Hungry

Fasting for 30 hours, nourished only by juice and water. An egg-cracking challenge -- forehead style. Meaningful times of worship. Making and distributing 50 lunches for the homeless. This occurrence. The smell of hot dogs at hour 27 and wanting to swipe one for yourself. Games and laughter. Challenging teaching on being hungry and desperate for Jesus. Praying for the homeless, huddled in sheltered areas to stay warm and dry. Learning how richly blessed we are.

This was Aim Right's 30 Hour Famine weekend.

Ann Voskamp is a gifted poetic writer, and her recent post, A North American Lent: When you Want to have an Appetite for More of God, is worth reading. Ann expresses so well some of the themes that were threaded throughout the Famine. A few excerpts from Ann's post:

"Buy more, consume more, have more -- and it'll suppress any appetite for God."

"When your comfort food is comfortable stuff -- when do you hunger for the comfort of the Bread of Life?"

"Ruin your appetite with stuff and you have no appetite for Christ."

"What God's graciously given you is always enough to be abundant grace for someone else."

"I'm done ruining my appetite with stuff."

"Nothing you can buy, order, save for, can compare to giving yourself away."

"Give us a Lent that fasts from the flyers and the free shipping that ruins our appetite for anything less than God. Give us a North American Lent that lends to the Lord and fasts from consumption because we want to consume God."

I grew up knowing more about the lint that came from the dryer than what it means to observe Lent, and I still don't attend a church that encourages its body to observe Lent. But I know this: Jesus calls us to give up and let go so that we can follow Him more fully. That's actually an every day challenge, but if you can let go of something for 40 days, it's a start.