Growth

Taste & See

One of the things I most love about God’s Word is the imagery throughout it. Whether it’s describing the anguish Christ felt in Gethsemane or the idioms of the Proverbs (See Proverbs 26:11 or 26:17), the Bible is full of mental pictures that help us not only more fully understand the intent of the words, but recall them when we need them most.

Recently, one piece of imagery has become especially meaningful to me. In Psalm 34:8a, we are commanded to “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” It’s interesting language because usually you don’t think of tasting another person’s goodness. You might see it, but to taste involves a sense that we don’t usually relate to an assessment of another’s character. Tasting involves experiencing His goodness on a deeper level beyond just bearing witness to it.

It means that you are actively involved in digesting the majesty of His faithfulness.

You are consuming the riches of His mercy.

And you are hungering for more of Him to fill you.

There are times that we convince ourselves that are eyes are deceiving us, but I’ve never heard of someone’s taste buds playing tricks on them. Tasting then helps us realize the reality of who God is and how His goodness is demonstrated in our lives.When we both taste and see the evidence of God’s character, we more fully experience and are more fully aware of the reality of that goodness.

May we taste and see God’s goodness today.

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Growth

Deceiving Appearances

There’s a route around my neighborhood that I like to jog (Full disclosure, I haven’t actually jogged there in a while, but I like to.) Along it, there is a stretch of road with a plethora of plants. One day as I was making my way passed them, I was thinking how nice the plants looked until I got closer and realized that that the city had begun the process of removing them. What looked so good from a distance, turned out to be nothing more than weeds. Overgrown and unkempt, their initial appearance deceived me into believing that they were something good, when in reality, not only were they unhealthy, they were preventing any good growth.

What is true of these unruly plants, can also be true in our own lives. Something looks good, when in reality, we are substituting something that is actually good for something that looks close in appearance. We want to believe that the “weeds” are just as useful,  after all – weeds are plants too.  But instead of adding into our lives, the weeds not only detract, they prevent the addition of good. They may appear to be innocuous, but in reality they are causing the slow demise of our soul.

Perhaps this is why through Scripture we are commanded to be vigilant, for as any gardener knows weeds appear any time you’re not diligent about their removal. Because they can be confused for a plant, it’s important that we are discerning about that which is actually beneficial and that which just appears to be. We must be careful to weed our lives of anything that inhibits our walk with God…and to plant good things in their stead.

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