Feasting in the Fasting
The following essay is the fourth reflection for our March focus on the spiritual practice of Fasting. Read more here about our exploration of the spiritual disciplines in 2025 through creative and reflective writing.
Fasting has been coming up a lot in my local community over the last few weeks. Maybe there’s something about the parcel of events that came with the start of this year, but it seems everyone is either talking about fasting, encouraging others to fast, or inviting others into a shared fast.
Unsurprisingly, I’ve found myself contemplating the spiritual practice of fasting. Surprisingly, however, I’ve also been considering how feasting fits into this practice. At first glance, the two ideas may seem mutually exclusive, but I believe they are mutually inclusive.
I acknowledge that such a statement begs the question: Where is the feasting in fasting?
Well, Dear Friend, I regret to inform you that I haven’t arrived at an all-encompassing answer to speak to the full depths of feasting amidst fasting. However, I did share a thought on the shape and form of feasting in the fasting back in 2022:
“Where our bodies are weak, he provides strength and endurance. Where our bodies fail, we know with certainty that we will experience a physical resurrection, where the hope of Christ is no longer a yearning but eternal, abundant sustenance” (The Hope of Feasting & Fasting, Chasing Justice).
In other words…
Where we are dependent, our Lord is the Good Sustainer.
Where we struggle, our Good Father is our encourager.
When we fast, there is a very real, embodied acknowledgement that God is God and we are not. (Let the church say Amen & Hallelujah to that!)
There’s an inherent beauty to this humility: Fasting is an invitation to God’s feast, a table of abundant grace and sustenance. Regardless of the troubles, uncertainty, or even abundance around us, our Good Father invites us to recline at his table and trust that he has the rest under control, whether we see it or not, whether we think we need it or not.
And as we come to the table, feasting on the Lord’s abundant kindness and provision, we also get to look to our left and right and notice…we are not alone.
In Esther 4, we see the entire Jewish people fasting - both in mourning and to make a communal request to the Lord, together.
In Daniel 1, we see Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah fast together as they support one another in their faith and trust in YHWH under oppression of the highest sort.
In Acts 13, we see how the church at Antioch fasted as one Body, together for their common good.
No man is an island, and no human is alone in our mutual dependence—on the Lord as sustainer and on one another—as we endeavor to embody the Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
My invitation to you, Dear Friend, is to consider where the Lord might be inviting you to slow down…to cease striving…to recline at the table he has prepared for you - and whom he may be inviting to recline next to you.
Where might he be inviting you into the feasting, through fasting?
Katie is a Mixed Vietnamese/White writer, activist, and pastor in Austin. She works with Kingdom Capital Network supporting Black & Brown small business owners in making Kingdom impact in their communities, is on the Chasing Justice team, and co-hosts The Beauty In-Between Podcast with her husband. You can connect with her on Instagram @k.nguyen.palomares and find out more about her work here.
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Chanté Griffin is a journalist and essayist who writes about race, culture, faith, and Black hair. She is the author of Loving Your Black Neighbor As Yourself: A Guide to Closing the Space Between Us, a 2025 NAACP Image Awards Nominee for “Outstanding Literary Work - Instructional.” Chanté has written for Christianity Today, Red Letter Christians, and is a contributing writer for Faithfully Magazine. She’s also worked as a contributing writer for The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Root. Her writing has received support from the Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism, the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation, the California Arts Council and others. Chanté has served her local church for more than a decade, serving on the worship and prayer teams. When she isn’t writing, she coaches creatives through Spirit & Scribe, an online workshop that sits at the intersection of writing craft & spiritual formation. Read more of her work via her Substack.