There’s nothing like left-over turkey to taste and see that the Lord is good.

Last week, most of us were reminded of the things we’re grateful for. Some families took turns going round the Thanksgiving table, each one naming the people, places, or experiences they’ve valued most. 

We should do it more often, even daily. Because when we do, we’re likely to think more broadly about how God made the world, and how He made us to live full, fun, and satisfying lives in it. Such thoughts would magnify our sense of wonder; they’d arouse a keener sense of purpose and make us more grateful every day. 

Look at Genesis 2:15-17, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’”

Think about how extravagantly God cares for our physical needs. “Every tree of the garden” —with one temporary exception — was made for us. What must that have been like for Adam, witnessing for the first time the splendor of the world — seeing, touching, tasting, and smelling the oranges, apples, and lemons; the blueberries and strawberries; the peaches, plums, and pears. 

Try to imagine God resting a hand on Adam’s shoulder as He gave Adam the grand tour of the world’s first garden. “Wait until you bite into the fruit of that orange tree,” He might have said. “I can’t wait to see the look on your face when you taste that fig. And in the years to come, be sure to sample all of them; I’ve made 700 varieties of fig trees. You see that red thing? That’s an apple. It doesn’t taste anything like a fig, but you’re going to love it. And Adam, there are more than 7,5000 varieties. I want you to cultivate and enjoy all of them. Over there, those are peaches. In the next hundred years or so, you’ll discover more than 2,000 variations. And one day, your descendants will figure out how turn them into pancakes, pies, and cobbler. Those greenish-yellow things: bananas. In time you’ll come across 1,600 types. Can you believe it?   

“All this is for you,” God might have said, “and I expect you to come up with new recipes and figure out how to make jams, juices, and puddings. I expect you to eat, smell, touch, and enjoy every bit of what I’ve made. I created it for you and created you for it.” 

The glory of God … is communicated in a million ways, including biscuits slathered in melted butter, sweet potato casseroles, and pecan pies topped with whipped cream.

We see it each Thanksgiving, how our mothers and grandmothers have discovered new ways to share God’s extravagant goodness with our gathered families. Theologian Joe Rigney takes this further, making the point that “the creation of food, tongues, and the human digestive system is the product of God’s infinite wisdom knitting the world together in a harmonious whole.” The glory of God, he explains, is communicated in a million ways, including biscuits slathered in melted butter, sweet potato casseroles, and pecan pies topped with whipped cream.

But all this, as good and gracious as it is, points to something more, Rigney says. These tastes and sensations — our physical hunger and thirst — have a spiritual flipside. Consider, for example, that because we’ve all run, played an outdoor sport, and pulled weeds in the hot summer sun, we know what it means to be thirsty. And though we’ve never faced the threat of famine, we may have missed a meal or two and felt the mild ache of a hunger pang. 

We can see then how, by God’s design and purpose, those physical sensations allow us to grasp Jesus’ great promise, “Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). 

We can understand that it is by God’s wisdom and according to His grand scheme for us and the world, that because we’ve savored the sweetness of pecan pie, we can also, “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8).

Our physical needs provide spiritual insight, Rigney says. Without those 750 kinds of figs and 7,500 varieties of apples — and the fact that they’re beautiful, delicious, and satisfying — we’d be fumbling for language and metaphors to help us grasp this invisible but very real realm of human life. 

God created us to be hungry and thirsty so that we might see how abundantly He satisfies every need. So, with the last of the turkey sandwiches and warmed-up beans and reheated potatoes, let’s taste and see how good He really is.