Taste

 Oh, TASTE (sense, perceive)

and SEE (enjoy, experience, consider, look)

that YHVH is GOOD (beautiful, beneficial, choice, delightful, pleasing, sound, worthy, pure, sweet, best, gracious, handsome)

How blessed (happy)

is the one who seeks refuge (shelter, protection) 

in Him.

This morning, the Word spoke again: Anyone who "takes medicine" is agreeing that what is consumed or put into the body affects it.

When you go out to a restaurant and thirty minutes later you are puking and have diarrhea, you automatically assume that "something I ate was not good." This is acute cause and effect. Why, when the effect is cumulative and chronic, do we not assume the same? 

We have a couple chickens named "the fasties". They are light brown leghorns and lay white eggs. When they were young, we noticed how fast they moved compared to the other chicks. They were nicknamed "big fastie" and "little fastie". One day I joked that I should feed my son a couple "fastie" eggs and then he could be fast with his school. I know that's not how it works, it was a joke. But the reality that what we consume becomes a part of us is real. 

A couple weeks ago, I noticed I was going straight from tasting to swallowing. The Word described that hearing is to taste, ruminating is to chew, swallowing is to agree and how it affects the body is obedience. Good Things cleanse the body even as they provide energy to it. Nothing that is incomplete can do this.

We have all these separated ideas, that we can consume what appeals to our tastes, and escape the natural consequence of death that happens with lack of cleansing, and the lack of nourishment from the missing parts of disintegrated food. 

How is this reconcilable? We consume medication because it hijacks the natural processes to disintegrate us from our unwholeness, admitting that what we are putting in will do something.

If the Word speaks everything we need for life, and Who Life Is is complete, does not that give us a hint as to what submission of the body looks like? What if we EAT THE WORD in each form He has (since the beginning) provided: listening to the Word, receiving His pleasure, eating what is of Life? Will we not receive a life that is complete and lacks no Good Thing?

"And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you. Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live."

Romans 8:11-13

    Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.

Romans 6:12

How can we both believe in the "power" of medicine and not believe in the effects of what we consume on a daily basis?

Think about the sweetness part of "Good". We are made to crave sweetness. If that integral design is intended for the purpose of tasting and seeing that HE IS GOOD, then isn't it unfaithfulness to apply this appetite separate from the Word? Think of honey. What is truly Good is alive. Honey is the only sugar product out there that is not disintegrated; maple is cooked, sucanat is dry, blackstrap is separated from its' components...there is something really special about honey. It is alive. It does not mold. It is hydrated and hydrates. It can overcome pathogens with its life. And yet...

"If you find honey, eat just enough— too much of it, and you will vomit."
Proverbs 25:16

Proverbs is full of His wisdom. This is a word about appetite and consumption.

Be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat, for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and slumber will clothe them with rags.
Proverbs 23:20-21

Cause and effect. What you consume is responsible for your life or death. This theme is laced throughout scripture. I challenge you to receive it, and live.

Bear in mind: the body isn't the only thing that consumes. The mind is always looking for something to consume. It is very evident that not many in the world have the capacity to direct the mind's appetite; this is addiction. It is no different to be addicted to your phone than soda. Both are products of unwholeness, lack of satiety.

I'm sure this is redundant. It is also powerful. He doesn't reiterate anything we don't need to hear...and if Israel is any indication, we are in CONSTANT need of refreshing this particular instruction.

"Do not look at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. In the end it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder."

Proverbs 23:31-32

To let the Spirit give Life to you mortal body is to submit all appetites to their intended purpose-Integral Word.

Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.

Isaiah 55:2 NIV

So what does "taking refuge" have to do with tasting? I am contemplating that to be delivered from the destructiveness of our appetite, we need to be filled up in Him. To take refuge in Him, to apply (appropriate/render) the attention and desire to intimacy with Him, is to receive refuge from the disintegration, the corruption that is in the world from human desire.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Romans 12:2 NIV