A great, compassionate and amiable she-doctor: This is the kind of general practitioner I had been seeing for the past 5 years.
But recently, I have lost confidence in the expertise and abilities of general medical practitioners as healers and gradually, came to understand them as dis-ease managers and medicine administrators.
As she and I have discussed many times before, the person occupying the body, after God, is their best healer and health advocate.
So it was no surprise to her, when one day, pathology tests reported alarmingly high cholesterol numbers that I declined her medical advice and medicine prescription. I told her I would go home and pray about it.
Being that this high cholesterol pathology report was not as a result of an unhealthy diet or sedentary lifestyle but, I suspect and believe, a side effect of a medication I had previously taken which is known to bring up cholesterol numbers, no quick fix solution was required.
What I desired was healing from the root cause out and not symptom treatment. Prayer was the only thing that struck a chord and resonated with me as a real solution.
And as mercy would have it, before I even prayed, on the drive back home, in my spirit God deposited the solution; “Go on a 3 week [Daniel] fast,[1] and here is what you will eat and not eat.”
My spirit leaped. I decided to go for a second opinion. The second opinion doctor even went on to confidently assure me of the impossibility of bringing down high cholesterol numbers in just a matter of weeks.
But I knew what I had received in my spirit, so instead of the drug dispensary my detour after leaving his office that day was to the local fresh produce store.
To add to what was already at home, I bought sugar-free muesli and whole wheat bread, a variety of colourful vegetables and a lot of raw nuts, legumes and rice milk. For three weeks I was going to steam, bake, boil, grill, very lightly fry (if I really had to) and drizzle. I was not going to eat any fruit (except for avocado and tomato) nor anything remotely laced with sugar or artificial sweeteners. There would be no beloved dairy and no animal protein. The only liquid I would drink was water, herbal teas and nothing with caffeine and no fruit juices. If I was eating pasta or rice, it had to be exclusively whole wheat and brown, and if it was a potato only sweet potato.
For the most part, this is how I prepare and enjoy food, but this time there would be no occasional, passive or compulsive consumption of milk chocolate, fruit and fruit juice, jelly sweets, pastries, packets of salt and vinegar potato crisps, beloved dairy and fish, white flour pasta and condiments now and then. All that was just not part of the picture Heavenly Father had divulged. I did have some cravings to sit through though.
The other component of the fast was daily prayer on a variety of subjects that I meditated on and sought victory for that weren’t necessarily directly linked to the high cholesterol report.
The fast began and it proved to be a course through recalling imperative knowledge God had already revealed to me in stewarding my body, soul and spirit that I had begun to take for granted.
Here are some things I was reminded of:
- this entire way of eating especially sweet potatoes and legumes soothes the gut and makes for smooth regular bowel movements;
- olives on toasted whole wheat bread or on boiled madumbes (from the cassava family) drizzled with olive oil do the same job as salt and vinegar crisps; raw cashews and most nuts are sweet;
- mashed avocado with lemon juice and a light sprinkle of Himalayan salt and garlic is as good as mayonnaise;
- a teaspoon of sugar and salt free crunchy peanut butter will dampen most cravings;
- unprocessed natural produce not only brings sustenance, light and life to the body but supports and rejuvenates it.
- Most importantly, unceasing prayer and the blessing of every meal all sum up to optimum life not only for the body but for the soul (mind, will and personality).
Before we get carried away into arguments about which diets are better than others, let me set the record straight this way. Is occasional and regular consumption of foods from the Standard American Diet (SAD) okay? I would say, no. Is eating healthily prepared fish, meat and poultry; full-fat dairy (yes, I said full-fat); in season fruit and raw honey an unhealthy choice? I would say, a resounding, no. But it was a fast and some foods I normally enjoy which are healthy, I was asked not to eat during this sacred time.
My good report is that 21 days later, pathology results showed greatly reduced cholesterol numbers to normal.
What do I think worked? Some would vouch for the eating plan but in my heart I believe with unwavering certainty, that God’s intervention healed me.
This was a partnering of sacred and natural means to culminate a divine supernatural healing.
Here is my verdict, God is our Healer because He is our Creator. A fast is ordained with supernatural anointing and power that surpasses the natural to intervene and establish the final authority of a redeemed life, healed and made whole by the stripes of Jesus through His finished work on the cross.