Have a Taste, Drink Deep.

Do you have a favourite dish? I do, but I’m not much of a food person anyway, so I guess it doesn’t really matter, right? Wrong, but that’s another gist.

A lot of people like chocolate. In fact I haven’t met anyone who dislikes a good bite of chocolate. Chocolate isn’t a dish, but it’s a favourite snack for millions of people. Any chocolate lover knows to not eat anything that would alter the savoury taste of chocolate immediately prior to eating said chocolate. What I mean is, chewing bitter kola for example, just before eating chocolate will leave a bad taste in your mouth that your favourite snack can do nothing about. In fact, your brain will associate the chocolate with that bitter taste. If you repeat this process enough times, soon you will need a different snack or a larger quantity of the same one because you wouldn’t be enjoying the piquant chocolaty taste. (I’m sorry if I made you salivate.)

God is good. His goodness is tangible, it’s perceptible, and it can be tasted! “Oh,” King David exclaimed, “taste and see that the LORD is good…”¹

But like our chocolate bar above, having a lot of unpleasant stuff already in your mouth will leave a bad taste behind.

God though, isn’t a snack we should only taste or gobble when we have cravings, He’s a meal we should feast on continuously, and a Sprit we should drink deeply.

Peter writes like a poet, “If so be you have tasted that the Lord is sweet...”² then quickly let go of all the bitter stuff. “Clean house! Make a clean sweep of malice and pretense, envy and hurtful talk.” So that you can “now, like infants at the breast, drink deep of God's pure kindness. Then you'll grow up mature and whole in God.” ³

This is the way to enjoy God’s goodness.

A lot of people come to God hurtful and hurting, bruised and fuming, battered and frustrated. And this is good, because He has asked us to come with all our burdens.⁴ But in His presence all weights go down, our burdens fall, our hearts are lifted and we find rest. He bids us leave those tears at the foot of the cross and take up His tasty loving kindness, so that we too can leap with joy singing, Taste and see that the LORD is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in Him!¹

¹ Ps 34:8

² 1Pet 2:3

³ 1Pet 2:1-2

⁴ Matt 11:28