The other weekend, Joshua and I decided rather spontaneously to check out our city’s World Food and Music Festival. Booths lined the streets and tasty smells filled the air from various cuisines around the world. Filipino, Ecuadorian, Vietnamese, Moroccan, Peruvian, Laotian, Nepalese… to name a few.
We found a Bahamian flag (the homeland of my husband) but sadly, no Bahamian food vendors.
Still, we enjoyed ourselves as we walked around. Each vendor had lunch entrées, but they also had a “taste item” for $1.
These taste items were hit-or-miss. I’m not talking about flavor – all of them tasted good… but often the portion size was just a mouthful. One, maybe two bites. I guess that was the point, after all, but in each case, I wanted more of it.
But neither the wallet nor the belly were the right size to order more of each item. We ended up getting a couple of entrées to split, and by the time we went home, our bellies were fuller and our wallet was lighter.
The experience left me thinking about two passages in God’s Word.
First:
“O taste and see that the Lord is good!”
Psalm 34:8
There was no question as we took tiny bites to share each booth’s taste item… the food was good. It’s the same with the Lord – just the smallest experience of Him should leave us doubtless of His goodness.
But while the taste item was limited (and tiny), the Lord doesn’t give Himself like that. He pours out His goodness upon us. Psalm 65 speaks of the bounty and overflowing blessings that the Lord gives to the earth. Physically, but also spiritually.
Another difference is the cost.
$1 at each booth adds up pretty quickly! But the Lord gives of Himself freely.
“Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk Without money and without cost.”
Isaiah 55:1
If the food vendors at the festival gave away the food for free, they wouldn’t make any profit. They would actually be in the red, since they would have paid themselves for the food to be given away.
Isn’t God generous?
It’s not that life doesn’t have a cost – it’s that God has absorbed the cost Himself.
He gave up His only Son – infinitely precious – to be able to offer eternal life to us for free.
But so many people pass Him by.
They don’t hear or don’t want to hear His call.
Taste and see that He is Good!
Come and take what He is giving.
You’ll never find anything sweeter.
