I’m in a place where I find that I am again in need of the discipline.

I turned to a couple of old friends, if you don’t mind me being so familiar with them. Dallas Willard and Richard J. Foster both wrote about the discipline of fasting. Dallas in his The Spirit of the Disciplines, Understanding How God Changes Lives and Richard J. in Celebration of Discipline, The Path to Spiritual Growth.

It is interesting to me that these men eschew the use of Dr. on their book covers and instead simply use their names. I have seen them both in person and their humility is worn about them like an old familiar sweater.

Dallas Willard is known for his writing on Christian spiritual formation and having had a focus on ‘phenomenology’, a study of the structures of experience and the consciousness. He says of fasting, “Fasting confirms our utter dependence upon God by finding in him a source of sustenance beyond food. Through it, we learn by experience that God’s word to us is a life substance, that it is not food (“bread”) alone that gives life, but also the words that proceed from the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4)”

Again, from Willard: “We learn that we too have meat to eat that the world does not know about (John 4:32, 34). Fasting unto our Lord is therefore feasting – feasting on him and on doing his will.”

And again, “Actually, fasting is one of the more important ways of practicing that self-denial required of everyone who would follow Christ (Matt. 16:24)"

In his Celebration of Discipline, Richard J. Foster quotes John Wesley: “Some have exalted religious fasting beyond all Scripture and reason; and others have utterly disregarded it.”

Foster says, “Scripture has so much to say about fasting that we would do well to look once again at this ancient Discipline. The list of biblical personages who fasted reads like a “Who’s Who” of Scripture: Moses the lawgiver, David the king, Elijah the prophet, Esther the queen, Daniel the seer, Anna the prophetess, Paul the apostle, Jesus Christ the incarnate Son.”

There are a range of fasts: full fasts where we abstain from all food, solid or liquid, but not from water, partial fasts whereby we restrict the diet without total abstention (Daniel 10:3), and an absolute fast where nothing is taken in. For reference, these are people who fasted in the Bible: Esther in Esther 4:16 for 3 days, Paul in Acts 9:9 after his visitation, and Moses in Deut. 9:9 and Elijah in 1 Kings 19:8 for supernatural absolute fasts of 40 days.

For the most part, fasts are of an individual and personal nature. There are times when groups are called to fast such as the Day of Atonement for the Hebrews or when in 1756 the king of Britain called for a day of solemn prayer and fasting because of threatened invasion from France. Of this fast John Wesley writes, “The fast day was a glorious day, such as London has scarce seen since the Restoration. Every church in the city was more than full, and a solemn seriousness sat on every face. Surely God heareth prayer, and there will yet be a lengthening of our tranquility.” France did not invade.

In any case, group or individual, partial fast or complete or even absolute, we must remember one central tenet as Foster put it, “Fasting must forever center on God. It must be God-initiated and God-ordained.”

I have leaned on Foster for what I am thinking of as the process for fasting:

1.       Define your fast objectives. Outline whatever you hope to breakthrough on during your fast and define it but remain open to the Holy Spirit to redefine it.

2.       Jesus said in Matthew 6: 16-18, “¹⁶And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. ¹⁷But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, ¹⁸so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

3.       Define your fast parameters. What are you giving up and living on? How long will you fast? The following is a list of progressions to take for fasting. Figure out where you fit on the spectrum from beginner to ‘old-hand’:

a.       Begin with a partial fast of 24-hours.
  i.      Use fruit juice and water, plenty of water
  ii.      Repeat weekly for several weeks
  iii.      Monitor the attitude of your heart – prayer, meditation, singing, and worship

b.   Graduate to a full fast of 24 hours with water only and lots of it. Use the normal time spent on eating for prayer and/or meditation.

c.     Step up to a 36-hour full fast or three meals.

d.    Consider a multi-day fast of three to seven days and then after, even longer if you feel up to it. Things to consider on the long fast:
i.      The first three days are tough as the body rids itself of toxins.
ii.     Headaches are mild withdrawal systems from caffeine, consider weaning yourself before a long fast.
iii.  Around the fourth day your hunger pains should begin to subside, there may be feelings of weakness and occasional dizziness, these should be temporary.
iv.   You should feel stronger and more alert around the six- or seven-day mark of your fast.
v.     Your longer fasts should be broken with fruit or vegetable juice and small amounts of those until your system gets back to normal. I learned the hard way on this one. As a 20-year-old zealot of sorts, I broke my 4-day fast with a big greasy burrito. It was not elegant.

Foster writes of fasts extended from seven to 40 days. I won’t go into these here. If you are moved to do anything longer than I have covered in this short post I recommend a deeper study of fasting on both the spiritual and physical levels.

CAUTION: If you have, or suspect that you have underlying medical issues consult your doctor. It is best to go into the discipline of fasting with your eyes wide open.

We must remember that the major work of scriptural fasting is in our spirit. What goes on in our hearts and souls is more important than what is occurring in our bodies. A spiritually critical period is when we break our fast and relax. Fasting can bring us breakthroughs in the spiritual realm that we can’t find any other way. I have seen it work in my own life and am looking forward to it doing so again.

We should remember Paul’s warning to the Colossians in chapter 2, verse 23, “Many things have an appearance of wisdom in promoting rigor of devotion and self-abasement and severity to the body, but they are of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh.”

Finally, let’s remember that it is His fast and the purpose is to break chains of bondage.

In His grip and under His Grace,

Jerry

Authors note: In reaction to a sermon I alluded to in this post I swore off purchasing and eating meat. This was not a lifestyle change but a fast of protest, surely not a spiritual fast in any shape or form. I discovered in writing this post that I no longer held my grudge and have taken up eating meat again but I have determined not to do so in the presence of my vegetarian wife, daughter, or grandson. I have perceived it as an affront to them the numerous times vegetarians have been denigrated from the pulpit.

An Invitation

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I’ve received an invitation at the end of which are the simple letters RSVP, an initialization for the French phrase répondez s’il vous plait. Please respond. The onus is not upon me to say “Sure, I’ll be there” nor is it incumbent to reply, “I’m sorry, I won’t be able to attend.” I simply must reply. I fear this invitation and the choice it brings. If I demur, will another invitation ever be forthcoming? If I say yes, where on God’s earth, or rather, in his Kingdom, will I end up?

You see, this is no beckoning to attend a party, to go on a motorcycle ride, or to go out to lunch. I’ve not been summoned so much as asked to come along. I felt summoned when I accepted another term on Session (Presbyterian Church governing body) and summoned when I volunteered as Clerk of Session and, having been summoned, I obeyed. No, this is different…this invitation is one of wooing me and asking me to be in for a long journey, one that if I choose to accept it, will bring a change. We Presbyterians often resist change, humorously so.

I’ve been asked to come along on an exploration of prayer. I’m saying yes and thinking that I should document this trip, thus this Calvary’s Thread post. The guidebook I’ve picked up is Richard J. Foster’s book Prayer, Finding the Heart’s True Home. That subtitle…where then will I reside when I’m through? What will I have left behind to get there?

St. Augustine said, “True, whole prayer is nothing but love.”

To find true, whole prayer we cannot allow ourselves on ounce of hate nor smidgeon of contention. I’ve learned that I’m a man of contention with a vein of a judgmental spirit at his core. I’d rather write about things I don’t like in the church, the country, or my neighborhood – write about how my ideas are the best. But prayer? I have to put contending aside and lay bare my dark soul and expose myself to pain. What if you don’t like what I say about prayer, how I’ve written it, or you find my typos, poor grammar, and childish technique distracting to the point and miss the invitation? Suck it up White (an old coaching phrase I’ve heard over the years).

Being asked to pray is an invitation to come home to a God whose arms are open wide for us, who has been yearning for us to return to fellowship with him, to sit and talk, to rest in him, and to let go of the world. This home has a door and the door, a key. The key is prayer. The door is Jesus Christ, he is the way and the truth and the life. Without him there is no entrance, no access to the Holy of Holies where we will find God’s presence and his listening ear.

We are asked home to prayer from a country on the far side of nowhere that is filled with noise, crowds, and hurry and where we jostle each other for position to be first and to get the most. We must leave this behind and come into His rest and fellowship. I’ll take the trip and hope that I have a tentative enough grasp on the far country to let go and that I have enough connection to the Holy Spirit to offer a little travelogue of the journey.

We are invited. Let’s répondez…

In His grip,

jerry