These Foolish Things

Today is the 1st of April also known as April Fools’ Day. So it got me thinking who really was the fool today. After waking up this morning I spent an extended lie in listening to the most recent message of Bill Johnson on the Bethel Church App. He was talking about a time of fasting for breakthrough in different areas; personal situations and church matters.

He was describing how prayer is about partnering with God to see God’s promises realised here on earth. He described how there is a spiritual battle going on that prevents these promises from coming to pass and that prayer is part of the warfare we can engage in. Although we cannot see the battle around us we can see the effects of delays, plans going wrong or the actions or choices of others.

Just like the Israelites when they escaped from Egypt, it should only have taken 11 days to travel to the Promised Land but they were unable to enter because they were still emotionally and mentally enslaved; they had come out of Egypt but Egypt was still in them. And only Caleb and Joshua of the original 2 million people made it into the Promised Land. This led me to a time of reflection about where my life had been going. I know that I have made some choices in my behaviour that are not sitting well with me in the way I have conducted my relationships over the past three months with some people or have felt about them.

Since the beginning of the year some challenging situations have arisen and there have been many strange things happening in my work environment. I wanted things to change but I realised that wanting was not going to be enough, I needed a change of behaviour brought on by a real change of heart. So I looked upon the beginning of April as an opportunity to restart the year with a 7 day Daniel fast to focus on breakthrough in these different areas which I decided to begin immediately, while I was still lying in bed! In fact as I write this, I am munching on a piece of homemade flatbread, made by Geof, from a Daniel fast recipe I found online.

I am not sure what flatbread is supposed to taste like but I think it needs working on.

Anyway, God does not waste any time when his children come to Him in prayer and I have already felt him speak to me through the Negativity Fast Positivity Feast I am doing during Lent with Steve Backlund’s Igniting Hope Ministries.

Here is what Steve has written which spoke to me:

The negativity fast must become a positivity feast or else it won’t have its maximum result. As we’ve seen, the Kingdom of God is not moved forward by the absence of a negative but by the presence of a positive. For instance, Proverbs 18:21 says, “death and life are in the power of the tongue.” But the greater truth is that life is in the power of the tongue. We don’t want to speak death, but if we just try to stop doing the bad, advancement won’t happen. How do we get rid of darkness? By rebuking it? By seeking to rid our environments of it? No. The answer to stopping darkness is to bring light into the situation. Darkness cannot stay if light comes. The question is not “How do we remove the darkness?” It is “How can I turn the light on in this situation?” We cannot just fight negativity, but we must replace our pessimistic beliefs, thoughts, and attitudes about other people with God’s positivity.

This really spoke to me about the levels of negativity that I have felt has been around me for some time and the negative situations and conversations that I have been a part of. I felt God reminding me that the way to combat these things is not just wanting to get rid of them, but bringing light and positivity into those same situations has great power to overcome and create change.