When you mention “Thanksgiving”, food comes to mind. It is sort of like “peanut butter and jelly”, “Abbot and Costello” and “Mutt and Jeff”. There are certain foods that are just part of Thanksgiving: turkey, ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing and gravy, sweet potato casserole, yams, green bean casserole, cranberry jell, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, apple pie. If you are not salivating right about now, you need to check if you have a pulse. Just mentioning these foods and you start to taste them. Isn’t Thanksgiving great!
I want you to add another taste to your Thanksgiving plate. The Psalmist, David, tells us: “O taste and see that the LORD is good”. We don’t usually think of “taste” when we think of our experience with God. Taste is usually thought of being experienced through our taste buds; but it also involves our senses of smell and feeling. “To Taste God” involves your whole person. You must immerse yourself in Him. You must surround yourself with His presence. You must get to know Him.
David explains what God tastes like:
- He “delivered me from all my fears”
- He “cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles”
- “The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them”
- “blessed is the man that trusteth in him”
- “there is no want to them that fear him”
- “they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing.”
- “The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.”
- “The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles”
- “The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.”
- “Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.”
- “He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is broken.”
- “The LORD redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate.”
If you have not tasted of the Lord, I encourage you to do so. If have tasted, I encourage you to taste some more. We need to stuff ourselves in His goodness. It is OK. It is not being selfish to do so. It is “the goodness of God leads us to repentance”. If it were not for His goodness, we would be toast, lost, without any hope in a hopeless world.
The goodness of God is the reason for Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims were thanking God that first Thanksgiving. Compare what we have to what they had. Would you and I be thankful if we were in their situation?
I have to admit that I might not have been thinking of Thanksgiving if I had just experienced what they had. During the first winter, half of the Pilgrims died from starvation, sickness or exposure. Most of the Pilgrims present at that first Thanksgiving, had experienced the death of members of family and/or friends. If they could be thankful, it should be easy for us.
TASTE AND SEE THAT THE LORD IS GOOD!
No comments:
Post a Comment