3 Taste Tests to Cultivate Your Love for God
Have you ever lost your sense of taste?
I recently recovered from Covid but have yet to regain my sense of taste and smell. On the bright side, none of my natural remedies bother me. I can drink ginger tea without grimacing, and oregano doesn’t make me blink.
On the downside, everything tastes bland. My favorite tea has been reduced to the flavor of hot water, and my morning coffee can offer only a creamy texture and warmth on my tongue. The flavors are gone for now, and I think I’ll savor them even more when they return.
Other “tastes” I don’t have to wait to savor. Scripture offers three taste tests to help us cultivate our love for God, and these aren’t dependent on our physical taste buds working. Do you want to savor your relationship with God more? If so, take these three tests with me.
Taste Test #1: Do You Desire His Presence?
“Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!” (Psalm 34:8 NKJV)
When Covid struck, my first thought wasn’t the goodness of God. But God’s goodness doesn’t depend on circumstances. Whether I’m running a 102 degree fever or am perfectly comfortable, the temperature of His attributes remains constant.
The difference is my attitude. Will I trust in Him or turn away from Him? Psalm 34 says that when we choose to trust Him, we experience His blessings.
“Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints! There is no want to those who fear Him. The young lions lack and suffer hunger; But those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing” (Psalm 34:9-10 NKJV).
The skeptic may respond, “Aha! Not lack any good thing? Covid isn’t a good thing.”
I agree that Covid isn’t good by any stretch. But our definition of a good thing and God’s definition are different. We focus on the immediate, the temporary. God knows the eternal.
God Himself is the “good thing” I don’t have to lack, regardless of how I feel. The Bible explains that when we seek Him, we find Him (Jeremiah 29:13). When He is our shepherd, we lack nothing (Psalm 23:1).
The first test is to recognize the gift of His presence, regardless of our situation.
Taste Test #2: Do You Rejoice in His Word?
“How sweet are Your words to my taste, Sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 119:103 NKJV)
I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated honey as much as during Covid. This amazing part of God’s creation is not only sweet (when you can taste it), but it’s also a powerful antioxidant. Because Covid likes to “dwell” in the back of your throat, nothing feels better than hot tea with honey when you’re fighting this virus. Sometimes, the relief was almost instant.
As wonderful as honey is, God’s Word is sweeter! Another way to cultivate our love for God is not only to discover the goodness of His presence, but also to dwell in the sweetness of His Word.
The prophet Jeremiah said, “Your words were found, and I ate them, And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; For I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts” (Jeremiah 15:16 NKJV).
The second test is to ask ourselves: Is God’s Word our source of joy? If not, perhaps we are not spending enough time in it or perhaps we need to engage with it on a deeper level.
Not sure where to begin? Ask God to make His Word sweet to you. Some great starting places include reading one chapter of Proverbs each day for a month or praying through a Psalm. As you spend more time in His Word, I challenge you to try a program to read through the Bible in a year. There are so many reading plans, and you can find an overview of several types here.
Taste Test #3: Do You Want to Grow?
“… as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” (I Peter 2:2-3 NKJV)
This last taste test is closely related to the previous one. Are we growing in our faith? When God’s Word becomes sweet to us, we desire more of it. The more we spend in the Word, the more we realize just how gracious God is.
Maybe God doesn’t feel gracious to you right now. I get it. He didn’t “feel” especially gracious to me during my bout with Covid either.
However, just because we don’t “feel” a certain way doesn’t mean our feelings are right. God was extremely gracious to me when I was ill, blessing me with friends and family who dropped off meals. He was gracious in letting me recover at home without any special treatment. He was gracious in healing me.
I realize other people’s stories are different than mine. What we have to understand is that God’s graciousness to one person may manifest itself one way, and His graciousness to someone else may look very different. The point isn’t that He loves one person more than another. He just has different plans for our lives and different trials to refine our faith.
A verse that has become precious to me this year is Isaiah 30:18.
Therefore the Lord will wait, that He may be gracious to you;
And therefore He will be exalted, that He may have mercy on you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
Blessed are all those who wait for Him. (NKJV)
God’s graciousness to us doesn’t always make sense, but He doesn’t ask us to make sense of our disappointments and hurts. He asks us to trust Him with them and wait for Him to move and act as He sees best.
What is your next step for cultivating a deeper love for God right now?
~ Kristen
