Taste and See

📖 Psalm 34:8 MSG
“Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see—how good God is. Blessed are you who run to him.”

There are some things in life you cannot understand from a distance.

You can read about them.
You can hear others describe them.
You can study them carefully.

But until you experience them for yourself, they remain secondhand.

Psalm 34:8 is not abstract poetry.

It is an invitation.

“Open your mouth and taste.”
“Open your eyes and see.”

Notice the participation.
God does not demand observation. He invites encounter.

This verse awakens the senses.

Taste.
Sight.
Movement.
Running toward Him.

Faith is not meant to be watched from afar. It is meant to be experienced.

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Faith Is Meant to Be Tasted

You don’t taste cautiously. You taste intentionally.

When you put something in your mouth, you allow it to become part of you. You trust it enough to receive it.

That is intimacy with God.

Not standing back analyzing Him.
Not living off someone else’s testimony.
But allowing His Word to nourish your heart.
Allowing His presence to steady your spirit.
Allowing His goodness to sustain you.

Many of us have heard that God is good.

But have we tasted it?

Have we slowed down enough to recognize how He carried us through what should have crushed us?
Have we traced the quiet alignment of circumstances that we once thought were coincidence?
Have we acknowledged that some doors closing were protection, not punishment?

Taste requires nearness.

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The Table: A Literal Taste and See

There is one sacred moment in our faith where “taste and see” becomes beautifully literal.

The Last Supper.

When Jesus gathered with His disciples, He did not simply give them words. He gave them something to receive.

“Take and eat; this is my body.”
“Drink from it, all of you.” (Matthew 26:26–27 NIV)

They saw the bread.
They saw the cup.
They touched it.
They tasted it.

Holy Communion is participation, not observation.

It is the embodied reminder that God does not remain distant from us. He entered flesh. He became tangible. He allowed Himself to be broken and poured out.

Every time we approach the table, Psalm 34:8 echoes quietly:

Open your mouth.
Taste.
See.

Communion is the celebration of what happened at the Last Supper — but it is also the declaration that God’s goodness is not theoretical. It is given. It is received. It lives in us.

We physically taste.
And spiritually, we are reminded that Christ lives through us.

Faith becomes something we partake in — not something we merely talk about.

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Faith Is Meant to Be Seen

“Open your eyes and see.”

Seeing requires awareness.

Sometimes we pray for dramatic miracles while overlooking daily mercy.

The breath in our lungs.
The peace that steadied us when we expected panic.
The strength that surfaced when we thought we had none left.

When we open our eyes intentionally, we begin to see that God has been interacting with us all along.

Personally.
Faithfully.
Consistently.

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Run to Him

“Blessed are you who run to him.”

This is movement.

Children run toward safety.
We run toward what we trust.

If we truly believe God is good, our instinct shifts from retreat to pursuit.

The blessing is not for the flawless.
It is for the ones who run.

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The Invitation

Psalm 34:8 engages the whole person.

Our senses.
Our awareness.
Our trust.
Our movement.

You do not have to understand everything about God to experience His goodness.

You simply have to open.

Open your mouth.
Open your eyes.
Run toward Him.

And you will discover that God is not only good in theory —

He is good in experience.

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Journal Prompts

1. When was the last time I truly slowed down enough to “taste” God’s goodness instead of rushing past it?
2. What might God be showing me right now that I’ve overlooked?
3. What does participating in Communion mean to me personally?
4. In this season, what would it look like for me to run toward God instead of managing things on my own?

Leona