SEASONS - PERSONAL THOUGHTS ON FEAST PLANNING IF YOU ARE NOT JEWISH BUT WISH TO KEEP THE FEAST

Here we are just past the end of The Feast of Tabernacles 2015!  

I LOVE this feast that God commanded us to keep every year.  It is certainly a time of joy.  My family finally "gets" it and we did our first whole feast together at the beach this year!  Words cannot describe the joy, but it has just now become possible after years and years of praying for God to allow everyone's heart to open up to this truth that He gave us so long ago.  

It was never that I didn't plan and try to celebrate however people would let me work it into their schedules.  I always started planning for next year as soon as the last feast was over for the current year; but having grown kids making all of their own decisions with families of their own and being a Christian family that does not worship in a Messianic congregation, all my  planning gets complicated.   I could plan all year, but it took others wanting to join in and plan too!  That takes a heart open to God's timing that will allow itself to try something new that God has commanded.  The culture of our world is no help at all! 

I've known groups and congregations that have followed the scriptures and set aside money to plan their feast each month like a tithe.  I think that is a wonderful idea, but that hasn't been taught in my circles yet, and I'm not so sure that my family understands yet.  After spending seven days together though, I'm sure they are beginning to see that you MUST plan to get the full and complete effect, and that requires setting aside money earmarked for this celebration.  I think you have to know the joy of an old fashioned feast week before you can even begin to consider this good wisdom.  Once you have experienced that joy though, you look forward to doing it again and again.  The planning suddenly stops being a chore and becomes exciting!  

This year with God's help and a lot of prayer I actually managed to incorporate some of this planning into our lifestyle on a more regular and systematic basis.  It takes time and patience combined with prayer and a good notion of knowing when to chose your battles and when to show grace and not be legalistic.   

Because we all hail from an untrained and clueless Protestant non-denominational background, this process evolving with us had previously resulted in my husband and I having a festive family celebration at our home on the first and last day of the feast and just spending the rest of the time enjoying the week resting at home, enjoying some family activities that we don't usually incorporate into our weekday nights (movies, restaurants, a walk in the park, etc.) or carrying out any special plans and ideas that we can use simply to remember the occasion and keep the time special.  I started out by trying to incorporate such things as building a sukkah and eating inside it,  teaching the grand kids whenever the opportunity presented itself, listening to other groups celebrating together on-line and enjoying special music and prayers and meals each night, and showing some of this to the family whenever it seemed appropriate.   I would also enhance my own personal time with or without others to do more intense bible study and I would allow myself extra rest times to be alone with God.  We would do most of these things at home, but they were the same things we would find ourselves doing even if we went away for a feast.  Finally, this year my dream came true and our family spent the feast together in a vacation setting under one roof!  It was awesome!  God threw in every imaginable blessing!  And you know what?  They GET IT!!!!  

The trick that seemed to turn the key and unlock the hearts of my family was to find a special place we all could afford that would not break the bank for everyone.  Fortunately for us, our daughter married a man with a home near the beach.  I joke that God brought them together so we could all share the feast at the beach!  That one change in the family dynamics brought all the years and years of other small things together under one roof and we were celebrating the feast like old timers!

A lot of families plan a week long camping trip with their whole extended family.  I've often thought this would be fun too with our ever growing family.  We could go somewhere beautiful and secluded out of doors and enjoy the time very much.    

We all grow at a different pace.  God shows some of us sooner than others, or different than others for the time being.  So what is a Mom who desires to keep the feast with a family that hasn't a clue to do?  

A lot of my friends are faithfully trying to celebrate the feast days by joining in with the local Messianic congregations.  I think this is just great if it works for you.  These services are wonderful and very good for teaching.  I love the sincerity of most of the people wanting to carry out the truth in worship, but something keeps holding me back from this.  

One thing that bothers me after attending some of these for awhile is that I usually find these groups evolve from sincere worship to becoming too legalistic.  They start out with the glory of God then somehow end up splitting hairs and pointing the finger at each other.  Some of them seem to be trying to be Jewish instead of trying to be better Christians.  Not all of them mind you, but it does happen a lot.  Those things are not what I care to take my family into. 

Mostly, I think it is simply the fact that my spirit is troubled that the whole church, which I have defined and discerned from the scriptures to be everyone who believes in Jesus Christ as Messiah, has turned their life over to Him and has made their body a home for The Holy Spirit to dwell in, can't do any of these simple things that God requested for His people to do together. This seems to be the BIG problem.  Here I see the other side of legalism in action.  They are holding fast to the traditions of men, what they have done year after year after year instead of finding out what God originally commanded.  

Neither group fits the spirit of how I want to worship.  I'm looking for biblical accuracy with love and mercy and grace.  I know that is what God is looking for too.   I simply refuse to become a make-believe Jew, for lack of a better term.  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the Jewish people and would be honored to have been born a Jew, but that isn't the truth in my case.  I was born a Gentile.  I must bloom where God planted me, but in blooming, I must carry out the truth that God has shown me.  Sounds simple doesn't it?  Nothing is simple when the devil will be defeated by the results.

I AM an adopted daughter, grafted firmly into that old Olive Tree, and I don't see why all the other adopted children (the church full of gentile Christians) can't recognize and celebrate the traditions of our Father together.    After all - didn't He take us in and love us just the same as those born to Him?   The Jews are the chosen people, but through the blood of Christ which covers Christian Gentiles, we too are chosen.  We, just like the Jews are taken, blessed, broken and given to carry out God's will for us in His Kingdom.

So, I just refuse to join in with either side on principal because I feel the Christian church should act Christian, and I think the feast days were observed by Jesus and the early church AFTER they became Christians as well as before when they were simply Jewish.   

If you are going to make something right, someone must start.  I chose to start to carry these things out in my own home with my own family until the church grows up and begins to do the same.  Many, many congregations are now waking up to this.  I've watched and waited for about 30 years now to see such things come to pass.  We have a LONG way to go.  All I have to worry about is my little piece of the puzzle, God will do the rest.  I must stay in tune to The Holy Spirit and what God is saying to me.  I do not wish to argue or debate this with anyone, it is a free country - so far.

My bible tells me that the very first Christians experiences' with their old Hebraic traditions were enhanced after they became Christians; I say enhanced, not changed or done away with.  After the Resurrection, the Christians who started out Jewish and/or Hebrew had a much clearer understanding of why God had them observing certain traditions year after year after year.  Their eyes were opened to the truth.  They suddenly realized it was to teach them about Christ!  They saw the shadows of the present they were living through and they saw the hope of the future in the days that they had not yet seen fulfilled.  So why aren't we in the church teaching our own children these things?

I have Christ living in me, therefore I do not have to apologize for following the scriptures in the old testament, just as He did.  I've learned that the Old Testament makes the New Testament come alive.   The Old Testament was fulfilled - not put aside.  I was not born a Jew genetically, but by being a member of The Church (those who are indwelled by God’s Holy Spirit because they have believed in Jesus Christ as Messiah)  I have become an adopted member of the family!  I DO NOT REPLACE the original family, but I DO become a part of it.  We are two shoots of the same tree (one lives from being grafted into the other) and we are meant to compliment each other and to grow together in grace and to give glory to God The Father together.  I have as much right to celebrate the family traditions as a son who was genetically born!   Jesus died to make this possible.  I can't take that for granted. 

I refuse to walk around that and pretend it isn’t true.  I do not have to make excuses or pretend to be someone I am not because of the false reality of organized religious groups that oppose me realizing my own rights as a born again child of God.  There are so many organized religious groups that are dictating what can and cannot be noticed in the holy scriptures.  These groups remind me of the Pharisees.   I believe God will have something to say to them about that one day!  My job as a Christian is to hear the gospel, read it, study it, believe it, receive it and PRACTICE it in my life – all of it – not just the bits and pieces that are presently acceptable to the prevailing cultural movements of society.  

Hence I have evolved to celebrating God's Holy Days with those of my own household who understand my feelings about this.  The rest of the year we are fine with worshiping with any Christian congregation that believes in Holy Communion.  They all seem to get the rest of it, but it is as if a portion of their bibles were just laid aside and forgotten, even though it has been pretty widely discussed among scholars of the bible that their traditions of Christmas and Thanksgiving have their roots in these festivals and probably began with them.  It is almost like a taboo subject with most congregations.  It is only the feast days that make my life as a leader of my family beside my husband so much harder to incorporate into my year, but I am more than ever determined to do so.

I do love John D. Garr's book called "The Family Sanctuary" that teaches how our homes are the first and main sanctuary where we should be worshipping God.    Taking points from this book we have incorporated Sabbath worship in our home.   Everything else should flow from the home first with the father being the head of the home and the mother playing a vital part in teaching the ways of God to the children.  This would apply to whomever is the head of the household in a single family home.  This is a starting place for me with my beliefs being so firm about the Sabbath and about The Holy Days.  Home is a good place to start and to move forward from.  I hope and pray that one day the whole church will BE the whole church and I can go to a public place of worship and worship as I believe all year instead of simply agreeing on the basics and agreeing to disagree on the other scriptures that I can't overlook.     
So, with all of the above in mind, I always ponder the best way to celebrate the feast with my own family.  Each year I long to draw them all together for a whole week in one place and do all the traditional things that the scriptures spell out.  It is not always possible – but I keep planning every year to make it happen.  Some years some of the family is present for the beginning and some of the family is present for the end, and on a REALLY good year we all are feasting together the whole time.  Every year we practice the celebration, a little more of the reason and the heart of the matter sinks in.  I am amazed at how God shows them whatever they are ready to accept.  God's timing is always just right.  Allow it in your family and you will see things slowly fall into place.  The process itself is amazing and gives glory to God.

I truly believe that patience counts here and that you have to eat an elephant one bite at a time.  For years I have plugged away at this plan.  I've come very close to helping my whole family to understand and remember and celebrate the meanings and traditons of Passover, Purim, Pentecost, The Feast of Trumpets,  The Day of Atonement and even Hanukkah.  The whole journey has been a beautiful one full of God's blessings.  I've never regretted a time and have always felt so blessed when we have gathered together in God's name as a family to celebrate His Holy Days.    My last prayer in this journey is to help them all to understand and be able to celebrate The Feast of Tabernacles as a family and eventually with the whole world.  They know I do it.  Sometimes they join in with me on some of the traditions, but I feel it is all still vague to them.  The only way to REALLY understand Sukkot is to go to the feast and to experience it all.  We were blessed to find this come true this year!  It was an awesome answer to prayer.  Not only did we experience Sukkot, we experienced the JOY of the season and bonded as a family.  

So I keep praying about my vision for my own family.  My vision includes meeting together at a campground or a house and living in tents or under one roof together, with a community sukkah which we would build together to take our meals under.  I have ideas for my husband (as priest of our home) to teach our children and grand children all the meanings behind the traditions and I can see me telling bible stories to the little children as we all relax and just enjoy doing fun family things together.  This year for the first time the vision was set in motion.  I spent many other years praying and seeking God's guidance.  When God's time was right - it all came together and it was perfect!

So why not just rent a big house somewhere special and gather?  There is nothing wrong with that at all, and it works gloriously for most people all the time.  Still, I have a vision of camping at some point.  Why does the vision have to include tents and camping?  Good question – you could just rent a vacation cottage I guess - but that isn't what I usually think about when I think of this feast.  

Most of my thoughts go all the way back to Abraham and Sarah.  All of their lives they dwelt in tents.  Did you know that there is deep significance in the fact that they spent their whole life as tent dwellers?  At first glance it would not seem to be such a huge thing, but on second glance we see this is so very significant.  This is something I would love to point out as our family camps together one year in our future celebrations.

I will also be praying for all of you kindred spirits out there who are trying to be Christian and incorporate Hebraic thoughts into your own family worship.  My whole point in this thinking out loud article is simply to encourage you.  We must start somewhere, let's start by praying for each other to be able to bring about God's ways in our own homes over the coming year.

I honestly believe that our whole country could change for the better if each home in America began to celebrate The Feast of Tabernacles together every year.