Your words are sweeter in my mouth than honey! (Psalms 119:103)
A cooking fire smoked up the inside of the dirt floored restaurant in Nigeria.
“What’s that?” I pointed at the morsels remaining in the serving bowl.
The Africans consulted one another about how to convey the answer in English. “The goat’s … testicles.”
As a missionary, I’ve been served all kinds of delicacies—caterpillars, chicken feet, fish eyes. Some of it went discreetly to a neighbor and some went into my mouth.
I recall a long day in Fiji when we finally got to eat raw sea urchins in lime juice and coconut milk. It was marvelous, like the strong food of royalty. Proof that when I get hungry enough, anything tastes good.
My hunger for God’s word operates the same way. When ease fills my life, prayer and Scripture often confuse and bore me. When my life is in the grip of trials, I fall to my knees and plant my face into every word from God. These appetite extremes only level out if I admit that the ongoing pettiness in my heart means I need to ingest grace every day.
Jesus said he is the bread of life because we need bread anew each day. Yesterday’s portion no longer fills me. I’m famished for new grace, fresh words from him, today.
Ahh, the sweet word of God. When sin’s guilt gnaws in my gut, nothing is more delicious than spooning one of David’s psalms about forgiveness into my mouth. Or when I’ve felt a void of direction and God pushes just the right message from the letters of Paul or the red inked words of Jesus past my lips, nothing else satiates. Whatever hunger attacks, Father holds out the comb dripping with the amber honey of his truth spoken to me.
Prayer: Sustaining Jesus, may I taste your words today.