Psalm 34:8 NLT “Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!”

I hope that each of you had a great Easter weekend with your family and friends. In the midst of  the more meaningful experiences surrounding the death, burial and resurrection of our Savior, one of the unexpected highlights of my weekend was the Sweet Cow MooMobile surprise our church parishioners got to partake of after the morning service. Now, I seriously hate it for any of you with an intolerance to lactose, because this is one area of life that I truly believe heaven and earth collide!  Not to boast, but I personally walked away from that truck with three scoops of chocolate chip cookie dough that glorious morning!  If Jesus could be in a cup, I believe I found Him with a Sweet Cow label. Yep, it was that good!

King David is regarded as the author of this Psalm, which is actually a Hebrew acrostic poem with each verse beginning with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Just a bit of fun trivia for ya I know, but there’s an even stranger fact associated with this poem. David wrote this whole passage regarding the time he pretended to be insane in front of King Achish (found in 1 Samuel 21) who eventually sent him away instead of killing him because he was convinced that this man was riding on the crazy train. Then fast forward to the New Testament and we find Peter quoting this specific verse again in his first letter (1 Peter 2:3). All that to say that at face value, God either places a significant importance on how well He tastes or at least on the goodness that can be experienced or perceived when we get around Him. Probably the latter of the two!

Even when we feel surrounded by unavoidable circumstances or situations that may seem impossible to escape, God can meet us in the midst of it with His undeniable goodness. It’s like when King David also wrote the 23rd Psalm and said,

“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies…surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,…”  (Psalm 23:5-6)

God wants to reveal His goodness to us in a very real and personal way…today, this week and in the weeks to come. Too many times we choose to run from God instead of toward Him simply because we haven’t experienced His goodness before. Maybe religious traditions have only taught us about the veracity of God, or we’ve made the assumptions on our own that He’s mad at us or punishing us for something we’ve done. But the Apostle Paul shared with the believers in Rome when he wrote that it actually is God’s goodness that draws us into a place and posture of repentance (Romans 2:4).

This might possibly be the best day that you have ever had to take a taste of that goodness for yourself!  As amazing as that chocolate chip cookie dough was, it pales in comparison to the lasting goodness that we can experience when we choose to allow Jesus full access to our heart.