Day of Fasting and Prayer

This weekend I had the privilege of attending a time of prayer and fasting that was held by the Women's Ministries at our church. When I saw it was being held on my weekend off, I knew that I was meant to go. I knew that if I went I would be blessed, however I was worried about going without sleep and food for that length of time (6pm Friday to 3pm Saturday). I was also being selfish in not wanting to give up a good part of my weekend off. As I was praying about it before I went, I heard in my head "can't you even give up one weekend, willingly for me?" It brought me back to reading about Peter and John in the garden, being asked if they could stay awake and pray.

As I knew I would be, I was blessed by being there. We enjoyed a great time of fellowship and prayer. We were still feeling alert when we finished on Saturday, despite the small amount of sleep we got, and none of us felt very hungry or had problems with headaches or nausea. This was obviously an answer to prayer.

It was impressed on me that I have a problem with pride. We had a form to fill out with characteristics of proud people and humble people and there were things on the pride side that surprised me and really confronted me with this issue. Pride can be seen in things like being concerned about what others will think of them, wanting to cover up mistakes and dealing with generalities instead of specifics when it comes to sins, just to name a few. We decided that pride is something that is at the root of many sins, and is the cause of many issues in our marriages. God calls us in Colossions 3:12-13 to be compassionate, kind, humble, gentle patient, forgiving, loving, in unity with each other, peaceful and thankful. He also says in 1 Peter 3:4 that we should have a gentle and a quiet spirit. It is very difficult to truly be any of those things when we are harbouring pride. It's something that can sneak up on us so frequent prayer and confession is needed.
We spent time studying, praying; both individually and together and sharing. We also did a little sleeping and goofing off. We left, tired and a little hungry, but refreshed and happy.