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Are you a fussy eater? (28 April)

The thought this week was written by Graeme Ross, EBA Regional Minister

I am a very decisive person in most circumstances, but put me in front of a large choice of ice cream flavours and choosing could take some time. Looking at the vast variety of flavours, many of which I never would have imagined or thought of, makes me want to try more of them than is good for me!

I want to taste and see which flavours are good!

I was reflecting recently on Psalm 34.8 ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him’ and I was thinking about the encouragement to people to experience the goodness of God for themselves. I have often thought about this in terms of the offer we make to people who don’t know Jesus yet but it dawned on me recently that the verse is also speaking to Christians and is encouraging us to experience the variety of God’s goodness.

I really like strawberry ice cream and if I lived my life with that as my only experience of ice cream then I think I would be happy but if this did happen, the reality would be that I would have missed out on the great variety that was also on offer. Is this a picture of what we do with God?

Ask yourself ‘where have I experienced God’s goodness and presence?’ It may be that all or most of your answers church related or perhaps they are all about happiness or maybe the painful experiences that God was with you in.

Could it be that we are more open to God’s presence in certain situations and not in others? Are there situations, perhaps in our areas of expertise, that we subconsciously exclude God? For those of us who are in church leadership, our greatest area of expertise is in leading churches and there is a trap that we can fall into which involves us thinking we have to be competent at what we do that we can reach the point where we mistakenly exclude God from aspects of his mission and ministry that we are involved in.

How can we taste and see that the Lord is good in every area of our life?

Will we take refuge in him or are there moments when we try to cope alone?

Photo by Lama Roscu on Unsplash

Several months ago, I created a short video reflection on this verse and you are welcome to use or share it https://youtu.be/esRQ6ocyrKQ. At the end of the Youtube video there is also a link to a sermon from Beth about the verse.