Taste and see that the Lord is good. (Psalm 34:8)
Every baby knows that one can’t tell what a thing is like unless one has tasted it for oneself. Unlike sight and hearing, where one can experience something in a big crowd, taste is very personal and has an element of risk. Anybody and everybody can admire a glorious sunset but, while it may be uplifting, there is no direct interaction. A rousing overture can be heard by thousands of people at once but they are not personally involved. Smell is indiscriminate. Nobody has a choice regarding what smells might waft in and out of our nostrils although we can move our bodies to get closer or further away and we can breathe in deeply or block our noses.
Taste is normally a choice. We can choose to interact with something by putting it in our mouth or, if we are more cautious, putting a tiny bit on our finger and transferring it to our tongue. There is always some degree of faith required. Do we trust the person who is inviting us to taste something, or might they be trying to poison us or play a practical joke?
What we taste cannot be tasted by anybody else – it is changed in the process. There is real interaction. We make ourselves vulnerable to possibly find something that we never knew before and is really delicious.
The psalmist exhorts us to not rely on other people’s experiences of God to know He is good. Taste and see for yourself.
Prayer. Lord, I am willing to take a chance. Please interact with me and show me how good You are. Amen.
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