Ron Lagerquist's 
Fasting Testimony

  (Long Version)

They are so easily forgotten. Their cries become drowned in the noise of the raging storm. A quiet assuring touch, warm protective embrace, playful giggling and tickling lost in the pain of a parent's wounded soul. 

At fifteen-years-old, getting drunk was an awesome experience. The Arrowsmith blast, throat-burn of homegrown was the only time I felt free of a crippling self-consciousness, permitting a fuzzy, connected buzz with the people around, pushing the ever-present background voices away. In a hallowed wood behind my home, I became an alcoholic. I would sit in dead leaves, plug my nose, and wash down the horrible aftertaste of a life filled with aloneness and despair. Warmth spread upward, quieting a raging mind. Angry faces, broken trust and hot tears of abandonment fell blurry among the dead brown leaves; a safe sanitarium of my self-made land of make-belief was given substance. Alcohol and drugs held out their hands like a mother and father.

Seventeen years old saw me a high school dropout, drug addict, with a criminal record and three attempted suicides.

When the summer of 1988 hit everything came to a head. I was 18 and running out of excuses. Almost setting the house on fire, drugged out of reality, on the roof shouting at phantom demons, stealing and trashing dad’s home with parties, dad could no longer handle me. I had no job and was not allowed to go back to school. Hitting bottom, my drug addiction became so serious that I would steal from my own father.

That’s when He stepped in.

It was the second week of August; I was forced to spend a week at a Fair Havens Bible Conference because dad could not trust me alone in his house. As the week progressed, I ran out of drugs, trapped amongst a bunch of freaky Christians, going through extreme withdrawals. Wednesday night came in a blur of useless hours and for reasons that to this day I do not understand, at 7 o'clock PM, I dragged my sorry self to chapel.

The place surrounded me like a dispensation of law. Long, stringy hair fell lazily across impish shoulders. Not trying to hide my thinness, I flaunted it like a declaration of leprosy. An unusually thin torso covered with a tight black, faded tee shirt and acid wash jeans. Shadows mapped themselves across a sharp jaw. Hadn’t shaved for a week out of rebellion to my father’s demand to live two weeks of the summer in this loathsome place. Never before was I so uncomfortably aware of how haggard I must look. An alien—a fish out of water, surrounded by the redeemed. Beautiful people, who were doing their best not to notice me.

Why do I care, I don’t believe in any of this stuff anyway. Yet there was an ingrained reverence toward church. Dad’s words rankled in my head. "I can’t trust you anymore. You will have to come with me, or find some other place to live for two weeks, but I don’t trust you alone in this house."

The fact that I had just planned a large party in anticipation of father’s absence, or that only three months ago I had almost burned the place down doing bottle tokes in the fruit cellar, made no difference. Father articulated something that was deeply disturbing. It was as if I had lost the last bit of my own humanity, reduced to a bankrupt collection of addictions and animal impulses.

The service consisted of boring announcements, singing, and, finally, the speaker was introduced. I listened to a nameless preacher spell out the plan of salvation as I have heard a thousand times. There was nothing special or different about what he was saying; I could not recall one word. In a rare inner silence, in that very moment, God forced His way though all my insanity, and spoke to the very core of my being. Penetrating words that snapped the ice age of my heart. I love you and I want you to be my son.

And I knew He meant it. I began to shake. It felt like everyone must be staring; I didn’t care. All things became unimportant, foolish and empty. I was lost in the uselessness of my own faith, appalled at the depth of personal self-deception and duplicity.

For the first time, I knew I had chosen God years ago, always wanted Him. God’s path led to the deepest part of my soul, and I had been too afraid to travel there. I knew what I had to do. My will fell away like useless chaff, and I became a broken vessel unable to hold enough purpose to even draw another breath.

Eighteen years came into focus for the first time. Without knowing how, I found my feet, scrambled out of the chair, and ran out the back door of the chapel. Flying down the hill, breath escaped through racks of sobbing. I didn’t care about the strange looks on passing faces, or how I must appear, I had only had one thing in mind: get to the tent.

The power I felt inside was becoming unbearable; it felt like I was about to give birth. Grappling at the zipper, I threw myself on the tent floor, rolled over, staring into eternity. The tent became a holy sanctuary, filled with His presence. There was no blinding light, or voice; it was something far more undeniable, beyond feeling or emotion. The fundamental source of my life was awakening to meet God.

The transformation was altogether painful and joyous. Ramparts of stony protections became useless, crumbling into dust. The things I held important and craved were swept away, leaving the sensitivity of new skin. All these years, I had worked hard to callous myself to such sensitivity, and was appalled at how vulnerable I was, laying helplessly on the tent floor like a newborn.

But I never resisted, never pulled away. Instead relaxed my will, fully aware what this beginning would initiate. The unspoken words that hung over my head came hoarsely to my mouth. "I give you everything. Take it all. . .Jesus, I’m sorry. I had no idea how beautiful You are."

13 YEARS LATER
The first time I heard the fateful name Tom McGregor was from my sister-in-law. That should have been omen enough. Coming back from one of Tom’s health presentations, she was pumped. You have got to meet this guy; you will really like him. Great, I thought. One of these health nuts on a high-fiber soap box. I knew the type, and didn’t like them at all.

Understand—I come from a proud Kraft Dinner, hotdog heritage. Maybe a side order of canned peas if I was pestered enough by my wife, Lucie. She was big on health, slipping weird food like raw lettuce, carrot sticks (can you imagine!) in the far corner of my plate. I disliked this as much as health nuts.

Lucie made the crazy suggestion of inviting Tom to do a presentation for our¾ my sacred Saturday Night Bible Study.

What! I said. No way! Bible studies are for studying the bible, not some nut’s agenda on health. Health is New Age anyway! No use—women have a God-given way of applying an inflexible kind of pressure.

When Saturday night came, it seemed our gang was more excited than normal. That annoyed me. So I counter-measured by wearing my Baptist sour-face. As I was getting the look just right, a knock at the door and in walks this charismatic, skinny guy armed with a slide projector and the silliest grin you have ever seen. He was one of those guys impossible not to like. Feeling convicted about my crummy attitude, I stood, and began the meeting by asking God to help me to have an open mind. The skinny, grinning man, seemed relieved by my prayer. I had learned later that he had been warned to tread lightly; he was dealing with a flesh-eating, hardened crowd.

Pictures of cancerous growths, black stools, twisted fat molecules, de-beaked chickens, and various other dainties were displayed as we watched in disgust. In full color, he gave indisputable information how all my favorite foods had been raped of their nutritional quality, fortified with dangerous chemicals for the sake of profit. So much for treading lightly. Then, with a voice as warm as sunshine, he went to work and described in grisly detail the damage my diet was inflicting on the delicate workings of the body. The unexpected happened. I began sensing the Holy Spirit! No bibles. No prayer. We weren't even discussing God, yet I could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit filling the room.

Something inside made a tiny click. A click that would forever change the course of my future: God cares about how I eat.

To my evangelical mind, you could not talk about white flour with the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Tom's teaching was a ministry that was lacking in the church. There was something else. Health and nutrition could become a beautiful missionary-bridge to the lost! I got excited. The grinning man’s message got in.

Next day, I attempted to fast. Four days in, Lucie begged me to quit. I was a monster. Thought to myself, yeah right. That was about as spiritual as a bad dream. Through prayer God revealed that there is a world of difference between fasting and spiritual fasting. I began a spiritual fast and did not experience the grumpiness marking the first fast. Just the opposite. My praying changed, became deeper and longer. The desire to watch television subsided. I started to delight in reading the Bible and meditating on the Lord.

A twelve-year-old Bible College fire came back! Vision started to burn. I began reaching out to people in a fresh way. Instead of being cranky with my wife, I become softer, kinder.

Ideally when fasting, solitude is the friendliest environment. A week into the fast, I was obligated to go to a birthday party, committed to this event weeks before knowing that I was going to fast. A number of my family and friends would be at the party and there was a sense of fragility dealing with the attitudes of people. I wanted to keep my focus on Jesus. I knew that there would be questions as to why I was losing weight and not eating.

I walked in the door, sat down in the far corner of the living room, and watched the procession of family. At first people were gracious, gently asking me if I would like something to eat. I declined politely. Then the questions came. How do you feel? Why do you think not eating could bring you closer to God? I tried to answer the questions without becoming defensive. But as questions increased, graciousness decreased.

What are you trying to prove by starving yourself? At one point, someone whom I loved and respected waggled her finger in my face and said, ‘you look horrible! There is no way God would call someone to look like you’re looking. Now, come on and have something to eat.’

All this happened within the first 20 minutes of the birthday party. Imagine how it felt, sitting there realizing that it would be four or five hours before the party would be over.

Allow me to describe my experience while sitting down at the birthday table. First came the roast beef with succulent gravy. Then potatoes lightly browned under the broiler. There were salads, dinner rolls, vegetables, jelly molds, pickles, olives, and everything else pleasing to the eye. And then came the noises—the chewing, slurping, oohing and aahing, the ‘my isn't this roast beef tender?’ Finally there were the looks of pity, guilt, and how can he sit there and not eat anything when there is all this good food in front of him? I took a breath of roast-sweetened air and mouthful of tasteless water and asked a very invisible God to give me strength.

Looking back on it now I can chuckle, but at the time, it was a trial of discipline. When fasting is about not eating it loses meaning. But once home and in quiet time in prayer, the whole reason for fasting blossomed into meaning again.

Twelve years ago, in a moldy old tent, God called an 18-year-old drug addict to join His family. In those early years, zeal burned in my heart, but daily care, fear and doubt, choked faith within. And like so many who lose their purpose, I turned to a more tangible fulfillment¾ the world. I crawled into bed with the very things I hated and thus began to hate myself. Deep inside, the flame still burned demanding honest, single-minded purpose. But the world has its demands too, in the worse form of self-violation. My compromise was a great offence to me; I desperately wanted to be free. Knew I had power and authority over sin but it seemed I was living in defeat. I would get up in the morning and vow to be patient with my children, only finding myself doing the very thing I hated.

I write this while fasting. It has not been easy. I have days full of vigor and energy. Other days, when the body is detoxifying, cloudiness of the mind and lethargy dominate. I discovered there is a relationship between this physical state and the spiritual realm. There has been deep joy in the presence of God and also times of internal turmoil and confusion, times when the fast became meaningless and empty. Would say to myself, "What am I doing." My mind would be full of doubt and confusion. These periods were great tests. The suffering during my fast was not a result of the absence of food but the much-needed state of detoxification. In other words, all the years of garbage were being burned up in the cannibalizing state, and the waste from that burning was causing me to feel sick, headachy and emotionally horrible, until this waste exited my body. A caffeine dependency was being undone, salt levels in the blood were being balanced, and the years of mucus buildup eliminated. In other words, I was going through a physical metamorphosis.

Every day I was experiencing new levels of self-control. The flesh was weakening. In scripture, the order of authority is not body, soul, then spirit, but spirit, soul, then body. How many times have I eaten food out of a spiritual need? It is so easy and available. I see this clearly now. The fast was forcing the issue of faith. Weak, naked and empty, I had to feed from an invisible food, and believe Jesus would nourish the empty ache within.

As a Christian, I was very aware that escaping with drugs and alcohol was sin—but when it came to a chocolate bar? In the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet in my office you would find a stash of eight different kinds of chocolate bars, a large bag of potato chips, candy-coated peanuts. In the freezer, a tub of Pralines and Cream ice cream; in the refrigerator, French Onion dip. Well, it wasn't like I was smoking a cigarette or doing drugs, and yet inside I knew there was something desperately wrong.

What was I running from? The answer came early in the fast and hit hard. I had been misinformed on what surrendering all to Jesus meant. I envisioned myself wearing a suit 24 hours a day, even when I slept; saying, "Praise the Lord" after every sentence, never enjoying anything just for the sake of enjoying it. And if I did accidentally enjoy something, I would have to repent. The only person that obtained such spirituality was a respected man I remembered as a child sitting beside me in church. He rarely spoke, never smiled, and always had a very prayerful look on his face. Satan had done a wonderful job in distorting the understanding of what it is to be conformed to the image of Christ.

Writing this three months after the fast, I am now a vegetarian, love raw lettuce, carrot sticks (can you imagine), have not had a chocolate bar or potato chip for four months nor do I want any. Basically, if it is not natural, I don't eat it. I exercise regularly, biking to work and back. I have not gained one pound of the 30 pounds of weight that I lost during the fast. I have never felt so clear-minded, energetic and healthy in all my life, including my childhood. Besides all this, I enjoy eating more than I ever have. You could not pay me enough money to eat a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.

I have been able to develop a wonderful relationship with my father and mother; the fast helped undo the dreadful burden of bitterness. Through my 31-year relationship with personal sorrow, when I find a dear brother or sister lost and far from home, instead of judging, I am able to take them by the hand and help them home to their loving Father.

Another 9 YEARS 2001
There is a strange sense of conclusion, like turning the page and finding you are halfway through an absorbing novel. Forty years old! I have grown more at peace, don’t take things so seriously, matured, tamed impulsiveness, and for all its glitzy flash, the real face of sin has been laid bare to me, and just in time. I have found and lost meaningful things.

Yet still I am a divided heart. Two well-developed opposites of desire. This has tainted the whole of my life. Yes, there have been moments where God’s perfect purpose and my passion have become one. They were moments of grand Presence, harmony with my best self, yet fear of totally giving in to God’s captivating Spirit that have stopped me from letting go of the other. Like any good Lover, God has not given up. His work continues, humbling, stripping, disciplining, wooing, gently speaking through the Word and circumstances, wearing down resistance, until I let go.

I am so close now, stripped of props and alone from people. There is only God and myself. We stand face to face. And He asks of me the same question He asked me twenty-two years ago. Do you love me more than these?

Yes Lord. You know I do.

God moves closer, His beseeching breath upon my cheek; Then feed my sheep.