Hello everyone! I hope that you enjoyed your Thanksgiving celebrations. I did, that for sure. My husband and I were honored to eat two different feasts, each with lots of family and friends around the table. We are truly blessed!

          I am not sure about you, but I kept myself from eating a big breakfast and skip having lunch. I did this just so that I would have room to eat all the delicious foods.

          It is easy for me to recall those two days. My mouth waters as I remember the aroma of fall spices float throughout the house, as the pies were being pulled out of the oven and set aside to cool.  And my tummy rumbles as I imagine the white gooeyness bubble as the homemade mac and cheese is perfected in the oven.

          My husband and I are making healthier choices with what we eat, but we both knew we would make exceptions. So, I permitted myself to experience the flavors that would be offered to me during the festivities, without guilt.

          I wanted to taste everything nicely displayed on the banquet table. I planned to put small servings of each type of food on my plate. But of course, I couldn’t fit everything on my dish – so I figure I would go back for the things I didn’t get the first time.

          Do you think I was successful?

          Nope! It didn’t happen, darn it! And I won’t see some of those dishes for another year; I was genuinely disappointed that I didn’t get to taste those flavors in my mouth.

          Truthfully though, there is no way a person can truly experience each choice of food at one sitting. Or throughout the day for that matter. It would be too overwhelming, and we would probably feel very uncomfortable.

Are we not indeed a blessed people to have such grand meals available for our picking?

          We were able to get home a day early to give us time to breathe before starting the workweek. It is nice to see the extended family, but it is always lovely to come home. The following morning I got to enjoy quiet moments in my office with Papa God.

          During this time, He led me on a journey. Reading through the lines of my devotional, I pause and ponder what is stirring in my thoughts. These thoughts lead me looking up scripture. Sometimes I read a verse or two; sometimes, it is a chapter or more. I stop to contemplate what I read, then, the arousing in my heart guides me to read a blog post from 2017, that leads me to something I wrote in my journal a week and a half earlier.

          “Oh, my goodness!” I said, “Lord, I love how you feed me bite sizes of encouragement that keeps feeding me. Not like the Thanksgiving banquet table where I could not even eat all that is offered. It is these little bite-size morsels that draw me to look for more each day.”

          Then it was dropped in my thoughts: Taste and see that I am good Georgia – and my joy grows as I get to experience you, as much as your joy grows when you experience me. Continue to taste.

Psalm 34:8 TLT

Taste and see that the Lord is good.
Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him

          I was in a bible study when we lived in Tenennesse, and there were a few lines that remind me of an ‘experience’ I had with Papa God a year earlier when we lived in Michigan.

The lines read:

God’s goodness is beyond our ability to comprehend, but not our ability to experience. Our hearts will take us where our heads can’t fit. Understanding is vital, but it often comes through experiencing God. [Bill Johnson: God is Good].

          I started interceeding more specifically when I ran in Michigan — often praying for the business in the community where we lived. I would listen and see how the Holy Spirit wanted me to pray. One day I said: “I pray everyone in my community will experience you, Lord God.”

          Then this question was dropped in my heart: “What do you think, other people, think when you make that statement?”

          Ah! I realized that most people think that if they experience God, they will experience His judgment. A lot of people don’t understand God’s heart and think that HE is sitting on His Throne just waiting for us to mess up to give Him more reason to punish us.

          I use to think that way. I loved my earthly father [he has been deceased for over 20 years now], but there were occasions us kids were afraid of him. He would get so angry. And often his anger would turn into an uncontrollable rage. So naturally, I thought that is how  ‘Father’ God would react to me: multiplied by 100 [because he is God].

          That reason alone was why I would be afraid to seek Him. I was comparing God to my dad. Over the years, individuals would ‘tell’ me that God is loving, and that I have value just because I am me. But I didn’t believe them. I felt that it was just a generic thing that Christians would say to people. It wasn’t until I genuinely ‘tasted’ His goodness and was able to ‘see’ His perception of who I am that I felt I could even talk [pray] with [to] Him.

          Tasting His goodness changed the way I ‘interacted’ with the world around me, rather than ‘reacting.’ I am so thankful for the bite-size experiences with Him; it is what I look forward to each morning.

          What about you? Have you tasted God’s goodness? Have you experienced this great love he has for you?