I opened a piece of mail from the University of Washington financial aid office I brought along on my trip to Ithaca, NY. I was visiting my brother at Cornell in 2000. In a moment I saw my whole college life crashing and burning. I realized I was already two days late from signing and retuning the paperwork to renew my financial aid for school. I didn’t fully understand all of the ramifications, but not being able to go back next quarter, and perhaps at all, was shattering to me. In college, I had discovered a healthy ego, acceptance, and a zeal for life that revealed permanent traits to my character. I couldn’t verbalize this at the time, but I knew this piece of mail challenged the nesting ground of my identity development.

I remember calling my Mom to tell her I might have a problem. “Maybe you could stay in New York?” she said with hope. Her words did give me hope, even though this idea was ultimately impractical and didn’t resonate with my heart. I had been having a really great time with my brother and his good friend Chris for the past several days. It seemed like this news was such a damper. Both O.Shane and Chris felt sympathetic for my situation and could see my countenance drop several levels. Nevertheless, I decided to make the best of my trip.

There are several Cornell traditions (i.e. “traying”) and one in particular is called a “Nick’s Run”. Everyone piles into a car to drive 2.5 hours one-way to a hole-in-the-wall dump of a restaurant in Rochester NY, called Nick Tahoe’s. The food is crappy, but the value is in the experience of getting there and the longing to satiate the hunger that builds over the course of the long drive. My brother O.Shane, Chris, John, a girl whom I forget her name, and I took our rental car on a Nick’s run. I was happy to take part in at least one Ivy League tradition, even if it wasn’t one of the more well known ones. The drive there was full of joy, fun conversation, and excitement for an undeserving restaurant. Your body feels the long drive, but your company can make the time go fast.

We arrive and all first time Nick’s runners are obligated to order the “Garbage Plate”, which is a pile of potatoes, corn, ground beef, and I can’t remember what else. All of us devoured garbage food, except for Chris. I finally asked him “Aren’t you hungry?” He responded “I’m actually fasting…for you. I’m asking God would restore your financial aid.” I can’t remember his exact words, but in that moment, a wash of love from God, love from a friend, and a feeling of value came over me. I was astonished by a friend I’d barely known a week had chosen to fast and pray for me. Something moved me and I felt movement…I couldn’t explain it.

The next day I called the Finanical Aid Office and the representative’s first response was “Ohh, that’s okay, we’ll just restore your financial aid, you’re good to go.” In a single sentence I passed through mountains of red tape from across the country over the phone. Historically it had taken several in-person visits to their office to achieve what was necessary. Chris had fasted for me.

This has sat with me, close to my heart, for nine years. I fasted once when I was 18 for a youth group event in High School, but never from my own heart or apparent divine impression. But recently, there have been “long drives” in my life, “shortened” immensely through fasting. These drives were to fulfill longing desires in my heart. I don’t fully understand it, but in my experience I have witnessed God move at light speed, and to my great delight. I’ve also underestimated its effect on me. I don’t have all of the language to describe it, but I feel the Lord’s pleasure when I’ve fasted and I’ve felt intimately cared for through it.

Christians easily tell you to “give your desires to God”, or “entrust them to Him”. This can easily be interpreted as “give up on your desires.” But did not God make us who we are and impart to us desires in our creation? What they don’t tell you is to “also, hang on to your desires, don’t let them go.” So which is it? I think it’s both, but this kind of ambivalence and tension is incredibly painful to live through. Moses would pray to God at times “Consider your promise God!” “Consider your people! Deliver them for the sake of your name, so it won’t be tarnished.” I don’t think for a moment that God was actually convinced of Moses’s reasoning, but instead was well pleased with Moses’s boldness to speak to God so intimately, so fervently, so filled with desire for deliverance.

In regards to prayer, I have taken Moses’s approach to heart. I’ve prayed “God take all of this away from me if it’s not from You, if it’s not sustained by you, if it’s not your desire.” Immediately after, I pleaded for God to move on behalf of my desire. But lately, in purity of heart, I’ve fasted along with these prayers…and this is when I experienced “light speed movement”. Movement doesn’t always mean a direct answer to my prayer. Sometimes it has been a greater revelation into what, why, and how. Sometimes it has been delightfully a direct answer to prayer. Another time it has been a series of revelations. In all three cases, there has been quick movement. I understand that God most certainly does have ninja characteristics. I don’t have all of the theology for you around fasting, but I do have stories.