“Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!”
Psalm 34:8 (ESV)
Think about what you do when you eat something incredible. It’s the best thing you’ve ever tried. Do you just walk away and think, “Well, that’s was good”? Of course not! Everything else you put in your mouth will be filtered through that one amazing food experience. Nothing will quite satisfy like that delectable food did.
I think this image of tasting in Psalm 34 helps us practically see how knowing God should impact our lives. When we truly taste how good the Lord is, nothing else satisfies in the same way. But what may be the problem for many of us is that we haven’t truly tasted of God. We’ve taken a couple nibbles from God’s table, but by and large feast from the table of the world. Because if we really tasted God, we wouldn’t be so easily satisfied.
So often we content ourselves with enjoying the temporary pleasures of the world—investing time, money, and energy into things that will burn up. We know the pop culture references, the fashion trends, the latest movies, the popular songs. It’s easy to be consumed by things that have no eternal value.
Which leads me to ask, am I pursuing things that increase my love for God? Or are other lesser things filling up my appetite?
One of the reasons Vision of Hope has residents go through a season without access to the conveniences of media, phones, and TV is to increase delight for God. Because for each one of us, many things demand our attention and can become a distraction, or sometimes even turn us away from God. When we set those distractions aside, it helps us better taste and see God’s goodness.
I’ve heard residents say that taking a break from those things helped them realize how much time they wasted on social media, or how their media choices didn’t increase their delight for God, but instead catered to their sinful desires. It’s a beautiful thing to see God begin to change their desires as they taste His goodness. In fact, it’s contagious, because as they see how beautiful God is, it makes others desire that same thing!
Think about it. If you taste something amazing, do you walk away without saying a word? No. You tell people…and you tell them they need to eat it too! In fact, you probably won’t be content until they just taste it. That’s how restaurants gain popularity. When people love something, they can’t stop talking about it.
That’s the kind of tasting of the Lord that should fill our lives. It should not only deeply impact our lives, but those around us. May we not be content to nibble at God’s table, but may we taste and see that He is good, and may that lead us to share that delight with others!
