A historical feast was pleasing to all senses.  Guests didn’t have to ask where the feast was because their noses commanded their feet to the table where varying foods emerged with every blink of an eye.  Choice meats, fresh fruit, honey baked bread, fine wine, beer, and fresh water for rinsing.  Not a spot on the lengthy table was left empty. It was extravagant. 

Our most similar cultural practice is thanksgiving. Gravy lathering turkey and mashed potatoes, stuffing, carrots, and pie for dessert.  Our mouths water in the hours leading up to this annual celebration, and we usually over-stuff ourselves because the food is so plentiful and so tasty.  It’s lavishing.  

The word lavish is used in connection with the type of Love that God has for us, his children which is called a CHESED love.  This is a type of love that we have difficulty understanding through our limited human lens, that is, without His wisdom.  A CHESED love is a love that initiates.   A love that provides.  A love that is first to the fight, and a love the protects.  It’s a kind of love that wants nothing in return. It is a lavishing kind of love, and it is the term that is used in reference to us sitting at the feast that God has set before us. The problem is that we oftentimes do not sit at the table.  We attend the party and sit on the floor.  We eat the scraps instead.  We stare at our worn tunics, not realizing that the table is meant for our hungry mess.  We persuade others to the feast but don’t partake as though there won’t be enough.  Or we bring our own fast-food hamburger instead, afraid that the food won’t actually satisfy.  

Imagine that you are the host at thanksgiving, and someone shows up and exclaims, “I brought another turkey, because I wasn’t sure if yours would be good enough.”   Not only would that be offensive, but it would detract from the gift you wished to offer your guests.  

I don’t know about you, but I see a pattern in my life where I wait for the scraps to fall. I leave the banquet starving with no energy to pour out, and then the guilt and shame are the foods I choose instead.  It’s as though we try to feed ourselves before sitting at the table, but he loves when we come empty, hungry, thirsty, and broken.  He doesn’t want us to try and fill ourselves first, but that’s what we do, isn’t it?  How that disheartens the Host’s heart!  He prepared a banquet for us.  He wants to lavish us with a feast of grace, forgiveness, mercy, and unconditional love.  He longs to fill our cup to the brim so that we are so full and pour out His love in all facets of life in our workplaces, family, and friends.  When we sin, he wants to show us grace.  When we’re tired, he places rest on our plate.  When we are broken, he lavishes us with comfort.  God’s heart for us is to satisfy our hunger and thirst.  He only desires that we would receive it. 

We do have to pull up that chair and receive it, though.  

I don’t know about you, but I want to get up off the floor and dine with Jesus for the rest of my life.    

*This devotional was inspired by a conference I attended at Priceless Alaska, a ministry aiding victims of sex trafficking*