Most men live from the public place. Their energy comes from recognition. Their confidence rises and falls with performance. Their identity is shaped by what others can see. Jesus points in the opposite direction. “But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”— Matthew 6:6 (ESV) The secret place is not primarily a location. It is a reality of communion with God that exists beyond visibility, applause, and productivity. This is where false selves die. In the secret place, there is no audience to impress. No platform to build. No reputation to manage. Only a man and his Father. That is precisely why many avoid it. The flesh can survive on activity. It cannot survive on intimacy. A man may lead a team, serve at church, provide for his family, and still be spiritually malnourished if his life is fueled by public obedience without private surrender. The secret place exposes what the noise conceals. It reveals whether you love God’s presence or merely His benefits. Whether you seek Christ Himself or simply the outcomes He provides. Whether your obedience flows from communion or from duty alone. Throughout Scripture, God forms His servants in hidden places before He uses them in visible ones. Moses in the wilderness. David among sheep. Elijah by the brook. Jesus in the desert. God does some of His deepest work where nobody is watching. The world measures impact by visibility. The Kingdom measures it by faithfulness. Reflection What would remain of your walk with Christ if every visible expression of it disappeared tomorrow. No title. No beautiful family. No control. No audience. Would there still be a man meeting with God? The secret place is not preparation for the Christian life. It is the Christian life. Everything else flows from there. Prayer Father, Strip away every desire to be seen, admired, or validated. Teach me to seek You when there is no reward except Your presence. Expose the places where I have substituted activity for intimacy. Form in me a life that is rooted in what is hidden rather than what is visible.

Brothers, as we enter this fast, please pray for SFC Jon Salva, a Ranger assigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment at Fort Benning. Jon is an incredibly fit man and an ultramarathoner, which makes what is happening all the more mysterious. A few weeks ago, he was medevaced to Walter Reed after multiple unexplained cardiac arrest events. On one occasion, his wife, Kimberly, had to perform CPR to resuscitate him. The doctors have been dumbfounded. It appears to involve the electrical signals of his heart not firing correctly, but they still do not have clear answers. The Ranger Regiment chaplain asked me to check on one of his Rangers, so I went to Walter Reed and met Jon and Kimberly. I asked if they would like to learn more about the story of God, and they both said yes. I shared the story using the Three Circles, and they were deeply impacted. They had never heard the story presented the way we are learning it here in Forge Tribe—as one unified story God is writing from Genesis to Revelation, with Jesus as the Hero. Afterward, Jon told me he wanted to learn more, so I came back, gave him a Bible and some resources, and he has since been listening to The Legend of Messiah, the story we walked through inside The Crucible. Since then, Jon has had several more cardiac arrest events. Today, they are flying him to Vanderbilt, where one of the world’s leading heart specialists in this area will see him. Jon gave me permission to share this prayer request and the picture with you all. Please pray: -That the doctors would discover exactly what is happening and provide the treatment needed to fix it. -That God would heal Jon’s heart. -That Jon and Kimberly would continue learning the story of God and come to full faith, belief, and surrender to Jesus our Messiah. -That God would strengthen and protect Kimberly as she walks through this with him. -That God would care for and provide for their three children back at Fort Benning, all under the age of 11. Brothers, as we fast, let’s carry Jon, Kimberly, and their children before the Father.

Here is a curated, categorized list of scriptures to meditate on while fasting with God's all-satisfying nature as the central theme throughout. These passages form a powerful arc to hold during fasting: from **thirst and hunger for God** → **the danger of substitutes** → **Jesus as the true Bread** → **humility and surrender** → **longing for his return** → **the Spirit as the overflowing spring**. Together they turn every hunger pang into a prayer. *** God as the Only True Satisfaction These are the bedrock texts for fasting meditation — declaring with the whole person that God himself is the longed-for object and fulfillment of the soul.[1] - **Psalm 73:25–26** — *"Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."*[1] - **Psalm 63:1–5** — *"O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water... My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food."*[1] - **Psalm 42:1–2** — *"As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God."*[1] - **Psalm 34:8** — *"Taste and see that the Lord is good."*[1] - **John 6:35** — *"I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst."*[1] *** Man Does Not Live by Bread Alone These texts sit at the very heart of Jesus' own fasting in the wilderness — the declaration that God's word sustains more than food ever can.[1] - **Deuteronomy 8:2–3** — *"He humbled you and let you hunger... that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord."*[1] - **Matthew 4:4** — *"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."*[1] - **John 4:32–34** — *"I have food to eat that you do not know about... My food is to do the will of him who sent me."*[2]

Hey y'all, I just wanted to reach out and share how I've been and how I could use some prayer today. First of all, this time of fasting came at a good time - I'd been completely distracted from my pursuit of God the past couple weeks. The timing also lined up with my being out of town and by myself, so it has lined up well as a type of spiritual retreat. That said, the past 24 hours have been rough - I definitely haven't felt that "spiritual" - I came into this fast after two nights of less sleep than normal and so I was pretty exhausted yesterday and didn't really connect much with God. I was able to get a lot of sleep last night and so I'm taking today as my reset day but it's definitely been a bit of a struggle. My desire for food and comfort has been quite high and quite distracting.

I don’t like fasting. I wish I did. I wish I could say it feels natural, spiritual, and easy. But the truth is, fasting exposes me. It makes me uncomfortable. It makes me needy. It reminds me that I am weaker than I like to admit. And that is exactly why I need it. Fasting is a powerful means of grace. It is one of the ways God humbles the heart and teaches us dependence. It pulls back the curtain on the illusion that we are strong, self-sufficient, capable, and in control. It confronts the lie that we have enough power, discipline, wisdom, and resources in ourselves to become who God is calling us to be and do what God is calling us to do. We don’t. Apart from Him, we are needy. Apart from Him, we are weak. Apart from Him, we are dust with a good résumé. That is not bad news. That is the beginning of freedom. In a very real sense, fasting is a weapon of war. But it is not the kind of weapon we usually imagine. It does not operate through strength, dominance, force, or self-reliance. Fasting is a weapon that works through weakness. Through humility. Through surrender. Through hunger. Through the honest admission that God is our only hope. Fasting opens a kind of doorway. Not because hunger manipulates God. Not because skipping meals earns us points in heaven. Not because God is impressed by religious performance. Fasting opens space in us. It clears the noise. It exposes the idols. It gives us the gift of a humbled heart. And all throughout Scripture, we see that God is drawn to the humble. “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”— James 4:6 That is what fasting helps us become: humble men before a holy God. I remember when I first got married, I did my first five-day fast. I had never done anything like that before. And God used it powerfully. During that fast, He broke the back of my smoking habit, along with several other patterns that had taken root in my life before marriage. Fasting did not make me impressive. It made me desperate. And in that desperation, I became more open to the grace and power of God.