One-upping with Nelson- fast and pray or else

[Gatorbait]

Years ago some geezer general authority or the like, my memory fails me and I'm too lazy to look it up, said that if each family in the church held family home evening once a week, no one in their family would leave the church. They'd remain....drum roll, please....faithful. (sigh) Those who gloated because all their kiddies are faithful can gloat more and those who had kiddies fall away - well that's their own fault because they missed having family home evening some time.

Nowadays we have the direction that we are supposed to fast and pray so that a virus goes away, or the like, no one else gets it. And this directive straight from the original top dog. You better believe it. If everyone does fast and pray, and has faith, then the fasting and praying worked. If it gets worse and the virus lingers like someone's smelly fart in the temple- geezer sitting next to you- sound asleep, it's because someone didn't fast and pray and follow the rules, which are:

1. Fast and pray for rain or wind or snow or whatever it is that you want weather-wise.
2. Fast and pray the rain will stop, (Didn't work in ol' Noah's day.)or whatever weather you'd like to change.
3. Fast and pray we don't get sick, get cancer, malaria, gonorrhea, or a corona virus or any other awful thing that we don't want to deal with.
4. Fast and pray we get the cure from all of the above in line three.

And let's not forget the really big ones- Fast and pray that we can get home from church safely, find our car keys, our primary necklace and get home from church safely next time we meet and the time after that. Then you have to fast and pray again.

And if one of us does not:
1. Have enough faith.
2. Keep on keepin' on believing the "prophet".
3. Hold their mouth right.

Then it spoils everything for everybody and it rains when God is good and ready to send the rains, disease, wind and viruses take their course and some one somewhere gets hit by a beer truck on the way home from church. Then the cycle repeats itself.

[Hagoth]

You left out blessing those who aren't here this week that they will be here next week.

Fasting an prayer works. Remember when God sent seagulls to eat the crickets? Most members don't know that a couple of years later the crops were eaten by grasshoppers but God didn't send seagulls. I bet they prayed and fasted just as hard that year, and probably had even more faith, having already been rescued once.

[Apologeticsislying]

You left out blessing those who aren't here this week that they will be here next week.

Fasting an prayer works. Remember when God sent seagulls to eat the crickets? Most members don't know that a couple of years later the crops were eaten by grasshoppers but God didn't send seagulls. I bet they prayed and fasted just as hard that year, and probably had even more faith, having already been rescued once.

It was the younger generation of seagulls that attacked the pioneers the second time. They hadn't been told the stories of pioneer faith so they didn't know they were supposed to stop. The miracle happened.....even if the squirts didn't pay attention. That is what is supposed to be taught in church. Sounds like a job for Super Correlation man!

[2bizE]

I like the concept of community coming together to show support and strength in a cause. At one time in my life, I was a believer in the fast. Not anymore. My mind is too literal in science and rational thought for fasting anymore
The purpose of a fast is to skip two meals and pay some money to change god’s mind and for Him to stop being an a$$hole and help you out. Doesn’t make sense to me anymore.
I remember the story of Lorenzo Snow and the people of St George, Utah. They were in a terrible drought. There could be only one logical reason for the drought: people weren’t paying enough money to the church. It couldn’t be that St George is in a desert. Nope, it was for not paying the president his 10 percent. Well, rain didn’t come. They fasted, prayed and eventually after Snow was satisfied they were paying the correct amount, god changed his mind and let it rain.
Now, I’m no meteorologist, but I predict that if one is to pray and fast monthly for rain between now and August, there will be a rainstorm at some point during that date range. You can then chalk it up to fasting, but please send the offering to me since I predicted it.

[1smartdodog]

I think there is nothing wrong with prayer to help you through some difficult times. The challenge is you have to be brave enough to realize it is not going to change the outcome in this case.

I think it is rather evident god does not intervene in such a major way as to wipe out a pandemic.

My personal belief is god can direct to some degree but he can not intervene. Why i don’t know, but to believe in god and facts, it is the most logical answer


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[Hagoth]

I think there is nothing wrong with prayer to help you through some difficult times. The challenge is you have to be brave enough to realize it is not going to change the outcome in this case.

I agree. I think the church-centered attitude is too quick to skip over the value of such things as personal meditations and interpret them as magic spells and acts of devotion. If you are fasting because someone told you to you have entirely missed the point of it.

[Palerider]

I did a little research on fasting a few years back and found some interesting surprises.

It helps to imagine a scenario where someone you deeply love and nearly cannot live without, has for whatever reason, gone away. You miss them so deeply that you mourn their absence. You have no interest in food or the earthly pleasantries that this world offers. Their absence has made life a misery.

It is a mournful longing to have their presence. A desire to change any circumstance that might have come between the two of you. Above all it grows out of longing and loss and is sincerely motivated. (Hagoth is absolutely correct in the sense that if you are doing it out of some obligatory policy you have already missed the true meaning and become an imposter of sorts.)

When King David repented in sackcloth and ashes and fasted sorrowfully when his first child by Bathsheba was born ill, he sorrowed for the great loss of his relationship with God and also for the possibility that the child might live. I wouldn't put myself in the position of judging why his prayers weren't answered. But they weren't in the way he wanted.

And David accepted that circumstance. He didn't go off thinking God didn't exist or that He was some cruel ogre for not giving him what he wanted. He accepted God's will and possibly in our parlance said, "That's life and this is a part of it."

Further, I remember when the Pharisees condemned Christ's disciples for not fasting. Interesting that He defended them by essentially saying, "How can they mourn/fast when I'm with them?" In other words, they had a member of the Godhead in their immediate company and they were greatly enjoying that marvelous company every day.
Which explains his follow-up statement that there would be plenty of time for fasting and mourning after he was taken from them. For then they would truly and deeply feel the loss of his presence and companionship.

So I see fasting as an honest, heartfelt desire to have the Spirit of God in our lives. To have that communion with Him and to mourn it's loss until we do whatever is necessary to regain it.

I don't necessarily feel an obligation to fast on demand because someone else wants to persuade God to do something they want. What makes them think that I'm not already praying, even fasting, on my own terms, out of the desire of my own heart?

I'm not saying we should always be in a state of mournful sorrow. Wasn't that what the Pharisees tried to present when they marred their faces and put on sorrowful expressions so that they would APPEAR to fast?

It's interesting to note that Mary and Martha complained just a little when they noted to the Savior that if He had been there, if they had just had His presence, Lazarus would have been healed rather than being allowed to die. But the Savior actually did them one better. By allowing Lazarus to pass away He actually taught them and everyone else there at the time, who truly had power over life and death.

To me a big challenge in life was to realize that for the time being God does not always intervene especially according to the way we see things. This life is difficult and I understand now that I learn a great deal from those difficulties. But always with the knowledge of who truly has ultimate power over life and death. And that is where I have to put my faith.

ETA: For clarity

[wtfluff]

I did a little research on fasting a few years back and found some interesting surprises.

So your research was confined solely to the bible?

[Palerider]

I did a little research on fasting a few years back and found some interesting surprises.

So your research was confined solely to the bible?

The Bible and some who have written insightfully about it.

I read other writings occasionally that I believe have some validity but for me I find that many of those things are already folded into Biblical theology. It is where I am most comfortable and where I receive the nourishment that satisfies me.

But thinking of that, for my profession I found a lot of validity in some of the theories of Zen. There is real truth in some of that philosophy. And it isn't easily achieved. It takes work.

As Owen Wilson's character said in Shanghai Knights, it isn't easy to "Be the bullet".

[Hagoth]

I did a little research on fasting a few years back and found some interesting surprises.

So your research was confined solely to the bible?

The Bible and some who have written insightfully about it.

I thought of another. Matthew 17:21 “This kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”

So fasting is a requisite for casting out certain kinds of demons, according to the author of Matthew. I don't believe in demons, so I'm trying to think of another way I can approach this verse. Maybe fasting will humble you so that you can be more sensitive to recognizing how best to provide help to a mentally ill person. Or maybe Jesus never said that at all and it's the author's personal superstition peeking through.

[Gatorbait]

Read all of your comments and learned something good from each one....which I almost always do.

Although I felt my post was nudging too close to the cynicism cliff, I had a bit more room before I tumbled off.

Prayer is a beautiful thing and I've nothing against it. If fasting helps, I'm fine with that as well. My prayers are rare these days as I feel that perhaps I've got to re-earn the right to divine providence. One day, I hope to get there. We shall see.

That said- prayer and fasting as a collective group so that God thinks we are serious- I don't agree with that. I see Primary kids that are pure and innocent and their prayers are sweet and pure and that's probably why Christ's messages were seasoned with "child-like" metaphors.

I'd put my money on the faith and purity of a young child any day over most of the adult church members I know or have known.

Thanks again for the insightful comments.

[moksha]

By allowing Lazarus to pass away He actually taught them and everyone else there at the time, who truly had power over life and death.

If the US has not intervened with the Kingdom of Deseret for at least 50 years after its founding, I suspect that a story of Joseph having raised a follower from death would have been added to the Mormon oral tradition.