Forty days doesn’t seem long until you try fasting.  Try it.  Try to do as many are doing and go on a forty day fast of eating beans and rice to understand what most of the poor live like.  Or cut out a food group for 40 days.  It’s a LONG time.  That’s how long Jesus fasted.

For me when I thought of the temptation of Jesus, it was 40 hard days of not having food (which was extraordinarily hard) followed by a time of intense testing by the devil.  This was not the case.  Not only was he without food for 40 days, He was being harrassed by the devil for the ENTIRE 40 days.  It just got really bad at the end when Satan pulled out the stops.  As one writer said reflecting on her own journey, “The storm gets darker before it gets really black.”

Sometimes just when we think we can’t bear anymore, it gets harder.  Oftentimes this comes right after a spiritual “high.”  The good news is that if we persevere, we may just get through that time and end up like Jesus, returning to our Galilee in “the power of the Spirit.”