How to Have Continual Feasting

Why Jesus Out-Parties Us All

Photo by Fabio Sangregorio on Unsplash

All the days of the afflicted are evil, but the cheerful of heart has a continual feast. -Proverbs 15:15

Two brothers, Ani and Asher, grew up in the same dilapidated apartment building. They shared a bed well past the point of embarrassment. They ate the same boring old porridge and enjoyed the same Sunday afternoon feasts. Papa told the boys the same stories trying to instill in them a narrative of hope. And they were both wrecked when news came from the police officer when Papa didn’t make it home from work one day.

What I’m trying to get you to see is that Ani and Asher had the same experiences growing up. But if you looked at the brothers today, you might not even know they are related. They don’t even look the same anymore. If ran into them at a high school reunion you could probably recognize Asher. But Ani? Oh, boy. He’d clearly been through it.

You know that look on someone’s face whenever they are about to get walloped by something and they can’t get away? That grimace where you’re bracing for impact. That is what Ani’s face always looks like. His shoulders sag and he walks like he’s dragging the whole state of Texas behind him.

Not Asher though. Dude is always smiling. It even gets him in trouble sometimes. If you don’t know the depth of Asher’s kindness you might mistake that smile for insensitivity. But it’s not. He’ll tell a quiet joke at a funeral to comfort an old friend, but it’s not born from a heart of malice. Asher just can’t help himself. He’s laughs freely and give generously.

One of the brothers, you learn, still lives in that old dilapidated apartment building. The other has gotten out of the squalor. Promotion after promotion after promotion has him living in a high-rise apartment in the city. I guess you could say their lifestyle separates them too. One drives the latest and greatest car on the market. The other still putts around in his old beat-up Pinto.

When you hear their stories, it starts to make sense. No wonder Ani seems so miserable. It’s like all of his days are evil. One bad day stacked upon another. Of course his spirit is crushed. Can anyone drive a Pinto with a bounce in their step? You start to wonder why Asher doesn’t help out his brother a little more. Maybe if he’d endured some of those hardships that smile wouldn’t be so pronounced. It’s rather easy to have a cheerful heart when it seems like you’re continually feasting.

You decide to share your little rant about Asher’s selfishness to a friend. Then he drops the bomb on you. “Dude, Ani is the one that lives in the city.”

Flipping the Script of Circumstance

That is what Proverbs 15:15 (really 15:13-15) does to us. It flips the script. When you quickly glance at this proverb it looks like a statement of fact—just an obvious point. If you have continual feasting in your house, you’re going to have a cheerful heart. Except that isn’t the way these sentences are structured. These verses are about the heart. It’s inside-out. If your heart is cheerful, you’ll have continual feasting. It isn’t about the circumstances; it’s about your heart.

Ani (whose name means afflicted) isn’t able to enjoy good things. To him “all the days are evil”. “Poor and afflicted” is his name—and it doesn’t matter how much money he has in his bank account. That’s always going to be his name. He isn’t going to change that. Circumstances can’t change your character. He has the same misery eating expensive steak as he did when he ate his mama’s porridge.

But Asher (whose name means happy) he is continually feasting because his heart is cheerful. “Happy” is his name—and it doesn’t matter how little money he has in his bank account. That’s always going to be his name. He isn’t going to change that. Circumstances can’t defeat your character. That means you can set Asher in any context and he will be able to feast. Asher, like his Father, knows how to set a table in the wilderness (Psalm 78:19).

Do you want your home to be a place of continual feasting?

I don’t know how to tell you this without it sounding incredibly naïve and delusional. But the answer in this proverb is that if you want continual feasting…feast. It’s really as simple as that. Well…kind of.

The reality, though, is that you won’t be able to feast unless you have a cheerful heart.

Jesus has that cheerful heart

That’s why it’s funny to me when people try to argue that Jesus hung out with sinners and prostitutes and stuff just because He was aiming to call them to repentance. Don’t hear me wrong—He was doing that. But I think some have the idea that He did it with a sour look on His face, took a shower after attendance, and ultimately couldn’t stand being around those kinds of people.

I’m also not saying, Jesus was “having a good time” at these parties. If by that you mean He was indulging in their empty charade of a “good time”. What I am saying is that Jesus actually did know how to have fun. And when He went to those places, I prefer to think He was partying harder than they were—with a joy that they couldn’t explain with drink or sex or any other trifling thing. He out-partied the party-goers. And He did it without sin and without compromising in holiness.

How’d He do that? Cheerful heart. The word is Tov. It means good. Better than. It’s an inner joy. It’s beneficial. The thing you want to be about. It’s the word that God said when He looked at His beautiful and unsullied Creation. Jesus had that heart and it was overflowing with beauty. And so when He went into those parties for sinners all the drunks and whores and other pretenders were like amateur chess champion, tipping over their king in resignation, because they knew they were in the presence of real joy.

That means, if you want continual feasting then it’s going to come through having this kind of heart. The heart of Jesus. It won’t come from a change in your circumstance. Just look at Ani. If you’re in union with Christ, I hope you know that you have this Tov heart beating inside of you.

Feast.