Yesterday I woke up at 4 a.m. with Psalm 34:8 on my mind:
“Taste and see that the Lord is good.”
I took it as an invitation to stick with the Tuesday morning coffee analogy. This time, though, it’s less about describing the coffee and more about discovering it.
I know coffee exists. I drink it every day. Yet, although I drink multiple cups daily, I’m still unable to properly describe what I’m drinking. I know it’s coffee and that it has caffeine. I understand, at a very high level, that coffee beans are roasted to various degrees and that this somehow influences the colour and taste.
I know coffee has subtleties in its aroma and flavour. Sometimes I can barely notice they’re there, although I would be hard-pressed to identify the particular notes.
But I drink it every day. It is part of my morning routine.
If I want to move from being a casual coffee drinker who enjoys it for the warmth, the idea that it will help me through the morning, and, quite frankly, simply because it has become part of my routine, to someone who can appreciate, taste, smell, identify, and describe its various notes, I need to stop merely drinking coffee and start tasting it.
The more I taste it, the more I will discover how good it actually is.
“Taste and see that the Lord is good.”
I can consume something about God every morning and make him part of my routine. I can describe him in generic terms, repeat stories others have told, or tell you about that one time when I caught a glimpse of him like never before.
But unless I am tasting and savouring and slowing down long enough to notice the particularities, the nuances, and the threads of his presence, I will be hard-pressed to see how good he is.
I can know he is good because I read the words or because someone told me, and I can believe he is good.
But as the second part of that verse says:
“Blessed are those who take refuge in him.”
It is only when I taste for myself, when I slow down, trust him, and learn to discern the subtle notes of his presence, that what I believe about his goodness begins to become something I have experienced.