Turkey bacon is a lie of the devil.
Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit. But for a big guy who loves to eat, something about it just seems deceptive. And we all know Satan is the father of all lies, right? I mean, it looks like real bacon, it even smells like real bacon a bit. However, the taste gives it away for what it truly is…strips of putrid, tasteless turkey masquerading as glorious bacon!
Yes, God is great and God is good. But I may not thank Him for my food if you try to trick me with fake bacon (or “FAKON” for short)!
Oh, I know there are those of you who would argue that it tastes just as good. You would no doubt tell me how much longer I’d live if I gave up “true bacon” for the deceptive turkey impostors.
But why live if your quality of life contains no bacon?
I do know a great guy in my church, Barry, who’s given up all meat and dairy. He’s lost so much weight and looks so healthy. My warning to Barry is while I may die sooner, I am designating him to carry my coffin at my burial.
HA! That’ll kill him for sure!
Of all our senses, taste is the most intimate. You can sniff around food, you can look at it and even touch it. But until you taste it, you can’t know if it’s the real thing or just a deceptive wanna-be. Only when you commit and make that glorious pork product a part of you can you tell just how good it is.
I have another good friend who’s not a Christian. Sometimes when he knows I’m listening, he’ll drop a couple of Bible verses on me in the course of a conversation. He’ll flash a quick smile at me. I smile back at least with the satisfaction he does know some of God’s Word.
We both know why he does it. He’s letting me know he’s not ignorant of what I believe. He’s seen it but wants no part of it, thank you very much. He’s stating in his own friendly, good-natured way, “I’ve tried a little of your God, and He’s not for me. Thanks, but no thanks.”
If I were going to call his bluff, I would point him to Psalm 34. In that chapter, David exclaims, “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good!” Doesn’t sound like much of powerful argument to you? You need to look closer…
My buddy’s problem is he’s never really tasted what he’s talking about. Notice what David didn’t say. He didn’t say, “Oh LOOK and see”. He didn’t suggest, “Oh LISTEN and see”. Maybe that’s because much of what we see and hear masquerading as “God” today is little more than turkey bacon, mixed with a lot of bologna.
Tasting is a big risk, because once you’ve put food in your mouth, you can get really sick if it’s spoiled. Have you ever pulled out a carton of milk from the fridge, poured a glass and drank it only to spit it out because it had turned sour? Nothing’s more disgusting. I’ll bet your face even cringed as I described it!
My point is that to taste something, you’ve got to be “all in”. Without taking that risk, you can’t expect to experience just how good something is.
But I know lots of people who are unwilling to take that risk. They even pop by my church sometimes, hoping for “just a whiff” of God. They sniff around the place oh so cautiously, they watch people worship, they listen to the message – anything but committing themselves “whole hog” (pardon the pun). It makes me sad when some walk away unchanged. But you can’t just sniff around the things of God and expect anything to happen. It’s all or nothing.
Claude Williams was my brother-in-law and African-American. But first and foremost, he was my friend. Claude loved people and was always looking for opportunities to help them. My favorite memory of him was when we were visiting family in East Tennessee. He was joking one day about how “white” I am, which was typical of how we’d pick at each other.
Then he blurted out, “I’ll bet you even ate mayonnaise sandwiches when you were a kid!” That was a pretty low blow. “You probably don’t even know what a ham hock is, Gipson!” Suddenly, Claude was determined to make an “honorary Black Man” out of me. I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but Claude told me to just get in the car and trust him.
Claude drove us over to the East side of Knoxville. If you’ve ever been there, you’d know this is the side of town with the largest concentration of African-American people. That didn’t make me uncomfortable since my family and friends have always been pretty multicultural. What did make me uncomfortable was the look of the hole-in-the-wall restaurant where Claude finally parked the car. While I’m a fan of food, I’m not a fan of food poisoning. But I assumed Claude had eaten here before and survived, so hopefully I would too!
When I opened the front door, a truck-load of smells hit me square in the face, all of them pretty amazing. We got our trays and slid them along a metal guide just like in a school cafeteria. I tried hard to distinguish what was being served up behind the grease-smeared glass barrier covering the food. There were several things that I did not recognize.
I’m not ashamed to say I passed on anything with the words “jowls”, “feet”, or “pickled” in the title.
However, I did recognize fried chicken. Fresh, crispy, gloriously golden fried chicken! Then I saw some green beans that had completely surrendered their original flavoring to the hunk of ham nestled in their midst. I imagined it was like a pork diamond crowning an ornate jewelry setting of beans. And the ribs were of such a supple, sensuous nature that to describe them would be out of character for a reputable book of this kind.
Then there was my favorite – banana pudding! This was not a newly-minted right out of the fridge pudding. Instead, it was the kind that had been around a day or so. This may not sound important to the neophytes out there, but the experienced eaters know. It is only after the first day of creation that the vanilla wafers start to become the slightest bit mushy. It is at this pivotal moment they begin to disintegrating and become one with the pudding.
Much like fine wine, banana pudding must be allowed to age before consuming. (If you’re a Baptist, just try to ignore what I said about the wine)
By the end of the meal, we were both covered in food. It wasn’t our fault. There was no way to eat it daintily. The BBQ sauce, the chicken grease, the pudding was either on our faces or our clothes…or both. When I arrived home, my wife looked at me, smelled me, and then said, “Where in the world have you two been?” We literally reeked of that soul food restaurant. According to Claude, I’d just returned from my own culinary Bar Mitzvah!
This, my friends, is what tasting God – the real God – is like.
He’s not something you enjoy without Him getting all over you. No cute little Wet Wipe will remove the smell of Him out of your life.
No discouragement from this world can take the smile off your face when you’ve been with Him. Because when you have truly TASTED of Him, you can’t hide it!
And if you’ve ever experienced that celestial soul food, there’s no way you can deny its many splendors. Just the mention it and your salivary glands start working reflexively. Your nostrils flare in anticipation of the scent. Your fingers tingle as the grease drips from them!
If you’ve every truly tasted of Him, my friend, then you KNOW He is good!
But a casual Christian that just sniffs around the Lord’s table and never commits to Him completely? That person knows nothing of God’s goodness. They may have been in His vicinity, they may have seen the after-effects of His presence.
But to really know Him, you have to take a risk! You have to commit and taste to know He’s good!
It’s been a little over two years now since Claude was killed by a drunk driver. Claude was always looking for ways to help other people. How fitting that his last act was to pull over and try to help a motorist stalled in the middle of traffic.
But my unbelieving friend might argue, “How can you say God is good when there is so much wrong in the world?” What about the tragedy of Claude losing his life so early? What about his widow and three sons?
I never said, “Life is good”. Life is hard, and it’s often filled with injustice, selfishness and evil. Bad people often prosper, while godly people struggle. Quite often, like stinks.
No my friend, life is not always good. But God is!
Despite all the evil around us, knowing God and experiencing Him working in your life does in fact make it all worthwhile. I’m still amazed at how in the midst of trials, Christians are the ones who find joy in their sorrows and peace in their prisons. They experienced first-hand the goodness of God and the privilege of knowing Him, and that makes all the pain worthwhile.
God never promised us a “good life”. Jesus said bluntly, “In the world, you will have trouble.” But thank God, He also said “He has overcome the world”. The goodness is not living this life. The goodness is “knowing Him”through this life.
When Claude died, we were away from our home in Florida. We had moved half way across the country and I was struggling to lead an inner-city church in the Midwest. Though things were going ok, I felt I was wasting my time. I had a secure income but didn’t seem to be accomplishing anything of spiritual value.
As I attended Claude’s funeral, I wondered what I would have accomplished if it was me that had just died. Was I giving myself for the greatest good, or just holding onto a steady paycheck and a prestigious position? The answer dogged me for the next month until I shocked my church by resigning.
The result was we headed back home to Florida, to the same city we’d left behind just a few years before. We had no promise of a job or paycheck, but we knew God was leading us. And we trusted He wouldn’t lead us astray.
Why? Because we believed our God is good. From taking that risk, God proved us right.
If you want to experience the goodness of God, you’ll have to let God take the wheel. He may want to drive you to some places you’ve never known before. The surroundings may not always look promising. But if you let Him steer, He’ll show you where the real soul food is! And once you’ve tasted it, nothing else will compare. You’ll keep going back again and again for just one more taste.
Even out of something horrible God can bring something good. He specializes in trading beauty for ashes, and dancing for mourning. In fact, He does some of His best work in graveyards.
Some people may look at Christianity from the outside like I looked at that soul food restaurant. They think there’s nothing to it, but just one bite would prove otherwise.
But don’t take my word on it. Taste for yourself and see just how good my God is! Because the proof’s in the pudding.
The banana pudding, that is.
