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A Continual Feast

by Jerry Ousley
6/14/2024 / Christian Living

A Continual Feast

By Jerry D. Ousley

Those of you who have followed my articles over the years know that I talk a lot about food. I love to eat. It isn’t just to keep from starving for me. It isn’t because I need sustenance. It’s because I really like the taste of good quality food. That wasn’t always the case. As a child I was anemic. Because of it my appetite was horrible. I just didn’t want to eat anything that wasn’t full of sugar. But once I was diagnosed for it and treated. Suddenly a whole new world of food opened up for me.

The eating didn’t bother me much as a young man. I suppose because I was more active physically. It seemed I could eat my weight in food and never gain a pound. When I got married, I weighed a whopping 125 lbs. One of our friends told me that I had to have a hollow leg because I could out eat nearly everyone I was around and stay small and slim. After years of being out of contact with that gentleman, I met him again after the eating started catching up to me. His eyes nearly popped out of his head when he exclaimed, “What happened to you?” To which I replied, “I guess my hollow leg filled up.”

When I was pastoring, we had a lot of church dinners. My wife would get on to me because I would fill my plate to nearly overflowing and then go back for seconds. I would excuse myself by saying, “But honey, if I don’t eat a little bit of everything, I might hurt some of these ladies’ feelings.” It seemed like a good excuse anyway.

I know I’m way over-weight and I do try to cut out those in-between snacks. Over they years I’ve kidded by saying that I only eat one meal a day – all day long! But I have as of late tried to curb that back. Yet, I still have a deep love of good food and it shows (to say the least). I remember when I was a kid people used to look at an over-weight person and exclaim, “My that person sure is healthy!” It made me think that being fat was a good thing.

The Bible talks a lot about feasts. In fact, the word feast is found 122 times in the New King James Version of the Bible. One passage in Proverbs says, “The heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge, but the mouth of fools feeds on foolishness. All the days of the afflicted are evil, but he who is of a merry heart has a continual feast.” (Proverbs 15:14-15). Basically, it is telling us that those who are foolish will feed on foolishness. They figuratively eat those things that bring nothing of use to life. In other words, they can’t seem to digest good things. It’s kinda of like me when I was anemic. All they want is the stuff that isn’t good for them. They want the colorful, sweets and not the good wholesomeness of the greens and foods that are good for our bodies. I’m still speaking figuratively. The good wholesome spiritual food is what we can glean from the word of God, what we read in the Bible and then apply to our lives. That will give us a good, lean spiritual being.

But the second verse is a curiosity because it is comparing feasting on having a merry heart. A merry heart means that you are happy. The cares of life don’t seem to bother you. That doesn’t mean that you don’t have any cares in life. Anyone who is trying to take care of business will have concerns, problems, and situations that need to be worked out. Sometimes they are very difficult. They can be down-right worrisome.

I’ve had a lot of things get on my mind that kept me up into the wee-hours of the night, and I’m sure you have too. In order to have a merry heart even when situations demand our concern, our worry and our downright panic at times, we have to apply another scripture in the New Testament. 1 Thessaloinians 5:18 tells us, “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” It is a key to feasting with a merry heart. Most people get this verse wrong. They think it is saying to give thanks to God for everything that happens to us. But read it again. It doesn’t say to give thanks for everything, but IN everything. Paul is telling us that no matter what happens to us to continue to be thankful to God. In all our situations, all our problems, all our concerns, we thank God regardless the outcome. Not giving thanks for the bad results or even the good results, but that we belong to God, we will worship God, and we will have faith in God regardless the consequences of the situation. We remain intact in our Christianity despite good or evil.

In this manner we have a continual feast with God. When I was in the insurance business, we had a saying “Chicken today and feathers tomorrow.” In other words, if we made a sell today, we had money and could afford to eat well. But if we didn’t make a sell tomorrow, we’d be stuck with the feathers instead of the meat. But when we can give thanks to God regardless the situation, every day is a feast day. That’s because we have chosen to have a merry heart instead of letting the situation get the better of us. So, do you have a merry heart? You can choose that. Get in the habit of talking to God before you ever get out of bed in the morning. Tell him that you choose to be happy today no matter what takes place. Every day is a good day but only when you choose for it to be a good day despite what comes or goes. So go ahead, in a spiritual sense, have that continual feast!

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com-CHRISTIAN WRITERS

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