Physical Side
One glass of cantaloupe juice; one glass of black cherry juice. I will be breaking my fast for dinner, hence the lower juice.
Weighed myself this morning for the first time during the entire fast. I have gone from 174 to 161, equaling a loss of 13 pounds—about a half pound of weight a day. Some of this was water loss, but because I eat a low salt diet, I would estimate around 2 pounds of water weight will return, leaving 11 pounds of legitimate fat loss. There is 4,500 calories in one pound of fat, so that would be about 2,000 calories worth of fat burned a day.
It’s important to keep in mind; I was already trim so the body is more reluctant to give up its stored fat. For those who are carrying a lot of body fat, you can expect to lose 20 or even 50 pounds. For the next 25 days I will be doing a raw diet with protein, while body building.
Spiritual Side
In the intro I shared that the main purpose of this fast was to find an answer to the question of whether I should rebuild the Freedomyou site myself or pay out some serious money to have the site professionally built. This was one of those unplanned forks in the road that forced a life-changing choice. One path took me in a very different direction then the other. The path of building a simple site myself meant reducing Freedomyou to a hobby and pursuing a promotion being offered to me at work, involving night courses and much more responsibility. The other path of paying for the site to be built meant refusing the promotion and putting my whole self back into expanding Freedomyou with the goal of being able to quit my day job and work on Freedomyou fulltime. These two paths diverged in opposite directions and there would be no turning back.
Every day we make countless decisions, most do not have any long term impact, but then there are the big ones that can affect the rest of your life. A part of getting the big ones right is having a clear sense of who you are, and for a Christian this involves knowing your spiritual gifts and calling. I had lost touch with both.
It’s interesting, there is nothing in the bible that tells us to seek God’s will. It took this fast to remind me that discovering God’s will works differently than most of us think. These two verses say it all:
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:1-2
Flip this around, and that was the condition I was in before the fast. My loves and lifestyle looked much like everyone else’s. It doesn’t do me any good denying it. Fasting made it clear as a bell how much my life was controlling me. I was in no condition to “test and approve what God’s will is.”
Jesus doesn’t tell us to seek God’s will; He says to know God’s will. Praying to ask God to show you His will is like a man with his eyes tightly shut praying for sight. I was a fool to think that a 10 minute prayer on my way to work and few minutes of bible reading before bed would protect me from hours of media. I was devoting more time—was more excited about watching my favorite TV shows, then spending time with the Holy Spirit. Too many TV shows, too many conversations, too much drooling over the latest tec. porn, my mind had slowly become just as cluttered as everyone else’s—I would not have known God’s will if I got hit in the face by it.
And you know what? I would have never been this self-honest 25 days ago. The longer your eyes are closed the harder it is to open them.
I knew uncluttering my high-octane life through the quietness of solitude and fasting, would strip me down. And I knew it was not going to be easy. These last 25 days have been full of self-honesty, regret, then repentance, afterward grace, and finally sight. There are no shortcuts. You want to know God’s will for your life? Well, that’s the path.
As vision increased so too did the desire for Freedomyou. The discouragement of lost sales and listings that made me feel like giving up, turned into motivation of wanting to work hard and reestablish Freedomyou’s web presence— in fact to expand its reach to become one of the most trusted Christian health and fasting websites on the internet. I know exactly what to do, there are no doubts. I will pour my life into this work, and that includes investment of money and time. I will pay to have the site rehabilitated and focus on writing content. And I have never been more excited!
What makes you happy and provides a deep feeling of fulfillment? A deliberate exercising of your spiritual gift. The prospect of spending months, maybe even a year, building a website, not to mention all the time it will take maintaining a website myself, is depressing. I would rather take up fishing as a hobby.