Taste and see that the LORD is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him.Psalm 34:8, NLT
When I was in college, someone told me apricots were “sooooo good.” Having only eaten the canned version served in the dining hall, I thought they were okay, but nothing great.
While home on break once, I saw some at the grocery store. I can still see them in one of the square displays that were like islands in the produce department. I bought some because they were supposed to be “sooooo good.” They weren’t garbage, but I couldn’t imagine why my friend thought they were “sooooo good.”
Years later, I now live where apricots grow, and they are sooooooooooo good—like eating candy! We eat lots and lots of them when they are fresh and freeze them for smoothies later.
The ones I bought at the store that day had been grown in another part of the country and shipped to the store for sale. The farmer, the shipper, and the grocer had all been involved in getting those apricots to my hand. The ones I eat now come from a tree in our garden. My husband usually brings them to the kitchen counter; and then they go from my hand to my mouth. When discussing why the store-bought apricots weren’t all that great, he said ours almost get bruised just coming from the garden to the kitchen, they are so perfectly ripe. They come directly to me—though I can pick them off the tree myself if I just walk out to the garden.
God said, “Taste and see.” If what I am tasting of God’s goodness is only coming to me through a pastor, a devotional book, a women’s ministry leader, or even if I got it a long time ago from my primary teacher, then it is like that apricot I bought at the store. It just isn’t fresh and delightful to my taste buds. Maybe the only message you’re getting from God has been processed a bit and is as good as the canned apricots, but it’s not sooooooooooo good. The third-party sources can be very helpful at pointing the way to the garden but go there yourself and pick the fruit; go directly to the Source. Read the Word, talk to God, and see if He doesn’t give you something that is better and sweeter than you ever knew existed.
Summer Stahl lives in northeastern Washington, USA
New Every Morning, Copyright © 2022 Pacific Press Publishing Association