“As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” – 1 Peter 2:2-3
The people I eat lunch with believe themselves to be quite the gourmet cooks. They sometimes sit around the table chatting about different dishes they have cooked or eaten at an ethnic restaurant. Sometimes one of them gets the bright idea to ask me if I like the food they are talking about. Most likely they are chatting about some foreign dish I would not touch with a ten-foot pole, so I say, “No.” They ask, “Well, have you ever eaten it?” To which I reply, “No.” They pursue the subject, “How do you know you don’t like it then?” I counter with, “I just know, okay? I don’t eat things like that.” Well, the room is suddenly alight with conversation, and all are discussing my unwillingness to “grow” in terms of an adventurous spirit in the realm of food.
Sometimes I find myself in the same conversation with Jesus. When He has asked if I would try something new, at times my immediate response has been, “I don’t think so, not this time.” However, my lunch friends are right. On occasion they have coerced me into tasting a new dish, and I discovered that it is not that bad. In fact, I have actually liked one or two! When I “taste” what God has asked of me, I usually discover that it tastes good too, and even brings other benefits with it, like the satisfaction of pleasing Him. To think, I have struggled with and resisted things that I actually would have liked, simply because I misjudged them and did not trust the Lord’s leading.
The truth is, we do not know what a new experience will be like until we have tasted it and tried it for ourselves. But because we have already “tasted that the Lord is gracious,” we can trust that whatever He gives us will also be good. The focus verse says that we should desire more of His Word—it will only get better! If we will just try what He asks of us, we will be pleasantly surprised.