I know God loves me and cares for me. But sometimes I can’t feel His love and care for me. Sometimes I can’t sense His goodness. How can I say with the Psalmist in Psalm 34:8 “Taste and see that the LORD is good!”
Answer:
Let us first examine what is meant by “Taste and see that the LORD is good” in Psalms 24:8. Is this a reference to physically or emotionally feeling his love and sensing his goodness? Or does the context mean something else?
This idea of tasting the Lord is seen a number of times in Scripture.
Ps 34:8 ‘Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!”
Ps 119:103 “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! ”
Heb 6:5 “and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,”
1Pe 2:2-3 “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation – if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”
From here, we can already tell that when the bible speaks of tasting the Lord, it is not referring to sensing an emotional feeling of the presence of the Lord. In every case, the context of tasting is always that of knowing, believing and enjoying God’s truths. These passages do not equate tasting the Lord with sensing an emotional experience of the Lord’s presence.
Jeremiah 17:9 says that “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” Or as John Gills put it bluntly, the heart “is the source of the idolatry and creature confidence. Our trust in God’s love for his people should never be based upon our emotions or whether we can feel God’s presence or not.” While we praise God for spiritual experiences, we should never establish our self-worth or spirituality based on the amount of supernatural or emotional experiences in our life.
Unbelievers like the high priest Caiaphas, the false prophet Balaam and even Balaam’s donkey prophesied God’s word. We are also told in Matt 7:22-23 that, “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Note that it says, “I never knew you”, not “I knew you but forgot you”. It is dangerous to make our spiritual experiences the measure of our spiritual condition. Feeling the presence of God does not in any way validate or invalidate our salvation or spiritual maturity.
What does the bible say God shows His love towards us? John 15:13 and 1 John 3:16 tell us that we know God loves us because Jesus died for us. Romans 5:8 says that God shows His love to us by sending Jesus Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
Taste and see that the Lord is good, is a reference to a believer submitting, savouring and delighting in the Lord through his word. To the unbeliever, the Lord is not sweet, but to the believer, the word of God, and His promises are a delight that nourishes and feeds his inner-most being. When he keeps his eyes upon the Lord and His promises, the Lord tastes sweet to him even in the midst of trials and loneliness.
As Edmund Clowney comments on the Christian’s taste for the word[1],
“Peter refers to Psalms 34:8, ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.’ … They [Christians] have found the Lord in the word of the gospel, or, better, he has found them by his living word. Those who read the word of God, and surely those who teach it, must never forget why the word is given and whom it reveals. The word shows us that the Lord is good; his words are sweeter than honey to our [Christians] taste because in them the Lord gives himself to us.”
As believer, we delight to be in the presence of God, but being in God’s presence should not be confused with tasting the Lord; which is a reference always used to describe the believer’s delight in the word of God. Our trust is rooted solely in the Word of God. We are to submit our thoughts and conform our mind to that of Christ (1 Co 2:16). In God’s promises, we find stability and rest. We know that God loves and cares for us if we are indeed his people. When we go through trials, the Lord is a shield about us. He is our glory, and the lifter of our heads. (Ps 3:3) In him we find salvation, and in him we take refuge. This holds true whether we feel his presence or whether we are going through the worst of trials. It is good that you already know that the Lord loves and cares for you. You need to let that truth take hold of your heart even through the times when you don’t feel the tangible presence of God.
Psa 103:17 “But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children.” Take joy in this promise of the Lord.
Bibliography
Clowney, Edmund, The message of 1 Peter, The bible Speaks Today, Inter-Varsity Press, England, 2006, p. 80-81
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