November 28 – To Taste

November 28 – To Taste

Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. (Psalm 34:8)

Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. (1 Peter 2:2-3)

How much of life do you experience through your tastebuds?  When you are at the ocean, do you taste the salt in the air? When you wake up in the morning, do you try to clear the fuzziness from your mouth so that you become more alert?

We have more than ten thousand taste buds on both the tongue and roof of our mouth. When saliva breaks down the food we eat, the brain responds to the information, telling us what flavor we are tasting.  Although the sense of taste is one of our weakest senses, we receive a great deal of information as things pass through our lips.  We experience an intense range of tastes, from sour to sweet, salty to bitter.

Think about the metaphors we use for life around us as we experience moments.  Bittersweet is used to describe moments that are both happy and sad, someone who is salty might be a little risqué in their speech and we've all experienced more than our share of sour people.  When something goes badly for us, we might say it leaves a sour taste in our mouth.  When someone does something nice to us, we refer to them as sweet.  A person who spends more time being unhappy is probably a bitter person.

All of these things are part of the experience of being human, so why would we not want to taste and see that the Lord is good?  The Psalmist tells us to experience all that the Lord has to offer us.  Tasting and experiencing are the same thing.  Peter tells his readers that they have already tasted … or experienced the Lord and have found that the relationship with Him is good.  Now that they are certain of that fact, it is time for them to grow past the ease of acting like babies and grow up.

The Lord has created us to be such wonderful beings and given us the ability to experience the world around us in so many different and creative ways.  Tasting the world is yet another way we have to experience the world.  Today, as you taste things, consider just how extraordinary that experience is.