by Kris Wint, Finland
I had never fasted before. I had heard about it and even read about it, but, truthfully, I rather enjoy eating and so fasting was not a high priority. My curiosity was triggered, however, when I downloaded a new album from Flame and song eleven, appropriately titled “Daniel 10” opened with a pastor talking about the need for men and women to fast. As I listened to the album more and more, my curiosity grew more and more and my desire to fast grew more and more. But I did nothing.
Several months later our church had a guest speaker and wouldn’t you know it—one of the main messages in his sermon was how fasting had such an amazing impact on his life. This got my attention. Of course, my attention span is not what it should be and so, as the days passed, fasting once again returned to the back burner. About this time, my pastor asked if I would meet him for lunch. We set a date to meet but something came up and we had to cancel. Back burner again.
Around this time, I was given an iPad for work. So I did what all people do when they first get an iPad: go to the app store and get as many apps as I think I would use. One of these apps was a Bible app. This was great! It had all kinds of Bible translations, reading plans, and other sorts of fancy add-ons. As I was looking through this app, there it was: a 21-day fasting devotion. That was all I needed to see. The next day I started my fast and rescheduled lunch with my pastor.
That night I began the fasting devotion. It started by having me write down my reason for fasting. My work environment was deteriorating daily and so my main objective in fasting was to know where God wanted me. Each day I worked through the devotion. On the sixth day, I had lunch with my pastor.
He looked right at me and said, “Kris, I feel the Lord has placed it on my heart to encourage you to go to seminary. Have you ever thought about becoming a pastor?”
Wow! Six days into seeking God for direction and he answered!
I called my wife, Ginger, after lunch and told her what happened. We agreed we would look into this and prayerfully consider it. I worked late that night and when I got home, Ginger had a note on my pillow:
Kris, I woke up to pray for you this morning. I was going to ask God to use you where you’re at, but felt he was keeping me from that prayer. Instead, he led me to pray, “God, reveal to Kris today where you want to use him.”
I sat there with tear-filled eyes, overwhelmed. Ok, God. You have my attention. I will follow you down this path. Use me and my family as you will.
And so we did. I entered seminary. In July of 2012 I was called into the pastoral ministry at Finland. What began as curiosity changed the direction of my life—thank God for curiosity. In six days God created the world and in six days he completely recreated mine.