By Gloria Wessner
‘Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see—
how good God is.
Blessed are you who run to him.’ (Psalm 34:8 The Message)
One might acknowledge with their mind that there is a God out there somewhere. One might suddenly find themselves in a lot of difficulty and hardship and even pray to God to help.
You might feel some peace of mind by doing that. We might call this ‘head knowledge.’ This is a good start – but there is so much more to life with him. We are invited by God to ‘open our mouths and taste, open our eyes and see—how good God is…’, through both the pleasurable and the difficult parts of life.
God asks us to have more than just head knowledge. The reason? because he loves us so much and wants to be a part of your life. Consider this message God gave us in John 3:16-18:
‘This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.’(From The Message)
You see, we need to make this heart knowledge. What are we acquitted from if we trust in Him? From the life sentence of death that we are all under because of wrong things in our life (sin). This is why Jesus came to earth and died and rose again. Eternal life after death is ours and our life here on earth is whole if we have chosen to make this knowledge be in our hearts and not just with our minds.
Once this is heart knowledge – a choice you make to believe in Jesus, the son of God and live for him – then you’re able to access all of God’s promises for the power to live the kind of healthy and wholesome life you were meant to live (in the good and difficult areas of life). Best of all, you will have a real relationship with the God who loved you enough to die for you. This is the same God who has created all the colours and wonderful things of nature, and the same one who created families so we could be cared for and loved by fellow human beings. (Even if they fail us somehow, God is there to love and support us as he promised).
I won’t deceive any of my readers. Sometimes ‘tasting’ can be bitter, too. Following God is and has been the most difficult thing in my life to do because of various nightmare situations that have affected my family in recent years. To be honest it has rocked my faith in God to the core. As much as this is true, I have also been sustained through this because of him. As much as this sounds as a paradox, it is true even if it is a mystery. Somehow, throughout all my brokenness (and it is ongoing), my feet are still on the ground, my mind intact, and just a sense of him holding me up that I can’t explain even as I struggle, that he is carrying me through.
Has your heart been telling you, you need something more out of life? Have you ever said to yourself, ‘Is this all there is?’ Have you ever wondered if God was real, and is he even interested in you and in your struggles? The answer to this last question is a definite ‘yes.’ As was pointed out, God is real and loved you this much as he said in the Bible passage above.
Your part is to believe what he has said to you as stated before, and accept this knowledge as a gift from him. Just tell him you believe as you would talk to another person. He is that personal and real; one of the great differences between God and a person is that God is always with you and never leaves you when you belong to him, unlike a person who can leave or chooses to leave at any time.
‘Don’t be obsessed with getting more material things. Be relaxed with what you have. Since God assured us, ‘I’ll never let you down, never walk off and leave you,’ we can boldly quote,
God is there, ready to help;
I’m fearless no matter what.
Who or what can get to me?’ (Hebrews 13:5,6 The Message)
Does this sound like something you’d like to do? The invitation is open to anyone, no matter who you are or what you’ve done. That includes those who once knew God in a close way but have drifted away from him and want to return to him.
‘Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.’ (Revelation 3:20 NLT)
By opening the door of your life and tasting that meal as one would with a friend, you can take head knowledge of God and make it your heart knowledge. Feel free to email me at gloriawes@hotmail.com and I will be happy to get back to you.
