Tossed metaphors

One of my favorite movies from my childhood is a Sesame Street film called Follow That Bird. In one of the scenes, Maria and Oscar visit a grouch restaurant. Maria orders tossed salad. Unbeknownst to her, that means that she just ordered a salad that the chef will literally toss (with a catapult) to her table. Pretty soon, the entire restaurant orders tossed salad, and salad flies everywhere through the air. Throughout the scene, and at the end of the chaos, an irate customer (or maybe he's just a regular grouch) asks the waitress, "Where's my Jell-O??"

"The scepter of the wicked will not remain over the land allotted to the righteous, for then the righteous might use their hands to do evil." (Psalm 125:3, NIV)

I just finished fasting. I've written about fasting before, but I did something very different this time. To give you a bit of background information on why fasting is kind of a big deal to me, I will say that many years ago, I first learned about fasting in a spiritually abusive environment. Now that I'm nowhere near a spiritually abusive environment, God has been able to reteach me lots of spiritual things, including how to fast. Here's the key: Just listen to God and obey what He says to do or not to do. For example, last January, my entire church launched a 21-day fast. Here's how God told me to observe this particular fast: "I want you to fast from fasting." Huh? That meant that I wasn't to fast at all. In fact, I had to stop doing a devotional that the entire church was participating in (and I'll finish it later), and I didn't attend the entire conference that my church had been hosting. At the time, I was walking through some extremely scary emotional things and enduring some excruciatingly excruciating emotional pain. So, God my Father let me cry on His shoulder while I got to eat comfort food. Believe it or not, that was a difficult fast. (You didn't hear my soul scream when I had to drive past my church and skip the end-of-fast celebration service, because I really wanted to be there.) Obeying when Somebody says "no" can be a difficult thing, even when the most loving Father in the universe says "no."

Around that time, God told me, "You're going to do a salad fast for the first two weeks of June." I was like, "Yay! I get to eat salads!" Later He clarified, "No, all you can eat is salads" and "You can drink whatever you want." So, for two weeks (3 meals per day for 15 days), all I ate was salads (and I rekindled my love affair with sodas). I learned a lot of things, and I'd like to share some of them here with you. So, this post will more than likely be long and rambling. But I hope reading it will be worth your while.

I'm a kinesthetic learner. That means that I learn by doing. Visuals help me, and audio helps me. However, no matter how long you lecture at me, I probably won't understand what you're trying to teach me until I roll up my sleeves and try it myself. For me to learn something new, repetition is usually essential, and trial-and-error is required. After I learn how to do something kinesthetically, it will probably be engraved in my brain for life. God knows I learn this way. So, when He wants to teach me something new, He often does it kinesthetically, i.e., through trials or through something symbolic like a fast.

When I would fast in a spiritually abusive environment (which was often, because eating a gorgeously huge meal was evil when there are people starving in Asia), there were a lot of fear-based rules and plenty of guilt trips attached to the fast. And there were very few options: The only fasting types available were water fasts, juice fasts, and Daniel fasts (eating only fruits and vegetables). Many years ago, I remember complaining to my spiritually abusive mentor about how fasting while working in the outdoor heat at my labor-intensive job was so hard. The extent of her sympathy for my hunger was telling me to just cry out to God. Thanks. I'm glad you understand what it's like to lug half a ton of merchandise on a dolly in the blazing hot sun with only a tummy full of juice and a headache.

Anyway, now that I'm away from that graceless deathtrap, I've been more freed up to hear God for myself on how to fast (especially now that I'm in a church that strongly encourages me to hear God for myself and to obey Him). So, knowing that I'm a kinesthetic learner, God put me on this recent salad fast to teach me some symbolic things.

I wasn't fasting for the sake of weight loss (in fact, I just now weighed myself, and I didn't lose any weight at all). I felt my body go into a fasting metabolism right away, so it didn't seem peaceable to exercise. Technically, it would have been cheaper to simply buy fresh vegetables, etc., and make all the salads myself. But God showed me that this fast was about portion control. All the salads I ate were prepackaged and purchased at various delis (except for a couple of nacho salads from Rosa's, which God insisted were OK on my Sabbaths, and over which He and I enjoyed very nice Father-daughter bonding time). I became fairly acquainted with the delis at Target, Kroger, and Tom Thumb.

My fasting during this particular point in time was not an accident. I understand now that in some areas of my life, I'm in a promised land; in other areas of my life, I'm still in a wilderness. I've been wrestling with extremely baffling questions, extremely important decisions, and extremely terrifying oppression. I used to think that Isaiah 58 only said that fasting means that hungry people can eat your food (verse 7). That is definitely true, although this particular fast was a private one for me. I also discovered that Isaiah 58 also says that fasting means that your bondages will be broken (verse 6). During this salad fast, I had extremely intense days (as you can see in my previous blog post, which I wrote when I was drunk with grief). Chaos was flying around me everywhere like tossed salad that had been launched from a catapult at a grouch restaurant. And yet, they were the most orderly 15 days of my life thus far.

Here are some specific things I learned from eating only salad for two weeks.

Man doesn't live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4), and that food usually needs to be fresh. Some food is designed to be preserved so that it can last for a very long time. Maybe you're out in the wilderness, and you're in a very dry season, and you're only going on something that God spoke a very long time ago. That's definitely OK. I have bologna in my fridge that needs to keep for a very long time. It probably isn't the healthiest way for me to eat, but it's food, it's paid for, and it will fill my belly until the next meal. If that's the only food you have, that's what will work. You won't starve. You'll be OK. But there are other times when you must eat fresh food. My salad fast was one of them. I was eating prepackaged perishable food for each meal, which forced me to go to the store much more frequently than I'm used to going. I had to so that I could survive.

I used to criticize preachers who would only preach about really old testimonies ("God healed me from a disease back in the 80s") until I finally started hearing myself do it ("God healed me from depression back in the early 2000s"). Back in January when I was wrestling with intense things that I never thought I'd wrestle with again (which I blogged about), God told me, "I'm tweaking your testimony." Yes, anytime God does something, it's a testimony, and it's something that people could benefit from hearing about, whether it happened 60 years ago or whether it happened 2 minutes ago. But sometimes you need to eat fresh food. I remember many years ago, a favorite lifegroup icebreaker was, "Let's go around the room and talk about one time when you really felt the presence of God." People would usually answer something like, "I almost had a really bad car accident, but I was miraculously rescued from it, and that's when God's presence was strong." There's definitely nothing wrong with that (in fact, that's awesome), but God isn't just a Rescuer, and He doesn't want to be distant. He's a Person who wants to be near all the time. He wants people to experience His presence constantly. Maybe it's different with me because I'm so clingy, but I have to know where He is constantly (in my living room, in my kitchen, in my shower, in my car, at my work cubicle), or I'll freak out.

It's important to pay attention to what you're eating. I already knew this, but it was interesting to see this kinesthetic-learning example in my salads. Before I put something in my mouth, I needed to examine it, at least with a brief glance. Otherwise, I could have eaten something questionable. Some of the salads had been sitting at the deli for a day or two, and some of the lettuce at the bottom especially had already gone bad.

Perhaps I'm extra sensitive to this because I spent so many years in spiritually abusive environments without realizing they were abusive, or perhaps I'm a teensy bit on the rebellious side and need to relearn how to submit to authority. Or perhaps it's a little of both. But I still think it's important to question whatever is put in front of you before you gulp it all down. 1 John 4:1 says to test the spirits. In Matthew 7:15-20, Jesus said to consider the fruit that somebody bears. If somebody puts a plate of food in front of you, why shouldn't you check it for spoilage? I'm not saying that if you disagree with what the pastor is saying, you should stand up in the middle of his sermon and interrupt him. (That would be extremely inappropriate. In fact, I saw a pastor once openly rebuke a guy for doing that. That particular case was crazy because the guy turned out to be a disturbed person who supposedly heard God tell him to travel from South America to our church to tell us everything we were doing wrong. Uh, no.) I'm saying that just because a pastor is famous or has written bestselling books, that doesn't mean that you must believe everything that comes out of their mouths. That means if you see lettuce that's wilted and turning black, don't eat it. Look for the fresh bits and eat those instead.

If something smells funny, you don't have to eat it. I like bleu cheese dressing, but nowadays the bleu cheese chunks that they serve in salads just seem questionably weird to me. (Just a personal preference.) Several years ago when I was looking for a church, I visited one that only had about 8 people in attendance, even though they met in a place that had about 50 chairs set up. The pastor began the service with the sermon, and then he ended it with worship music. But in between songs, he inserted some pretty bitter-sounding comments about people who had left his church. Wow, that bleu cheese on black lettuce didn't look or smell good at all. At the very end of the service, I couldn't leave fast enough, and I didn't return.

Surprises await you in every salad. Ripping off the movie Forrest Gump: In your life-is-like-a-box-of-chocolates salad, you never know what you're gonna get. At the beginning of this post, I shared a photo of one of the salads I bought from the Kroger deli. Incidentally, this is where I found the smallest/cheapest meals of my fast. Their chef salad was particularly delightful. I didn't know they put celery and green onions in their chef salads. And speaking of chef salads, I didn't realize how many different ideas people have of what a chef salad is supposed to contain. Apparently, the chefs at the Walmart deli didn't get the memo that a chef salad usually has a hard-boiled egg in it.

When I was 10 years old and I accepted Jesus, I didn't know what I was getting into. I just thought I was going to avoid going to hell. And that's true. But there's so much more. I became God's daughter. I became His friend. I became the righteousness of God in Christ. And He also threw in some goodies. He gave me gifts such as shepherding, creativity, and martyrdom. I'm on the front lines. I'm a spiritual firstborn; that means I go first, I bear the brunt of the warfare, and then I report back and show people how to duck when the blows come. God gave me dreams. Over the past year or so, He's gradually unwrapped a new dream for me to swallow. For those of you who have been kind enough to read this far, I'll unwrap a pearl for you that I haven't shared with very many people yet. My new dream is to become a worship pastor (in other words, a minister who is in charge of music at a church). This is a dream that God has wanted for me; this wasn't my idea. But the more I chew on it and enjoy its savoriness, the more I understand it and the more I like it, and the more it makes sense that I've been given the particular mix of goodies that I've been given.

God has been toughening me up because He has a tough job for me to do. Simultaneously, God has been softening me up because, well, have you ever read the Psalms in the Bible? Those psalmists endured some major stuff. I'm particularly thinking about Psalms 38, 88, 142, and 143. I think experiencing the full gamut of emotions, as painful as they can be, will make me a better songwriter. And I don't know exactly how long it will take for me to prepare for or to realize this new dream, but so many of my metaphorical salad ingredients make better sense to me now. I'm a worship shepherd. That's where a huge part of my anointing is. No matter how tired I am, no matter how badly my feet hurt, no matter how hungry I am -- as soon as I step onto the worship platform, or as soon as I put on my guitar and start strumming, I'll use my Levite-clinginess to find my Father, and I'll help lead you to His presence. For me, that mysterious phenomenon is particularly delightful. And speaking of Kroger...

Life is a lot like Kroger. I like Kroger, I don't usually shop at Kroger, I don't have anything against Kroger... but it's just organized so weirdly. Whose idea was it to put that grocery store together? Regardless of which Kroger I happen to shop at, I can never find anything there. OK, so I'm looking for the juice, which isn't anywhere near the juice boxes, which happen to be next to the sodas, which aren't anywhere near the chips? And I'm looking for bread, and -- no, wait, this is organic bread. I wasn't looking for organic bread. I didn't realize this particular Kroger had an entire organic section. Is that why a bottle of apple cider vinegar costs $5? Now in order for me to get to the frozen TV dinners, I have to pass the school supplies and the shampoo? I'm sorry, but this entire store just doesn't make any sense.

But God knows where everything is. The Holy Spirit is my guide who can help me make sense of life and all of its weird organization. He's right beside me telling me which way to turn, left or right, and He's showing me where I can find a regular bottle of apple cider vinegar for only 99 cents. In the end, His way makes sense. Pun intended.

Eating only salads can get expensive and time-consuming. I'm not sure why the tiny little chicken salad costs the same as the larger cobb salad at the snack/lunch system at my work, but whateva. I was glad to have the fresh food I needed readily available. At breakfast, it's always faster to simply dump some cereal into a bowl, gobble it down, and get on with my day. But unwrapping and chugging down a salad for breakfast took longer in the mornings.

Frankly, it got old after awhile. One week into my salad fast, I told God that I was tired of eating salads. I had lost my appetite. Then He gave me a nifty new definition. He said that depression is losing your appetite for life. I like God. He's deep.

Jesus wasn't kidding when He said that following Him would be expensive (Matthew 16:24-26). Walking with Him has cost me my entire life, including some parts of my life that I didn't think I would ever lose: friends, family, dreams, desires, etc. And He can be very time-consuming: Bible, prayer, worship with music, etc. And yet, I'm glad I decided to follow Him, because I get HIM in return. He gave me new friends, family, dreams, desires, etc. And it can be very easy to lose all track of time when I read the Bible, pray, worship on my guitar or keyboard, etc. I like Him. He's mine.

Knowing that each prepackaged salad was the only food I was going to get for that meal -- and that that was all I was going to get until the next meal -- well, that was usually all the motivation I needed to gulp it down. Sure, I was tempted to break apart chocolate-chip cookies and sprinkle them over my salads, and I was craving burgers and fries, and I had to endure the beautiful aroma of microwave popcorn that a few coworkers allowed to waft into my cubicle a couple of times. But I knew that the fast would end, even after 2 long weeks, and I knew that God was watching me. I got to experience firsthand that He's my refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble, just like Psalm 46:1 says. He will never disappoint me. No matter how many people may come and go in my life, He'll stay, and I'll always have Him. And speaking of temptation...

Not every temptation I have is my fault. I think Jesus demonstrated this pretty well in Matthew 4 when He was tempted by the devil. Jesus was fasting in the wilderness. He went out there because the Holy Spirit led Him out there. From what I understand, He didn't neglect to wear His armor, and He didn't do anything that would have opened the door for the devil, and He simply didn't do anything wrong, because He's Jesus. He's perfect. He didn't do or think anything wrong, period. He was tempted probably because He existed as a human being. The devil tempted Him probably because he's the devil, and because he hates Him, and that's what the devil does.

I don't mean to keep picking on the spiritually abusive mentor that I mentioned previously in this post. I just keep having these delayed WTF reactions. Many years ago, I confessed a sin to her. If I remember correctly, before I cried into her lap, she snapped her fingers and asked me what I had done to invite the temptation to sin: "Movies? Music?" It was neither, but I was devastated, and I didn't want my sin to infect the people in my life. After the fact, I'm not cool with her lack of sympathy, again. Also after the fact, now I understand that technically, I wasn't even sinning. But remembering how she treated me helps me learn something interesting about God: He is NOT a hard man (see Matthew 25:24). He won't set a zillion rules that are impossible for human beings to follow without help and then neglect to help you, to the point where you're so paranoid about sinning that you condemn yourself even when you're NOT sinning. He won't snap His fingers at you when you're confessing your secret sins to Him on the verge of tears. He won't hire you to do thousands of jobs nonstop and then say, "Yes, you're supposed to do all of these backbreaking tasks out of rest." Nope. Going back to Isaiah 58, in verses 13 and 14, He insists that I enjoy my Sabbath. He requires that I rest. He understands that I'm a human being who has limitations, and yet He has no limitations Himself. And speaking of paradoxes...

There are no easy answers. This is something I already knew, but this is something that God kept pounding into my heart and brain during my salad fast. Technically, the Bible is an easy answer. I believe that the Bible is 100% true and that everything in there is an answer. However, the Bible isn't always easy to understand. Technically, Jesus is an easy answer. I believe that He is 100% real and that He is the only way to be reconciled to Father God. However, I don't think the sacrifice He made to make our reconciliation possible was an easy sacrifice.

I think I finally solidified inside me one of the paradoxes in God's Kingdom. Yes, it is true that God is all I need. Simultaneously, yes, it is also true that God wants me to be in community and fellowship with other believers and for all of us to interdepend on one another in a healthy way. This has been an excruciatingly difficult thing for me to wrestle with. Yes, God meets all my needs... and yet I still need other people to pray for me. Yes, two are better than one (Ecclesiastes 4), and God said it wasn't good for man to be alone (Genesis 2)... and yet God Himself is the Perfect Friend for me to hang out with. I am alone... and yet I am not alone. It doesn't make sense. And yet it makes sense.

Speaking of loneliness, the advice I'm constantly given is to just reach out to people. And yet there is no guarantee that people will be available to hang out with me, that they'll reach back, or that they'll even want me to pursue them at all. This is frustrating and flabbergasting to me. And yet I'm pretty sure this is something that I'll wrestle with for the rest of my life, at least to a degree. I think this is worth wrestling with. And I have the Perfect Friend to hang out with me during the entire process.

Some things are rocket science, and other things are just common sense. Duh. I think I already knew that, but I'm glad God remembers that I need repetition during my kinesthetic learning. For instance, take Freedom ministry, which would say that if I hurt, it's because something happened during which I believed a lie, and healing will happen when that lie is exposed and God replaces it with His truth. I think that's a rocket-science process. But common sense would say that if I hurt extra hard anytime I'm rejected, insulted, or ignored by an effeminate guy, that's probably because I was raised by an effeminate guy. Duh. No exploratory surgery necessary. I just need to make an appointment with God my Electrician to rewire me.

Speaking of rejection, if I'm lonely and trying to figure out who to reach out to, I probably shouldn't go to the people who have repeatedly rejected, insulted, or ignored me. I should probably go directly to the people who have consistently accepted me and shown interest in me. Rocket science will probably dissect each piece of fruit and tell you why your friendship garden is shriveling up and dying. But common sense would probably tell you that the other party in your friendship garden simply isn't doing their share of the watering. And every garden is different.

So, that's the bulk of what I learned during my salad fast. It wasn't a diet. It was obedience. It was bonding with my Father. And it was a mysterious way of kicking the devil's scepter out of my land, so to speak (as Psalm 125:3 says), because his reign isn't welcome here on my turf. I'm God's turf now. He's taking back what's His. And I appreciate you reading about it.

And He and I have been making new memories together, like a Father and daughter should. Sometimes, these fun memories involve nacho salad. Other times, they involve an emotional breakdown where I'm scrambling for words to pray, and He simply tells me, "I don't want a dissertation. I just want your tears." And I leak my face onto His shoulder, because that's what the Great Shepherd is supposed to do -- He comforts. He has a rod and a staff, like Psalm 23 says, and He uses them to bring me back to where I need to be, and He makes me lie down in green pastures, and He leads me beside the still waters. And He also insisted that I break my fast with doughnuts.

"Where's my Jell-O??"