Taste And See

Taste and See

Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.

— Psalm 34:8

My friend Dan Earl is a beekeeper. Recently he presented me with a gift basket of his bee by-products — creams, candles, and best of all, his top-selling honey. That Sunday I enjoyed a cup of Earl Grey tea and toasted crumpets with butter and honey. I was almost in heaven. It was so delicious.

The Puritan Jonathan Edwards drew a parallel between honey and Psalm 34:8. One can conclude that honey is honey because it is golden, has a certain viscosity, and has bits of comb in it. Therefore, it must be honey. But Edwards said there is a superior way to know. Put a drop on your tongue, and you’ll see that knowing honey involves much more than understanding facts about it. To truly know honey is to taste and see that it is sweet, delicious, and delightful. There’s nothing quite like it!

The same can be said about our knowledge of God. We can conclude that God is God because he is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent; he is attended by thousands of angels as he sits on the throne of heaven; he is the Supreme Ruler, the Creator of all things, and the Judge of all men. But even the devil knows these facts about God! So truly knowing God involves more than knowing facts about him. We must “taste and see that the Lord is good,” sweet, delightful, and all lovely. We must have a heart that awakens to his true splendor through experiencing his beauty.

Dr. John Piper writes, “Before we met Christ we were dead, blind, deaf and insensitive to God’s glory; we couldn’t taste it as beautiful. . . . Conversion to Christ puts within us a taste for divine things, a taste for the glory of God. Our battle is to constantly see him more clearly that we might delight in him more fully.”4

Lord Jesus, your Word is sweeter than honey, and I find you utterly delightful. Awaken my heart further to your beauty and splendor.