A Handshake Deal With God

He does his business at the fence line, and he always has, and he has never once been let down by it.

That is not naivety. He knows exactly which two men in that county he would not shake with, and he does not shake with them. But everybody else, going back to his father and further, has done it the same way: you stand at the gate, you say what you will do, the other man says what he will do, you shake, and then you both go and do it.

So when the trouble came, he took it to God the way he takes anything to anybody. He stood out at that gate on an evening in March and he said, plainly, out loud: Lord, You do this, and I will do that. And then he stood there for a second, because there was nobody to shake with, and then he went in for his supper.

He has done his part. That is the thing. He would want you to know that he has done his part every single week since March, without a lot of noise about it, and he is not a man who does things by halves.

And nothing has happened.

He would never say the words out loud, but the shape of what has settled in his chest is this: I shook on a thing and I have held up my end, and the other party has not. And he has not been able to pray properly since he noticed it, because how do you talk easily to somebody you think has gone back on you?

Then a fellow at the feed store, meaning it kindly, said his cousin's church had seen things move when they fasted.

He said that was interesting. He has thought about it every day since. And what went through him was not hope. It was the old familiar reckoning. If I put more in, maybe the deal goes through.

If you shook on something at a gate, come and lean here a minute.

There is nothing foolish about a man who deals straight

Let us get this said before anything else, because a page like this could easily come off like it is calling you simple, and it is not.

The instinct that took you to that gate is a good instinct. It is the instinct of a person who keeps his word and expects the same, and Scripture has a great deal of time for that sort of person. Hannah made a vow. Jacob made one with a stone under his head. It is what an honest man does when he has run out of things he can fix with his own two hands.

You are not a fool for it, and you were never once thought less of for standing at that gate. That is not soft soap handed to a man leaning on a tailgate. It is written that the Lord looketh on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7), and the Holy Spirit is the one who read what was actually going on out there in March, which was not commerce. It was a man at the end of what he could do.

So nobody is going to laugh at the handshake. But there is something worth knowing about the party on the other end of it.

He does not shake. He swears by Himself.

There is a verse in Hebrews about how God gave His word, and it is not the way any of us do it.

For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself.Hebrews 6:13

Think about what that means at a gate.

When two men shake, each one is putting up his own standing as the security. That is what a handshake is. But when God gave His word, there was nothing above Him to put up, so He put up Himself, and that means His word is not a contract with terms on both sides. It is a promise underwritten by His own being.

You are dealing with One who has already put up everything He has, and He did it before you got there. I am not saying that to smooth a hard year over: it is exactly what the writer of Hebrews states about how the promise was made (Hebrews 6:13), and it is His Spirit, not this page, who takes it from something you would agree with in a sermon into something that changes what standing at that gate feels like.

And that changes what the last months have been. He has not gone back on you. There was no arrangement with two sides to go back on.

Then what is fasting good for

Here is the plain answer, and it is a good deal smaller than what the fellow at the feed store meant.

Fasting is not a payment. It is not the extra you put in to get a deal over the line, and it is not the missing piece. It is the body brought into a prayer that was already going up. It is the whole of a person, the part that gets hungry and tired and stands out at a gate in March, turned toward God with nothing in his hands.

And here is the ditch a man like you will drive straight into, so let it be named. Do not make it the new part of the deal. Somebody who honors an agreement will put in whatever the agreement seems to want: more effort, more sincerity, a stricter week, a better heart. You are not asked for any of it, and none of it was ever the currency. Scripture says it is not of works, lest any man should boast (Ephesians 2:9), and it is His Spirit who turns that into a weight off a man's back rather than a point in an argument.

Now here is a thing I will say out loud and not in fine print. Some folks must not go without food at all, and being one of them takes nothing off you. If you live with diabetes, if you are pregnant or nursing, if you take medication, if you have ever had a hard road with eating, if you are underweight, unwell or you simply do not know, talk to your doctor before you go without anything, and let what they say be the answer. You are not one step further from God on account of a doctor's advice. The word says the Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works (Psalm 145:9), and the Holy Spirit has never once come in a smaller measure to a man because of his body.

And if this week has more in it than a page can hold, if you are frightened for yourself, put this down and call a real person: your doctor, a counselor, a crisis line, and the emergency services if you or anybody near you is in danger tonight. That is not going around God. That is help He put in the world on purpose.