Common Senses That Will Build Your Faith

** O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. ** Psalm 34:8

My first thought on this verse is ….what goes around, comes around….or you reap what you sow.

David tells us in verse 1 of Psalm 34, that he will bless the LORD at all time….which he seems to have truly done. And now, in verse 8, we see that the man that trusts in the Lord is blessed by the Lord.

We bless God, He blesses us. Quid pro quo, right?

My second thought is …taste and see…okay, that is not living by faith. That is living by our senses.

So, why does the Lord say this through David?

Well, I ‘happened’ to be reading Psalm 116 before I worked on this post. The Psalmist talks about how the Lord delivers him from trouble and hears his prayer to be rescued. Then there is a pause, a space, time has passed and now the author says that he is helped by the Lord. He is at rest again. The trouble is over. The Lord has dealt bountifully, and abundantly with him.

You see, we FEEL our problems. We hurt, we worry, we are blind with fear. Some problems are so overwhelming that we want to throw up from the pain or the sorrow. Our troubles affect us physically.

So, when the Lord delivers us from them, the goodness that comes from Him is just as tangible, and felt, as the pain was. We feel the anguish and then we feel the victory. We ‘see’ what the Lord has done for us, we ‘taste’ his goodness to us in tangible ways….

We eat at a full table after a season of scarcity. We see our children grown and maturing past the problems we went through with them as teens. We see the results. We see the fruit of God’s Word.

We see someone come to Christ and we see the changes that the Lord is doing in them.

And all this ‘seeing’ builds and strengthens our faith.

Remember, faith is not just believing. Faith is also trusting.

We need. We ask. We believe. We see the answer. We trust.

Our stronger faith makes us happy and blessed.

Because we know that He can do it again. Our faith is ready for the next problem.

Raising 4 children in a foreign country was stressful. Money was tight MANY times. For the first 5 years we could not legally work. Prayer was our only resource. But each time we put our needs before the Lord, He answered. EVERY TIME. And, many times He answered without our even asking. I learned that He was more real than I realized. And I learned to trust Him more after every answer.

Today, we still have needs, although our children all have their own families. We all do. None of us have a perfect life.

But, now, my prayer is not out of desperation, it is out of knowledge that ‘my God WILL supply all our needs’. I believe and know that He will, because I SAW Him do it over and over again. I TRUST Him to be the same yesterday, today and forever.

So, using our 5 common senses IS faith. They enhance the experience of trials and victories. Otherwise, the Lord would have an army of robots.

Go ahead and be afraid. Go ahead and worry. Put that fear and worry in the Lord’s Hands. And wait a little while. Then FEEL the victory when He delivers you and the fear and worry disappear.