Taste and See!

 When my daughter was very young, she refused to taste cheesecake, despite the fact that the rest of us were enjoying it greatly.  The very name put her off; surely something called "cheesecake" could not measure up to our testimony.  I think she suspected we might be trying to trick her into tasting something awful.  One day she decided to try the tiniest bite.  Until this day she is an afficiando.

I think many of us approach God in the same manner -- at an arm's distance.  We have heard from other people, including Jesus Christ, about the goodness of God, but we prefer to keep our knowledge of Him in our heads rather than to venture a "taste" of Him personally:

When the great masters of the Christian way speak of knowing God, they do not use the term in its distanced, analytical sense; they use it in the biblical sense, implying knowledge by way of personal intimacy.  This is why St. Bernard of Clairvaux, for one, insists that initiates in the spiritual life know God not simply through books and lectures but through experience, the way one friend knows another. That knowledge is what the Holy Spirit facilitates  (Bishop Robert Barron).

 Bishop Barron often compares God to a helicopter pilot hovering over our lives, searching for a landing place to enter.  Again, though, we tend to keep Him "up there," away from the daily affairs which we prefer to manage on our own, and with our own resources, limited though they be. If we but clear a space for Him, asking the Holy Spirit to guide both our prayer and our daily activity, we might be very surprised to learn that we actually love "cheesecake."

In the past few months, I have been placing all of my daily activities and concerns before the Lord each morning, inviting Him to "guide my feet into the way of peace."  I have always loved that prayer because I think of myself as the Lord described the Ninevites: not knowing their left hands from their right (Book of Jonah).  When I ask the Lord to "guide my feet," I am acknowledging that I don't (and won't) always figure things out very well in my head.  That is, I don't always need to know ahead of time the best plan for my day.  I am relying not on my own knowledge, but on His:  In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.

Here's the thing -- by "acknowledging" Him at the beginning of the day, I find myself listening less to the voice in my head (often confused and muddled) and more to the Spirit within.  I find myself leaning on Him to direct my activities --- and surprise, surprise!  Without my so-called "planning" and "scheduling," my days seem to flow easily, with tasks getting done smoothly, even those I had not planned to do.  Instead of feeling burdened by my work, I find myself energized in doing it.  In his book The Three Ordinary Voices of God,  Matthew Kelly says, Mental vitality leads to physical, emotional, and spiritual vitality. Everything in our lives begins as a thought.

One Sunday, I was working on a project at my desk.  But I had a headache that I was trying to ignore in order to finish what I was working on.  I paused for a moment and asked the Holy Spirit for direction.  Suddenly and without planning, I put the project aside and walked outside into my garden.  It was a beautiful day, and while walking around gazing at the plants, I realized that Sunday was the day I usually watered those plants under the overhang --- those that get no rain.  So I watered the plants and continued to enjoy the clear skies and soft breeze.  By the time I got back inside, my headache was gone and my 'burden' relieved.  I realized that Sunday was not the day to worry about finishing my project after all, and had I persisted in my own plans, the plants would not have gotten watered.

Day by day, I am experiencing that the Holy Spirit's plans for my life far outweigh my own in goodness and simplicity.  This is a rather simple way of "tasting" and "seeing" the Goodness of the Lord.  If  you try it, I think you'll like it!