Winter 2021 Prayer and Fasting
The central part of what Alain sensed God saying is that just as we are in winter physically we are also in winter spiritually. Spring is coming but we need to allow winter to run its course. In his words we need to 'conserve divine energy for the spring ahead' and recognise that winter has 'its own beauty and purpose'. One phrase particularly stuck with me:
make the place of hibernation in this season the place of My habitation
I so sense this is the season we are in. This isn't the moment to be making big plans for the future and thinking how we scale everything we do. It is the time to be pressing into God, deepening our roots, doing the unseen work of abiding in Christ, all in order to be ready for spring which will surely come. It is for this reason I think our current Wellbeing Journey is so well timed. We are getting ourselves ready to re-emerge into the new normal.
All of this impacts the coming week of prayer and fasting which start on Monday 1st. I feel a pressure (almost all of which is internally generated) to have a week full of activity. Fast for the whole week. Have a week of 24/7 prayer and push to fill every slot. Try to impress God with our energy and activity. There will be a time for all of that (well not the last part), but in this moment I think we need a week to abide. To be with Jesus. To ask God what spring is going to hold. To prepare ourselves for all that Jesus is about to do in us and through us.
These are the ways we are going to abide in the coming week:
- Join us for our Kingdom Come hour of prayer on Monday at 8pm. We are going to hear from our site leaders, have communion together and spend time praying for one another. I am so looking forward to us being together.
- Every weekday evening at 9.30pm on our Kerith Instagram feed we are going to have an evening Examen. Slowing down at the end of the day to reflect, to rejoice and to finish our days with Christ.
- I encourage everyone to fast for one meal during the week and spend an hour alone in prayer. If that fills you with dread I encourage you to use the brilliant guided hour of prayer we produced a last year ago.
- Join me and the prayercast team every weekday, either live at 6.45am or later in the day for 15 minutes of prayer and reflection.
None of this is about doing stuff. All of it is about slowing down to be with Jesus.
Winter is here but spring is coming. Let us make sure we are ready for it.
Simon
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I have sensed the Lord say to me over past few weeks, that while this is 'winter' (in more ways than one for many people - lockdown life etc ) there is a hope that Spring is on the way. In our part of the world the nights are already on the turn, the light of the day is lengthening already, the nights are getting shorter ever so slightly and we should prepare/reposition for Spring. But part of that preparation I sense is to allow winter to run its course. I keep thinking of the animal kingdom this winter and the process of 'hibernation'. The point is of this is to conserve energy for the Spring ahead. I think we are being afforded an opportunity to hunker into the womb of God in this season (not passive as we get on with ‘loving our neighbours’ and doing what we can do) but a posture of relinquishment and making God our ‘hiding place’). I keep getting this phrase "make the place of hibernation in this season the place of My habitation", conserve divine energy for the spring ahead...
While it appears God is ‘revealing’ and exposing ‘hidden (dark) things’ in his church and around the earth in this cultural moment there is also a sense in which God is calling us to seek out new insight / revelation in the ‘hidden place’ of HIS presence. The verse comes to mind, ‘The secret things belong to the Lord’ (Deut 29:29), hidden not always from us but FOR us. Remember also ‘It is the glory of God to conceal a matter but kings to seek it out.’ (Proverbs 25:2). The ‘hibernation’ of WINTER continues to be an opportunity to receive and conserve the divine energy we will need for the SPRING days ahead. This is a moment to ‘seek out’ the secret things of the Lord as we rest in his glory of His presence, this place contains the wisdom/insight He wants to display through us in the days ahead in order that we might lead our cities/nation into His life in the midst of all the talk of lack and an impending economic disaster. What if the antidote to this is a Joseph-like anointing for a time of ‘famine’ approaching? What if the Lord wants to release supernatural insight/wisdom mined from intimacy with Him but this is wisdom proven through the winter (a pit and a jail for Joesph) which when, in His timing, will make kings and queens look to the church for solutions again?
We cannot control the seasons - rather we submit to the unrivalled beauty each season has and winter, while we don't always like it, has it's own beauty and purpose. So we SURRENDER to SOVEREIGNTY. God is doing it!! God does what God does in winter, and we say ‘YES’ to that. And SPRING will have it’s day soon and it will be glorious.