“What does it mean that God is enough when it seems like I don’t have enough?” Alicia J. Akins struggled with this question during a time of great scarcity. That’s when she was invited to a friend’s dinner and she was confronted with the juxtaposition of her financial lack and the beautiful feast and friendships before her. It began her journey of studying the feasts of the Bible, and she recently published the book, Invitations to Abundance.
We are pleased to present an interview between Alicia and SOLA Network. She is interviewed by Aaron Lee, our social media manager, who reviewed her book. He talks to her about her time living in China, the inspiration behind her book, and the one chapter that almost didn’t make it.
This conversation was recorded LIVE on Instagram. Watch on YouTube and listen on Podcasts.
Editor’s Note: Below is a lightly edited automated transcript of their conversation. There may be typos or grammatical errors.
Aaron Lee: I loved your book, and I reviewed it on SOLA Network. Your book is Invitations to Abundance: How the Feasts of the Bible Nourish Us Today, published by Harvest House Publishers. And before I talk about your book, though, reading your bio, it says that you were working in Asia for five years, and you consider yourself “a recovering expat based in DC.” Can you tell me about your time in Asia?
Alicia J. Akins: I moved to China after college. Yeah, I lived in China for three years. And I lived in three different cities. So I lived in Shanghai, my first year. I lived in the Gobi Desert my second year. And then I moved to Qingdao, which is, if you’ve had Chinese beer, you might be familiar with Qingdao. That’s where the beer is from. And then I came back to the States, got my master’s degree in China Studies. And then I moved to Southeast Asia, as one does after getting their master’s degree in China Studies. And I lived in Laos for two years, working at a museum. And so those are the five years that I spent living in Asia. But I really loved it. Like I had a really, really, really wonderful time. They’re very formative for me, as a Christian, as a human. I loved my experience there.
Aaron Lee: Can we talk about that? Why China Studies? Let’s just start from there.
Alicia J. Akins: I studied music in college, and I thought I was going to be a music teacher or I also really liked doing campus ministry. So I thought maybe I’ll do campus ministry. And the church I was attending in college was very much missions focused. And so I had read a lot of missionary biographies about China and things like that. And so I thought, well, maybe I will give this a try. I mean, that’s a very long story short, I was very against the idea of going to China originally, I called it the instant conversation killer. I had a friend who brought it up often, and I just was like, I’m black, there aren’t black people in China, I don’t speak the language. Like, this doesn’t really seem like my scene.
But I learned about ethnic diversity in China, that there’s minorities there. And that was really intriguing to me. So I decided to give it a try. And that’s how I ended up in the Gobi Desert, because there was a school out there for ethnic minorities. Sort of like a Chinese HBCU. But a little bit different. So I was really curious about that aspect of Chinese culture.
But thanks to the convincing of a friend, that’s how I ended up there in the first place, and I was pretty ignorant about Asian culture before that. And I made some pretty ignorant comments in the beginning of my time there. But the longer I stayed, I just fell in love with the culture, with even learning about the diversity of the region. You know, how China and Korea and Japan are different from each other and how the Northeast Asia sort of region is very different from other parts of Asia and just having my assumptions about the region challenged, was a really enriching and rewarding experience for me. I knew I wanted to study more. So I came back.
And I thought, I want to teach people about this part of the world in some way, especially black people if I can, because I know there’s so little connection between black people and Asian people it seems. So I really wanted to do something that would help raise people’s awareness about the region and everything beautiful that I loved about it.
So that’s why I came back into grad school focusing on China, and also focused on museums. And so because I thought museums are a good place to sort of educate the low, not the lowest common denominator, but like, you can get into museums for free and you don’t have to pass an entrance exam. And so that was sort of my focus. And that’s how I ended up moving to Southeast Asia when I finished because there was a museum job in Laos. So I worked at the museum there for a couple of years after grad school.
Aaron Lee: What a journey. I read a little bit about your journey from your blog, Feet Cry Mercy. I know you shared a little bit of your story there. But it’s such a great story. It’s amazing how God guides our paths. And maybe we can talk about this later when we dive into your book and God’s calling for the nations to feast together. But I wanted to talk about your book. The first thing that we can talk about is what gave you the idea for this book? Like why? What is it about the Biblical Feasts that intrigued you?
Alicia J. Akins: Long story short, the book’s idea developed out of a period of personal scarcity. I had been living in DC for about two years. And then I lost my job. And I was out of work for about a year and a half. And I really grappled during that time with what does it mean that all of the promises of God are still true for me in this period, where it seems like nothing is working as I would like to? What does it mean that God is enough? When it seems like I don’t have enough? And how, like, how does the abundant life kind of jive with my current experience of scarcity?
And so during that time, there were a couple of months that I couldn’t pay rent on my own. My Church paid my rent one month, and my mom paid my rent another month. And then there was one month in particular, I didn’t have enough money for food. And I was kind of just scrounging around my house for coins and stuff like that to buy junk food at the dollar store, because it was cheap there. And at the end of that month, it was in November, I had just gotten my first unemployment check, and my credit card security had been compromised. So I had gone to the grocery store to get like my one contribution to a friend’s Friendsgiving. And my card got declined, because there had been a security breach. And I was like, I haven’t had any money like this whole month, and my card doesn’t work. So I called my card company, and they let me make that one purchase. And then they shut my card down after that. They sent me a new one.
But when I got to dinner at my friend’s house, he asked everyone around the table, what makes you feel rich? And it wasn’t a kind of Sunday School answer. I think maybe in other times in my life, I would have answered like, God and not really understood what that meant. Or just said it as the right kind of answer. But I really felt like, as I was thinking about all the stuff I didn’t have, that God really did make me rich.
That same friend the next year asked me if I would write a blessing for his Thanksgiving. I was taking Hebrew at the time and also reading Jeremiah. And there’s a passage that says I will face the souls of the priests with abundance. And so I started to look into what does it mean to feast someone’s soul? And why this imagery? Why would God choose to feast anyone’s soul like, what does that mean? Yeah, so that’s sort of how I began my exploration of the imagery of feasting in the Bible. And then as I continued to read, I continued to see it pop up in different places. And that, and then when I was approached about writing a book, I thought, Oh, this is an idea that I’d like to continue exploring.
Aaron Lee: Let’s talk about that writing process. It sounds like you already started having that idea in your mind. Did you actually have to do a lot more research into this? Or did you feel that you kind of know the way this biblical theology is going to plan out?
Alicia J. Akins: Research, research and more research. I was sort of familiar with, after like, reading, familiar with where the topic came up. I mean, I had to do some research even on some other of the less commonly known feasts, like the one from the chapter in Nehemiah. Nehemiah, like that section of the Bible, I feel like it’s not as well known as any other section of the Bible. But it was a lot of research.
And one of the great things I feel like about being in seminary at the same time that I was working on the book was, since I knew that the book was kind of going, like I was trying to make the best use of my time. So when I took the class on the pentateuch, you know, I made my paper for class about one of the things it was going to be a book chapter. And when I wrote my paper, on the Jeremiah seminar that I took, I did it on the passage related to feasting. Luke 14 chapter was like, started off as a term paper. So like, for as much as I could I tried to make my papers for class, relate to the book, The chapters of the book.
Aaron Lee: That’s so good, because I do sense the flow in your book. I think, obviously, everything’s connected with the theme of feasting. But it seems as if you’re walking through each one, and you can sense that they are connected. I want to go through some of my favorite ones. But before we get there, what does a book on feasting necessarily have to say to us today, when people have experienced things like isolation, sickness, death? And war. What does feasting have to do with this? What can feasting say to us right now in such different times than what we think of when we think of having a feast?
Alicia J. Akins: It’s interesting, because a lot of the chapters touch on various aspects of that, like, what does feasting have to say about war, like, depending on the person experiencing the war, the wedding supper of the lamb could be great encouragement to keep going in the middle of persecution. The chapter on ruin, reversed, actually, the one, it’s about the exile. I started writing that, ironically, at the beginning of the pandemic, that was the first chapter that I wrote, as I was writing about exile in the Bible. People’s weddings were being canceled. People were dying, children were being called back from school to study at home.
And there was all of this overlap and imagery between exile and what was sort of going on in my lived experience. And I was filled with so much hope that God can restore things. And things that are ruined, like that ruin is never the final state for the Christian. And so I was able to take hope in that. The chapter on David, in the wilderness, and that experience being reversed, I feel like could be great consolation for someone who’s isolated, whether they’re isolated from others or isolated from God, just knowing that he’s present.
I think one of the underlying things that I realized as I was researching this book, and one of the things I was hoping would come across is that God is present with us, whether we’re on a battlefield, whether we have sinned and are afraid to return home, or whether I mean, like, regardless of what it is, if we feel like we’re in captivity, to feel like justice will come like any of these things that God is present with us and that he sees all of those things and that he has unlimited resources, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the hard thing goes away. God is with us, that means a lot more than we think it means. It’s not the pet answer that comes immediately to mind. People who’ve grown up in the church that think so.
Aaron Lee: This is a message that we need to hear. You’re absolutely right. God is with us. And I think it does come off in your book. I think you did a great job explaining that and writing it out. One of my favorite chapters that stood out to me was the chapter on Psalm 23. Obviously, a really beloved Psalm. But you don’t focus necessarily on the beginning of that Psalm, where “The Lord is my shepherd.” You go into the later part of the song where it says, “You prepare a table before me.” What was your thought process behind writing that chapter?
Alicia J. Akins: Yeah. So very, shortly into writing the chapter, I regretted including it in the book. Everybody is familiar with this. And what I’m going to say isn’t maybe what everybody is familiar with hearing will be like, well, but I want to hear about the shepherd and the bride, and all of that. And so it felt kind of intimidating to include it in the book, but talk about the later part.
So I think one of the things that was really exciting about writing that chapter is thinking about how we define victory, and what we think it means and what it means from a biblical perspective. And even those Psalm 23, depending on your hermeneutic is there is not about Jesus like thinking about Christ as the model for victory, what that means for us, and so a lot of it is a sense of peace that we get, knowing that God is with us in our battles, knowing that we don’t fight our battles the way the world does. And that the victory for us, if we’re walking with Christ, often looks like the same kind of victory that he won. And that didn’t look like a victory to many people.
So seeing the value and knowing that we can be victorious, even when to the world, it looks like we’re losing or falling behind. One portion of that chapter that says that, that I say, or I argue that the battle is over trust, not that through trust, we win. But that the point is to trust God and take him at his word, that He is real and true, and can do the things that he says he can do. And I think that is a really important piece, like we think, you know, if I believe that, that God can do it, he’ll do it or that as long as I believe I can get the outcome I want. Belief itself is something that is underappreciated. And so that’s something that I wanted to come through as a victorious moment, like when we take God at His Word and believe that he’s able that we’ve that we’ve won.
Aaron Lee: It’s definitely different than what the world perceives as victory, and how fitting that we’re talking about this Palm Sunday with Good Friday and Easter coming up. I want to fast forward to near the end of your book, the chapter from Revelation and the marriage supper of the Lamb. To me, this was a beautiful chapter tying everything together and looking forward to that day. What moved you exactly to point towards there? I mean, did you see your book heading in that direction? And what does your time in Asia and your heart for the nations have to play in writing this chapter?
Alicia J. Akins: Yeah, I felt like it had to end here. The reason that I’m in the same timezone as you is, I was here for a wedding. And I have an Indian American friend, and she got married. And I tell you what, man, there’s a feeling there’s no wedding like an Indian wedding. The most wonderful, joyous celebration. And I kept thinking about that chapter and about how much we have to look forward to and how much joy there is. And even as exciting as this weekend has been, the reunion to come is going to be so much more, much more than anything that I could even imagine. But part of the reason, a part of what I was looking forward to about writing that chapter was the nod to the nations. Because that’s an important part of my story. And I wanted to show that it wasn’t something that’s an afterthought, but that it’s something that’s sort of built into the story of redemption from the beginning. And I also really wanted to speak to, I mean, I lived and I worked in China, and I met Christians there who had never been able to worship out loud, freely, and who had, whose faith could bring persecution, like real persecution, not a loss of privilege, like we often think of in the United States. True persecution, and I mean, even though my book is in English, and so there might, you know, Chinese Christians may never read my book. I just think that it was worth showing, even for those Christians in the United States who are experiencing a hard time or who are growing weary, I think I described it as being one leg in a long relay. Even if we don’t see the end result of all it is that we hope and work for that, like, we’re a part of a larger story of Christians who have endured, and the endurance is possible is the message of that book.
Aaron Lee: What a beautiful picture. And I look forward to that day. Alicia, thank you so much for writing this book. And thank you for talking to me about some of your process and just your thoughts behind it. I really hope that a lot of people pick this up. And who knows, maybe it’ll get translated into Chinese or something! Thank you so much, Alicia. I hope that you have a safe trip back and I’ll talk to you soon.
Alicia J. Akins: Thanks so much.