People who know me know that I like fruit. I love fruit, but that has not always been the case. When I was young I mainly liked sodas and candy. But now! Wow! What a difference a few (many) years make. I try to eat healthy and have developed a taste for many healthy foods. And I really like fruit now, especially bananas, grapefruit and papaya.
I have loved bananas ever since I was a kid. I especially love them when they have ripened on the stalk. They seem to get sweeter and sweeter. I have been known to stop on questionable roads late at night upon arrival in Africa on the way to the hotel and buy bananas. They are so sweet, and my appetite for them has grown over the years.
I used to hate grapefruit. I tried it and did not like it. They were way too tart for me. And I thought that only old people ate those! But for some reason in the last few years something has changed, and I now love them. They are refreshing and sweet to me.
I developed a taste for Papaya in Tanzania when we lived on the coast. It can be incredibly tasty (Christopher Columbus called papaya the “fruit of the angels”). Papaya is also super healthy (Google it). Many people don’t like it however, because of its texture and sometimes taste. I have to admit, it’s hard to get a good papaya around here. And that’s the problem with many fruits. If you don’t get the right type or eat it at the right time you might taste it once and think that all of them are bad.
Why all this talk about fruit? Has this turned into a health blog??? There is a verse in Psalm 34 about tasting. “Taste and see that the Lord is good;” When I think of how deliciously sweet the above fruits are to me and how much I like them, how much much more is the sweetness of our God. When David wrote this verse, he was referring to the God he had come to know and trust. But in the Old Testament, God had yet to reveal himself fully. How much more true is this verse now since God became flesh in Jesus and dwelled amount us? John said, “We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and only,” and “ From the fullness of his grace we have received one blessing after another.” (John 1: 14, 16). Jesus is sweet and we want people to taste Him, read about him, listen to him, meditate on who he is and what he has done and is doing. Taste and see that he is good! But, sometimes people react differently when they taste.
Like me and the grapefruit, I am sad to say that some people taste Jesus and do not like him in the beginning. It might be their frame of mind or they might hear a twisted version of who he is, and they don’t like it. But God is patient and loving. Down the line, they might taste him again, so we don’t lose hope or give up on anyone.
Other times it’s like me and papayas. My taste for them developed and then when I found the right one I started really loving them. Jesus is that way for some. They have heard something about him but not enough to really love him. I believe there are millions like this in the world. They have yet to taste the real Jesus. They are just waiting to taste the sweetest thing that could be eaten, the one that gives the ultimate satisfaction.
Finally, many of us are like me and my desire for sweet African bananas. We have been tasting Jesus for a long time and loved him from the beginning. Even better, He gets sweeter and sweeter as we get to know him, and we want more. That’s the way it is supposed to be. And when that happens we actually become one of the greatest ways that others get a taste of Jesus. They taste us!
