Food for the Mud-Hole

Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Oh, fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing (Ps 34:8-10).

We can often be too bland and unfeeling in our descriptions of spiritual experience, but the Word of God is not so. Biblical Hebrew does not have a large vocabulary, at least not in comparison with Greek or English. Therefore, the authors of the Old Testament often use tangible language to express abstract ideas. This allows for a vividness that we often lack in our own native expression.

“Taste and see that the LORD is good!” David does not blandly say, “Experience and know the goodness of the LORD.” He uses tangible language that colors and intensifies the point. We do not eat our food with stoic impartiality. The experience of eating is filled with emotion. We love certain foods all the while despising others, and those things that we love, we crave and excitedly consume. Undoubtedly, some of the happiest moments of all of our lives have coincided with the experience of eating food. We fill our holiday celebrations with feasts. We follow our wedding ceremonies with catered receptions, and perhaps some of our fondest memories are simple meals shared around the family table after a long day at school or work.

David confidently believes that anyone who truly experiences—who indulges in—God will conclude that God is good. Furthermore, as we experience God’s goodness fully—taking our refuge in him and fearing him—then God’s goodness will overflow to every area of our lives. We will have “no lack” since in God we will find complete satisfaction. 

To further make the point, David contrasts “young lions” with “those who seek the LORD.” By “young lions,” David does not mean lion cubs. Instead, he is thinking of the adolescent lion who is in the prime of his strength and energy. Such powerful lions should be able to get whatever they desire. However, their brute strength fails them. They also “suffer want and hunger.” Spurgeon comments in The Treasury of David:

They are fierce, cunning, strong, in all the vigor of youth, and yet they sometimes howl in their ravenous hunger, and even so crafty, designing, and oppressing men, with all their sagacity and unscrupulousness, often come to want; yet simple minded believers, who dare not act as the greedy lions of earth, are fed with food convenient for them.

Relying on God like we rely on food will result in complete satisfaction. Those who have God lack no good thing for he is himself goodness while those who, like the lions, rely on their own strength will be found wanting.

This psalm irritates me. It irritates me because it convicts me. For some odd reason, I like wallowing in discouragement and self-pity. I like to think of myself as a victim to various needs. However, this psalm does not allow me to remain in my mud-hole of self-pity. Instead, it reminds me that I “lack no good thing.” 

I like to make the truth future tense: If I am seeking God, then I will lack no good thing. “So, God,” I say, “give me! Give me!” However, the truth is present tense: “those who fear him have no lack” already and “those who seek the LORD lack no good thing” already. Is our good God and Father capable of withholding anything good from his ever-needy children? Is he a negligent parent? No! So, in the midst of the trial, in the pain of our suffering, in our neediness, we must indulge in God. We must taste his goodness, and when we have consumed him, then we will realize anew that we are completely satisfied by the perfection of his care.