I suspect that God is Good.

A foray into the blatantly obvious.

God is good. You're probably thinking, duh... that's obvious. Or maybe you're dubious. The phrase rolls off my lips sort of like "amen" does, but it's funny how I can say something true without really knowing what the heck I'm talking about.

God is good. Maybe I'm totally alone on this, but we sometimes think that God is "good" sort of like the way medicine is "good" for us, or carrots are "good" for us. You know, the kind of "good" you don't really look forward to having more of. There's just something distasteful about medicine and carrots and for some reason, everything that turns out to be good for us.

And sometimes God's "goodness" is good only as a contrast to everything that we're not. It's easy to focus on our flaws, and if that's all we ever look at, then His goodness-- instead of being good and a delight-- becomes this constant, oppressive, overbearing reminder that we're broken, bent, and screwed up. Frankly, that kind of continual overbearing goodness isn't a lot of fun... and if that's all He was, maybe God isn't a lot of fun.

But I'm starting to suspect again that God is good in the way that really good food is good. Maybe it was the takeout seafood cioppino that I had in my hand when I was thinking this, but I deeply suspect that God is good the way a steaming bowl of pasta garnished with crab, mussels, scallops, and a light tomato base is good. Yeah, it does sound a little blasphemous... I'm actually comparing the I AM, the Holy Maker of the Universe, whose name the Israelites were afraid to utter because it was too reverent to come from human lips-- to a bowl of noodles. It's my weak grasping in trying to describe God's delight, the delight that we are made to savor. But it turns out that I'm not making all of this up.

"Taste and see that the LORD is good." - Psalm 34:8

You catch that? Scripture actually affirms that the LORD tastes good. It doesn't just command us to agree that God is good, or entertain lofty ideas of God's goodness in our heads, but it invites our senses to a goodness meant to be experienced. God's goodness has an enjoyable tang too real to be contained by mere theology in the way that a chocolate cake's goodness isn't in its recipe. His goodness assaults the senses of our souls and leaves no room for argument, the way you don't really have to think about how you really feel about that first moist bite of tiramisu. I think we can appreciate that kind of "good."

In case it looks like I'm making too much out of one verse, check this out:

"Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare." - Isaiah 55

There it is again. God calls us to delight in Him and on His word as the Richest of Fare. The most succulent, luxurious, and extravagant of feasts. We're not talking sprouts and carrots with a side of multivitamins here. We're talking a meal so rich that would make a dietician pale with horror and go into pancreatic shock.

" I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.
My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you." - Psalm 63

Seriously, how humble God is in allowing Himself to be compared with food, just so we can attempt to describe and get a tiny sense of his real and tangible goodness? I mean, it's a little like your dog thinking of you as the best bone he's ever chewed on. And God is the kind of good that would create the female body in all its glory and then invite a woman's husband to satisfy himself and drink of her beauty. It's almost scandalous. But again, not making this up:

"Eat, O friends, and drink; drink your fill, O lovers." -- Song of Solomon 5:1

Yes, God's goodness is a fearsome Holiness that makes men fall to their knees, trembling in worship. Yes, His goodness is so brilliant and unmarred that it exposes our sin, selfishness, and brokeness. And yes, His goodness is a goodness that is good for us and fills our every need. But recently, I'm starting to suspect that there's something really, simply, good about God again. A good we can fall in love with. Maybe it's no coincidence that wine and chocolate ads are always describing their product as "heavenly" and "divine", as if both they and we happen to know just what "divine" tastes like. As much as they're trying to describe the luxuriousness of their recreations, maybe they're trying to recapture that taste of God we've long misplaced.