30 Hour Famine

I just completed doing the 30 Hour Famine with the church youth group. At the outset, I scoffed at something the youth director said, and I knew God was going to convict me about it. The guy said ‘as we fast, we let God be our strength and sustenance because we know we can’t fast for 30 hours alone.’ I laughed in my head, thinking ‘of course I can fast on my own for 30 hours.’ I really didn’t mean to have that thought, but there it was, and I just knew somehow God wasn’t going to let me slide on that one.

Well, about 13 hours later, I’m asleep, and it’s about 1 or 2 a.m., and suddenly I was just seized with unbelievable hunger pain, to the point I was just going to sneak to the refrigerator and eat because I didn’t even care about the fast. But then, half-asleep, I remembered the youth director’s admonition to turn to God and ask Him to satisfy me when I got hungry, and so I did, confessing to God that, in fact, I couldn’t do this fast on my own and that I needed his strength to do it. And then the hunger pains went away, and I made it through the rest of my fast, knowing once again that God’s main message to me at this point is that “apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15)