Loud and Clear, Lord. Loud and Clear.

Prayer and Fasting week was over and it is truly humbling to experience God’s presence and amidst my brokenness. While it is true that sharing your unfiltered testimony will set you free from the bondage of the devil’s strongholds, it doesn’t remove the fact that you were completely broken back when it happened and even up to today. But since declaring your testimony of how Jesus saved you from darkness and how the Holy Spirit worked in your life during those times of falling apart, pleases God the Father. However, since God impressed on my heart to share my ‘unfiltered’ testimony to others, I  have this feeling of uncertainty of what the future events may come. I feel safe but weary, I feel secured but exposed, and I feel supported but alone. In my heart, Jesus will be there to comfort and guard me but in my mind, the world is still there to insult or persecute me. One of my quiet time led me to these verses.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against
you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven,
for, in the same way, they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Matthew 5:10-12

I was reminded that my Prayer and Fasting week has officially begun. My prayer points for the week were:

• -Steadfast and persevering heart
• -Obedience to God’s words
• -Consistency in Quiet Time

I struggle at the obedience part because I tend to delay things – or worst, explain myself out of it. I know delay in obedience means disobedience; I pray that God would touch my heart to obey with no delays and with no questions. However I realized, how can I obey if I do not know what God wanted for? May God humble my heart to seek wisdom from the Holy Spirit and lean not on my understanding.

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. – James 1:5

Day 1. I took a partial fast meaning one meal day or eat a minimum serving per day that went on for 5 days. I also took a social media fast for the whole week wherein I log out all from all of my social media accounts so that I won’t be tempted to waste time on them. Honestly, I intended to keep this blog site and give daily Devo updates during my prayer and fasting week, however, God wanted me to focus on Him. Alone. Believe it or not, my site was literally not working from Wednesday to Sunday! For some unknown reasons, I tinkered the with its DNS settings and even went too far from creating subdomains to changing nameservers – I did not even know what are those! LOL. I kept on researching how to do it the right way and found myself searching how to fix and revert it afterward; I tried to endure the jargons but I couldn’t understand A THING. So what happened was, it was not accessible for those 5 days and I kept on bugging and asking for help from my friend, Sai, whom I know is able and knowledgeable about those things. Surprisingly, he couldn’t do something about it as well. Well, even the tech support whom we both called in different days. In a nutshell, this site was in a serious downtime during the prayer and fasting week. I felt bummed at first but I praise God for allowing me to restore it on the last day. I just had this realization on how to fix it and o and behold, I was up and running again! Oh God, you never fail to amuse me. ♥

All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. 21 But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.[a]” John 3:20-21

Day 2. Since I had no website to attend to on a daily basis during the prayer and fasting week, I had the chance to really immerse myself in God’s words and felt great joy to speak directly to Jesus. As I was still anxious about taking my next steps towards fully surrendering my life to Jesus and allowing myself to depend on Him alone, I praise God for always reminding me that HE IS MY GOD – He is able, all-powerful, the “possible”, my refuge, and my rock. The Lord knows my heart and He knows me better than anyone else and even if I stumble, He is my greatest protector who guards my heart and mind as long as I fix my eyes on Him.

So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. 7 For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. 8 That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God. Romans 8:6-8

Day 3. I  praise God for allowing me to guide these ladies in their very first prayer and fasting week. It was also my first time to join a Nightwatch and I had no regrets in attending and facilitating with these ladies. I gained more than what I am sacrificing for. We learned that as a follower, we must deny ourselves, die daily, and do what Christ wants us to do. It was emphasized when we had a mixed DGroup and Noj shared his morning mantra (not in verbatim): “Die to myself, Pick up my Cross, and Follow Him.”  I learned more about my brokenness.

You will keep in perfect peace
    all who trust in you,
    all whose thoughts are fixed on you! Isaiah 26:3

Day 4. God allows brokenness so that we can depend on Him. Dear readers, please don’t get me wrong. Brokenness could be in a form of a lot of things like a commitment of sin, disappointments, discouragements, loss of a loved one, health failures, financial worries, and even simple failures in life. Being broken makes us feel insufficient, worthless, rejected, and even doubt the existence of the big guy “up” there. This prayer and fasting week taught me that instead of dwell in the dark, staring at those broken pieces, and feeling hopeless, I should allow God to work in my life and let His light shine through those brokenness to fill me up again. I learned not to be afraid when feeling broken and trust the Lord on His Will in my life. He allows things to happen for a purpose and I must obey His purpose – not mine, but His. God provides more than enough of what I ask for and feeling sufficient to myself is wrong as I must depend on Him alone. Sorrows will always come because living to myself will always result into brokenness and I pray that God the Father will always teach my heart to die to myself and follow His Son – for the Glory He deserves. Jesus’ death and resurrection don’t deserve a lukewarm faith and He gave His life just to let me live. I do not deserve the day-to-day Grace. He deserves my ALL.

Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:7

Day 5. On my last day of prayer and fasting, I felt great joy waking up to this verse and  I was reminded how Faithful and Loving the God I am serving. Truly, disappointments are God’s divine appointments and I can’t thank him enough for making me realize the difference between my old self and new self. All the things I have gone through and have done and I am still worth saving in His eyes? Jesus, you make me fall in love more and more. ♥

God is constant and so as His love for us. If only we could allow Him to break us in order to fill us up with His light, be at His command and Will to follow Him. It has a great cost to follow Jesus and would entail sacrifices – knowing all these is not enough but a TRUE walk in the Calvary with Him is a foolproof way leading to God’s Heart. This is also impossible without the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit. God is a generous Father and He will bless us abundantly with peace in His presence. I praise and thank God for allowing me to break a lot of times and I am sure that He will allow more brokenness to happen; I pray that I may fully allow Him to work in me and through me so that others can see His light in my life. With all of these reminders and waking up every day to your word is hearing you loud and clear.

Father, you are sovereign and ever-faithful. You are the alpha and omega, the ends and the means. You are my everything. Forgive me Father for times I doubted your plans and for times that I tend to deliberately bend my way out of your way so that I can follow my own way. I regret the time and life I missed knowing you but I trust your perfect timing Lord. If it were not for the brokenness, I wouldn’t experience your saving grace and testify to your Glory. I know I was impossible but Lord, you made me possible. Learning all these make me think, ‘why do you love me THIS much?’ and I know that in your heart, you just want me to go back to the path you created straight for me. Lord, I praise your name for always allowing me to take U-turns and even make a new road just to lead me out of my self-created-road. May you never allow me to leave your side again, Father. Teach me to be the salt and light of my generation and the generation to come that I may glorify your name with the talents and the life you gave me. Lord, pasensya ka na pero minsan talaga mahirap sumunod sayo at matigas ulo ko pero please, wag ka sana magsawa na mahalin ako. Mahirap kasi mahina ang loob ko and ikaw lang ang lakas ko. May you always allow me to draw strength from your love and bless me with the opportunities to make use of this strength. Father, I need you to lift me up always whenever I feel down and I need you to comfort my heart whenever I feel afraid and weary. I need you. We need you. My family needs you. This country needs you. We need nothing else, but You. May your people realize the beauty in brokenness as we follow you and encourage others to know you. All praises and glory to you Lord, in Jesus’ name, who is my rock, my savior, and the perfector of my Faith, Amen.

Dear reader, now you have read my learning during the prayer and fasting week, I encourage you to share your thoughts in the comments section and I would gladly answer. If you felt blessed, please subscribe for more. It encourages me to be consistent. ♥

Thank you for praying for me. Now, how can I pray for you?