It was a cold, snowy, and, to be quite honest, depressing Sunday night when the truths that lie deep within Psalm 34:8 were spoken into my life. I was living in Vladimir, Russia at the time and was struggling with feelings of discouragement and failure when that verse sparked life back into my life and ministry.     

“Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him.”
Psalm 34:8

Tasting and seeing are both sensory words. They demand personal experiences. David is asking us to experience God’s goodness (taste) and to thus realize God’s goodness (see).

How have you tasted and seen God’s goodness? I have experienced God’s goodness through my family, through financial supporters, through seasons where I or a loved one battled health scares, and the list could continue for pages. My experiences are often the backbone of my unwavering faith that God is good. I am able to take refuge in Him because I have tasted and seen that the Lord is good over and over again.

Of course, God is always good. Even if I didn’t have a loving and supportive family. Even if I had debt staring me straight in the face every which way I turned.   Even if physical pain and sickness were a constant reality in my day to day life. As the popular saying goes – “God is good all the time. And all the time, God is good.”

But in this specific verse, David is allowing us to rely on past experiences to declare God’s goodness and to therefore, take refuge in Him.

But what about an orphan? Think about the personal experiences that an orphan goes through. How in the world can we ask them to taste and see that the Lord is good when all they have ever known is abuse, manipulation, neglect, and disappointment?

Of course, He has been good their whole life, but how are they supposed to experience it in a way like David is asking us to?

Of course, God has never stopped being a Father to the fatherless, but how is the girl who lives alone in the garbage pit in Southern India supposed to know that?

Of course, God has always been a safe refuge, but to the boy who was forced to get addicted to drugs before he turned 8, no one is safe, including God.

Of course, God loves them. He sees them. He knows them. He cries over them. He pursues them. But how can we ask the children who live in an orphanage that has become more like a brothel to see God in such a loving way?

Here’s how: Through Jesus in us, the hope of glory.

When we go love an orphan, we love in Jesus’ Name.

When we give to the orphan, we give in Jesus’ Name.

When we feed an orphan, we are the hands of Jesus.

When we visit an orphan, we are the feet of Jesus.

When we fight for an orphan, we show God’s pursuit.

When we stand up for the rights of an orphan, we display God’s justice.

 

How can an orphan taste and see that the Lord is good? How can anyone in need taste and see that the LORD is good? Often, it’s through His Church – who have been called according to His purposes. What does the Lord require? What is faultless and pure religion in God’s sight? To act justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly, to visit orphans, to love widows, and to be different from this world.

Will you either continue or join in The Boaz Project’s attempt to help orphans around the world have the opportunity to taste and see that the LORD is good?

Will you come on a short term trip with us?

Will you give financially?

Will you pray?

Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

Compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,

Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Christ has no body now but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

Compassion on this world.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

~ Teresa of Avila ~