Taste and see...

As has been discussed ad naseum, prayer and scripture reading are good for us. These bring us into fellowship with God and, as a result, we are trained and transformed.

As ever, we must guard against treating these activities as mechanical endeavors like household chores that simply must be done in order for us to maintain the lifestyle we enjoy. This is an important and relevant observation, but only tangential to my thoughts this morning.

We determine to find joy in prayer and scripture reading precisely because in them we experience God himself. We seek prayer and the Word not only because they are "spiritually nutritious", but because they "taste" good too. Very well, but I think there is more.

Fellowship with God (for which purpose we engage him through prayer and the Word and at which availability we ought to be continually amazed) also prepares us for joy in everything. He makes all of life taste better. The Lord makes life not simply more fun or stress-free. Fellowship with God himself cleanses our palate so that we are more sensitive to all that is savory in this world and so that we more easily and accurately distinguish between that which is sweet and that which is bitter.

It must be emphasized, however, that it is not for a better life in this world that we seek fellowship with God. Rather, it is because God is better than anything else in this life. The Lord is sweeter than the richest treats, more thrilling than this world's greatest adventure, more satisfying than the deepest bonds of human intimacy.

Our Lord mercifully enhances the good we experience in our lives, but they must remain worldly experiences, which can only be at their very best a pale mist, a blurred reflection, a silent ghost, or a vague shadow of the very goodness of God.

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