Taste and See

Lately, I have simply been overwhelmed by the goodness of God. It is all around me – I see His goodness everywhere I go, in the people I meet, in the situations I face, His goodness is constantly shining forth with a light that I can’t deny.

• When I find myself miraculously back in the US, sitting in the living room with my dad – God is good
• When I see my mom’s empty chair and think of her in heaven – God is good
• When I sit with my daughter and her friends and listen to them chat and laugh – God is good
• When I hold onto my girl because I just don’t want to say goodbye again – God is good
• When I Skype with my family halfway around the world, see their smiles and hear their precious voices – God is good
• When I watch my daughter’s best friend join her life in marriage with the man she loves – God is good
• When the music plays and my friends and I and our grown daughters dance around the room like maniacs – God is good
• When I sit and pray with a friend who is struggling with grief and confusion – God is good
• When I weep because the time has come to say another farewell – God is good
• When I step out into the cool, sunny autumn morning in the US – God is good
• When I listen to the tropical rain pouring down on my roof in Thailand – God is good
• When I sit in my old church and know that time has moved on and things are not the same – God is good
• When I join with people from another culture and language and together we lift our praises to the Lord – God is good
• When I look at the faces of my Karen students as they struggle to form their English words correctly – God is good
• When I have a moment of real understanding of this Thai world in which I now live – God is good
• When I completely mangle a Thai word – God is good
• When the night is holding onto me – God is good
• When the day comes and I see God’s mercies made new once more – God is good

King David spoke so often of the goodness of God. As part of my devotional journey through “God’s Grand Story,” I was recently reading about David in 2 Samuel chapter 7. David is so overwhelmed by all God has done for him, and he longs to do something to honor God – specifically to build him a temple. But God comes to him and not only tells him that God doesn’t need anything from him, but that God will bless David even more than he has already been blessed.

And I love David’s amazing response to the goodness of God – it’s a response of humility, desiring only for God’s glory. "Who am I that you have brought me this far? What more can I say to you? You know what your servant is really like...How great you are, O Sovereign Lord! There is no one like you. We have never even heard of another God like you! You made a great name for yourself..." Such a beautiful response to God's goodness. 

David hadn’t had a life of ease. He spent years on the run for his life, hiding in caves and wondering when he would be free again. And yet he never doubted God’s goodness – Psalm 27 records David singing, “I am confident that I will see the goodness of God.”

David was far from perfect - I love how he says, "You know what your servant is really like." The knowledge that God can see inside us to the depths of our sin and depravity should cause us to quake with fear. And yet, like David says in Psalm 85, we have seen that God is so ready to forgive, even making the way for forgiveness to be possible through the death of his own son. And so we stand in confidence before the throne, covered in his mercy. Oh, the goodness of God!

David's heart of humility and thankfulness is the heart that I want to have. In the midst of good times and bad, in times of want and times of plenty, in sorrow and in joy, to always be aware of the goodness of our wonderful Savior, who calls us His own.  The scriptures tell us to “taste and see that the Lord is good.” 

I have tasted and seen. Have you?