Open My Eyes: A 21-Day Fasting Devotional from Jentezen FranklinSample

Fasting Day 2: God's Ways

Day Two of the Fast is here and you have made it through one of the toughest days – the first one. By now, you are feeling the initial phase of any fast. For many people, today is the hardest, especially if your body is used to receiving a daily dose of caffeine from soda or coffee and the cry of the flesh for its greatest enemy – sugar! Press through today by drinking lots of water and clinging to Jesus. He is nearer than you ever imagined. Press in and ask your questions – spend time in worship and gratitude and allow Him to begin to unpack and heal the broken places and go before you in the stressful situations. Today, we’re emphasizing that God’s ways are not our ways. When you think about the situations that you’re facing, it’s so important to know God’s will in every situation. He enlightens us and He opens our eyes to His wisdom, knowledge, and direction for our life. One thing God promises when you fast is that He’ll open your eyes to divine direction. 

His Ways Are Higher Than Our Ways 

To know what God thinks about any situation you first have to understand that His ways and His thoughts are very different than our own. To know God’s will in every situation means you have to know Him personally and that can only happen through growing in His Word, through prayer, and by coming under Godly preaching and wise teachers. God will grow you up into maturity if you will make these a priority. You can settle for seeing what you can see in each of your children or you can see them through God’s eyes. You can try to work your way out of a sticky situation or you can inquire of the Lord and allow Him to show you a better way. His ways are knowable but you have to commit to the process of growing up in the Lord. 

I want to encourage you today. You can try to work things out your way, and do it yourself, or you can say, “Lord, Your ways are better than my ways, and I’m going to commit the process to You. I give it to You on this fast.” Do not be conformed to this world, the Bible says, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable will of God. When you fast, you’re presenting your body as a living sacrifice. Fasting will help you find the perfect will of God in 2020 for your life. One of the most powerful truths of the Christian faith is that you don’t have to have all the answers. Your heavenly Father is the answer for every question and dilemma you will ever face. We waste so much time and energy worrying or trying to plan for every eventuality when the answer is so simple. Seek Him. Seek Him first. Matthew chapter six holds so many truths for how to live and how to approach every situation. It even contains the Lord’s prayer to teach us how to pray the model prayer. But if you read on to the end of the chapter you eventually come to this: 

“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Matthew 6:25-34

Prayer: 

Lord, I thank You for everything You’ve done for me. I ask You to remind me that Your thoughts and Your ways are higher. Your purpose for my life is so much better than anything I could ever imagine or ask for. Help me remember when I don’t believe it sometimes. I know that You are greater than anything I could ever need and even when it is hard, I still need You, Lord. Help me as I fast and pray during this season. In the name of Jesus, today, I pray that our eyes will be opened, not to our way, but to Your way. Not to our will, but to Your will. And so, as we fast, and as we pray, open our eyes, give us solutions, give us answers, give us direction, God, for this new year. We seek You early, we seek You earnestly and with our whole heart.