The 30 Hardest Days of Your Life

The youth service was awesome Sunday. I was taken back about 35 years to the on-fire youth group my sisters and I participated in as teenagers. There was a youth choir then, too, and honest, powerful testimonies, and extra prayer times springing up and a little revival that touched Youngsville High School and reached unchurched kids… I can understand what our youth are feeling and sense what a powerful impact these years will have on the rest of their lives.

I don’t know about you, but I was intrigued by the study book they were talking about – The 30 Hardest Days of Your Life. I’d not heard of it so I got online and looked it up. It got very positive reader reviews, although one gal wrote that it was great for newer Christians but contributed almost nothing to her spiritual life because she’d already experienced everything it was talking about.

She must be an exceptional person. I think most of us who listened Sunday felt that these kids had been challenged in ways that would benefit us, too – and also in ways that would likely be very difficult for us to handle. How many of us blanched inwardly at the thought of a 21-day media fast?

I can say from experience, though, that God’s appointed fasts are more than worth the “deprivation” we suffer. Especially when He tailors them to our individual needs (sort of like a personal trainer). For instance, I’m an avid reader. And I read really good stuff – biographies of exceptional Christians, spiritual classics… we’re talking Fenelon and Tozer and Oswald Chambers - no trash novels there! Yet God temporarily took me off all books but the Bible some months ago (all those library books are for my mom, Barb :)and I have been driven to pray, “Lord, I need a new love for the Word if this is going to work. Please give me a passion to read it and an ability to enjoy it”… and He has. It probably was His intention all along!

I guess I’m saying that what our youth testified to Sunday morning is something each of us might well benefit from. We can’t prescribe it to ourselves, but we can approach our Personal Trainer and express a willingness to fast from the good He sees is stuffing our lives, leaving little room for the best (even really good Christian books!). It’s a gutsy kind of prayer, but aren’t some of us ready for the kind of renewal we heard about Sunday morning?