Feast days are about joy, not guilt

By Carl Johnson

Elder of Peninsula Bible Fellowship

 

CARL JOHNSON

Even before I began my 40-days of fasting, God spoke to me through two very powerful messages.  The first was in the book we're all reading A Place at the Table, and it was the story of Mother Teresa and her "struggle to believe God truly loved her".  In the book the author (Chris Seay) notes that "in great candor she (Teresa) acknowledged to her spiritual director, 'Jesus has a very special love for you.  As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear'".  Wow!  Who would have thought Mother Teresa struggled with such thoughts.  

However, as the author points out, even while Teresa fasted and cared for the poor, she "felt the painful absence of feasting".  Chris Seay continues ... "I believe Teresa became so focused on her call to share the love of Jesus with the poor that she forgot to take time each week to bask in that love herself.  For more than fifty years she could see clearly the love of Jesus for others, but said she did not feel the love and presence of God for herself even once." 

As important as our fasting is to help us identify with the poor and oppressed ... to find "solidarity" with those in need, and to grow in our relationship with Christ, I realized just how important it is that we not neglect experiencing the richness and blessings that God has provided for us in Christ.  I'm grateful that our journey through these 40 days is occasionally (once a week) punctuated with an opportunity to "feast", and enjoy the blessings of God's good gifts.  Fasting and feasting ... that's the "rhythm of the Kingdom", and we need both. 

In my next blog I'll share the second powerful message I heard from God.