Taste and see that the Lord is good. How happy is the person who takes refuge in Him!
-Psalm 34:8
Can God’s goodness ever truly be known by us until we have actually tasted it? I love how this verse equates the tasting of God’s goodness with seeing God’s goodness. There seems to be this implication that there is a type of seeing that only comes after one has tasted. It’s a seeing that is newly acquired and informed by experience! It is one thing to know about something but it is an entirely different thing altogether when that knowledge comes alive with experience! The verses in Psalm 34 that lead us up to verse 8 seem to exude this! The Psalmist is actively praising the Lord, delighting in Him and giving testimony of God’s goodness, all while inviting others to join in. The progression in the first eight verses is blessing and praise, boasting in God, proclaiming His goodness, inviting others to join and then testifying to what He’s done. It culminates again in verse eight with an invitation to discover what he has discovered. To TASTE and SEE. It is the invitation of a man who has tasted the goodness of God and has been given new sight in it’s dawn!
I love how C.S Lewis talks about praise in the ninth chapter of his book, “Reflections on the Psalms”. He begins by sharing his inner wrestling match with the idea that God would command the praise of Himself and that on a purely intellectual level, how hard that can be to digest. That is until he realizes (and in the process helps all of us to realize) that all goodness experienced, “spontaneously overflows to praise”.
“I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: ‘Isn’t she lovely? Wasn’t it glorious? Don’t you think that magnificent?’ The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about.“
- C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms
The key discovery for all of us, and I think what the Psalmist had discovered, was that we can never be more alive and full of joy than when we are regularly experiencing (tasting) the joy found in treasuring our God above all else. It is the only tasting and seeing that leads to lasting satisfaction because we were truly made for it! The real human tragedy is that we often spend much of life tasting all of the “goodness” we can squeeze out of creation, neglecting to go to the source of it all. This is a tasting that never leads to a true seeing or knowing. It’s fleeting and empty.
At Calvary Church in Valparaiso, we often talk about the means of grace given to us by God. Firstly, God has extended to us the greatest invitation that has ever been, in the gospel of Jesus Christ. An invitation to have His life, true life, become our life. Confessing our need for a savior, and believing that He is in fact the Lord over all, is the primary way we taste His goodness. We deserve nothing and yet are offered everything in Christ. All other means of grace are simply invitations to soak in, to be reminded of, and to savor and treasure Him! (more thoughts to come on INVITATION in another post)
We have been invited to soak in His word, we have been invited to gather together in corporate worship, we have been invited to partake in community to experience His love through one another and we have been invited to pray and to commune with the very Creator of the universe! These are all opportunities to TASTE and SEE that God is good. It is no wonder that Christians who don’t take God up on His offer with these means of grace, never seem to truly get a taste that leads to a seeing, which erupts in worship. True worship flows out of a heart that has been made alive by the power of the gospel. A heart that has tasted the goodness of Jesus and has seen His glory.
There is a lasting goodness. A goodness that is all satisfying, full of joy and absolutely complete! So much so, that this goodness extends to every season of our lives. Times of celebration, times of mourning. Times of laughing and times of weeping. This lasting goodness is found in the knowing and treasuring of our God alone and there is no substitute. He has extended to us, every opportunity and invitation to experience His goodness and all we must do is to TASTE and then SEE. This will produce for us, hearts overflowing with thanksgiving, praise and worship!
