When my kids were little we tried to get them to try new things.  Meet new people.  Enjoy new activities.  And try new foods.  Two of my kids were pretty game to try anything and were good eaters.  But the other two were picky and finicky and afraid to try new foods.  So we had what we called “no thank you” bites.  We asked them to just “try one bite” to see if they liked it.  If they did this, then they would truly know, by experience, whether they enjoyed a certain food or not.  And once in a while, they were surprised to find that it really WAS good!   And as we always said, “If you don’t try it, you’ll never know if you like it and you might be missing out.”

Today I read this verse – Psalm 34:8 – Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.  And it made me smile because it reminded me of our dinner time challenge.  “Just try it.  Just one bite.  I think you’re gonna like it.”

We can hear story after story about how good God is.  We can listen to other people’s accounts of their experiences with tasting God’s goodness.  But if we don’t taste it ourselves, we won’t truly see it.  God invites us to this amazing feast of His goodness.  We can come to the table and just watch others eat the delectable food of His presence in their lives.  We can smell the aroma from their plates.  But until we take that first bite for ourselves, until we taste it, we will never be satisfied.

But here’s a warning:  If you do decide to take your “no thank you bite”, it will be impossible to stop there.  Just like eating one potato chip or one M&M – it’s just not possible.  The flavor of His goodness and love will draw you in and you will want more and more.  And it will become your favorite recipe.  A recipe that you’ll want to share with others.  That sense of, “you just have to try this!  It’s so good!”  And you will be offering others “just one bite”.

I looked up what some other people from times past have said about this verse.  And I think we all agreed….:-)

Be unwilling that all the good gifts of God should be swallowed without taste, or maliciously forgotten, but use your palate, know them, and consider them. D. H. Mollerus.

The taste and see invite, as it were, to a sumptuous feast, which has long been ready; to a rich sight openly exposed to view. The imperatives are in reality not oratory but persuasive. E. W. Hengstenberg.

That the Lord is good. You can only know this really and personally by experience. There is the banquet with its oxen and fatlings; its fat things full of marrow, and wine on the lees well refined; but their sweetness will be all unknown to you except you make the blessings of grace your own, by a living, inward, vital participation in them. C. H. Spurgeon 

Taste and see that the Lord is good.  I dare you….