by Raeleen Whip
Psalm 34 8
O taste and see that the Lord (our God) is good!
Blessed is the man who trusts and takes refuge in Him.
Imagine if God had His own cooking show. Master Chef, or His Kitchen Rules perhaps? I think, that in His kitchen, He would have created many dishes with love and anticipation. He would invite, with all confidence, any and many people to the great table of tasting stations He has set up. When a contestant steps up to His table, He gently holds out a spoon of goodness to any who are willing to try. He looks at each with warmth and understanding love, so to encourage them, to taste and see.
You see, He understands that most of us are not immediately comfortable eating a whole plate of food we have never tried before. We look, we smell and then we muster a little bit of courage and take a small taste to see what it is like. He knows that putting something into our mouth, taking it in to become a part of ourselves requires a degree of trust.
So He makes His invitation as simple and unthreatening as possible, no need to eat the whole bowl straight up. Just taste, and see.
What will we see? We will start to see what He already knows. That He is good and has good for us. He can be trusted. He is everything that He says He is. He always has everything in hand. He is our refuge. He is always there and accessible. He is always listening and has answers for us. That He can untangle us and redeem us. His face is always turned towards us in love. That He offers forgiveness to us and makes us clean. He gives us what we need to face each day. That He has things to talk to us about. He brings justice and vindication. That He has a life of plan and purpose for each of us that will fulfil us and bring Him glory. He will never leave us. He offers many promises to us and He keeps each one. He loves us with His life. He wants and welcomes us always with arms wide open. That we need never be all alone.
He created us for warm, near and nurturing connection. He wants us to be together in a loving, breathing, living relationship. It's with this in His wise mind, that He helps us to that place with all tender love and care. When we take the offered 'taste and see' spoon over and again, we begin to take in and know we are safe in His perfect and trustworthy love, affection, goodness, forgiveness and grace. We realise we can trust Him enough to keep walking with Him. See this progression in the gospels. Luke 4 and 5 relate the story of Jesus and Simon (Peter).
Before there was ever the definitive 'follow me' invitation to Peter, James and John, there was warm, relational connection. Many 'taste and see' moments. His strategy is to begin by meeting you where you are just as He did with Simon Peter. He is interested, eager to relate, open to becoming friends, He is accepting of who you are and where you are at right at this moment. Not that He plans to leave you there, but this is where He begins. Easy.
Luke 4: 38 - 42 tells us that Jesus went to Peter's house to stay a night. While He was there, He does His thing by way of healing Peter's mother-in-law. Here, Jesus and Peter were able to connect, start relating to each other. Peter could 'taste and see' that Jesus was an open, personal, loving, relational, powerful and good kind of person. So, when the next small step of invitation to obey was offered, he already had some experience that said this Jesus is someone He thinks He could trust and follow.
We notice this ordinary, next step encounter in the following chapter of Luke. Jesus is teaching a crowd of people on the beach. He sees Peter in his boat and makes a personal connection. Jesus gives Peter another chance to 'taste and see' who He is.
'Hey Peter, we are out of room on the beach, do you mind if I jump in and use your boat for awhile?' Will Peter taste, and see? Will he take this small step of obedience? Even though He had worked all night to exhaustion and was no doubt thinking of breakfast at home, to his credit, he chose to stay and took the chance to see what would happen. The Bible says, Peter went ahead and 'drew Jesus a little way out from the shore' just as He had requested.
Jesus sees that Peter is demonstrating a willingness to trust Him and follow His lead. So he offers Him a chance for deeper trust on the 'taste and see' spoon. The Bible tells us, that when He finished speaking to the crowds, Jesus does His personal, relational thing. He turns to Peter alone, and makes an unusual and seemingly crazy request.
'Peter, how about you put out into the deep water and lower your nets for a haul.'
What a strange suggestion! Why on earth would a seasoned fisherman listen to job advice from Jesus, who was, after all, not a fisherman but trained carpenter. Why didn't Peter just row Him onto the beach in a proud huff and tell Him where the bus stop was?
Because He had tasted, He had seen that the Lord was powerful and good. He wanted more. By now, he may have been willing to take more than a taste, but rather the whole plate.
Listen to his telling reply. And Simon (Peter) answered, 'Master, we toiled all night (exhaustingly) and caught nothing (in our nets). But on the grounds of Your word, I will lower the nets again.
One other small but big thing that might help you to trust is this. Notice Jesus was already confident in the outcome of His request to Peter. There are three little words tacked onto the end of His ask that tell us this is so.
Luke 5:4 'Peter, put out into the deep water and lower your nets for a haul.'
He didn't say, lower your nets and you might catch some fish. He said 'lower your nets for a haul'. Jesus is confident in a preknown outcome and He wanted Peter to know this too. God wants us to understand and know this also. That He, in all perfect love, wisdom and power, has the outcome in hand ever before He asks us to taste and see. This is where trust grows. We end up knowing what God already knows only when we take each step of obedience. This is what it means to trust.
God has complete confidence in Himself and who He is and in the outcome of what He asks us to do and become. He cooks the food with all perfect skill, knowledge, love and anticipation, well before the contestants are ready to taste it and he knows it's good. He is already certain, that if you are truly willing to have all your preconceptions set aside for even that moment and come, put your lips to the spoon, close your eyes and really 'taste' in simple trust. If you do this again and again, each time the tasting spoon is offered, you will soon 'see' a precious, life changing thing happen. You will find yourself effusing with complete awareness and conviction. Mmmmmm.
That, is so good.
Courage, dear heart... taste and see that the Lord is good...
Blessed is the man (or woman) who trusts and takes refuge in Him.
Raeleen is a country gal, living in Longreach. She does life with a husband who loves God and perseveres in all things, two soft-souled sons, a most gracious and lovely daughter in law, two hilarious grandchildren, a wonderful church family and community. She loves creativity in most forms, but has a special bent towards photography, pottery, writing short stories and blending photos, fonts and bible verses. What I find myself wanting to do, is to persuade people to shift out of dark places in mind or soul into the light of God's truth and the love of His people where there can be found one of my favourite God words... Freedom... God has invited me to be a part of the leadership and women's ministry team at my local Baptist Church in Longreach.
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