In the Christmas Holidays I took my sons to Canberra to watch the Australian women’s cricket team play the English womens side. While we were in Canberra, on a friend’s recommendation, we went to an all you can eat buffet. Now it’s been a while since we had been to something like this and it was interesting as we discussed our buffet optimisation strategy. One son said, stay away from the deep fried cheap stuff until you get your money’s worth. One said, let’s eat as much expensive stuff as we can as they looked for prawns and sushi, while one just loaded his plate with ribs and another patron walked past with plate after plate of watermelon. My strategy was to sample, have a small taste of most things before deciding what I wanted to go back for a more substantial amount of. In the end we all left satisfied from differing approaches.
This reminds me of the memory verse we had at school last week which was from Psalm 34:8 “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” This verse presents a challenge, an opportunity or a strategy if you will to try God out, to sample his word, his promises, his reality even, before deciding if and where you are going to dive into a lasting, meaningful relationship with God and His son Jesus.
In 2017, a group of people connected to our school went on the second mission trip to Fiji to engage in Prison and some school ministry. This was an amazing experience. We were able to be a blessing and also to be blessed as we fellowshipped with local Fijians and inmates in low, medium and max security prisons in Suva. The opportunity came about because Mrs Naqau’s brother had been in the prison ministry for almost 2 decades and also because our school and church community had maintained a ministry sending prison Bibles to the people in prison there.
Before we went, Mrs Pepper, a late friend and former teacher at PCS, was given a verse by God as our mission trip verse; which was Psalm 34:8. Since we were sharing the ESV prison Bible, Mrs Pepper was led to the verse in that Bible where it reads “Give God an opportunity to show you how good he is”. Same verse, different version but same message. Take a sample, give God a try and you will be wanting to go back for all you can eat.
So go ahead, taste…. and see, Give God a chance to show you that He is good.
After you have tasted, go ahead and enjoy all you can eat!
Have a great week.
Mr Drew