“O taste and see that the Lord is good.” Psalm 34:8
The Hebrew word for see is “drink deeply.” Taste and drink deeply of God and find out how good He is. It is fatally easy to get into a habit of wrong thoughts about God—thoughts of doubt, mistrust and unbelief. We don’t “drink deeply of God” because we don’t believe in His goodness--or trust that we will find that He is good. We don’t usually say this out loud. We just struggle with the things that seems to contradict the belief that He is good.
Do you know why I struggle? I have a faulty definition of goodness, and here is it: if it makes me feel good, makes me happy, goes the way I think it should, then I conclude that it is good. When you put it that way, it sounds like childish reasoning. Children fight fiercely against anything that they don’t think is good, because they have a limited perspective. Guess what? So do I. So do you. This isn’t a “me” problem or a “you” problem; this is a “beginning-of-time” problem.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil opened to us the belief that we can determine what’s good and what isn’t. And we can’t. The fruit from that tree only made us blind. And because we’re blind, we must trust the One who can see all things. David wrote, “I would have despaired unless I believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” When we don’t believe to see the goodness of the Lord, we despair, we lose hope. We must believe in order to see. What is keeping you from believing to see God’s goodness? Fill in the blanks:
** “I know God is good but if He__________________, then I would really be convinced.” Or, “I know God is good but I really struggle when___________.”
Dear Lord, You are a good Father. But like a child, I often rebel and complain when I don’t see the good, when it doesn’t feel good, when things don’t go the way I think they should. Then I speak against You. Forgive me. I believe, Lord. Help my unbelief. Show me how to drink deeply of Your goodness. In Jesus name, I pray, Amen.
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