Saturday, October 17, 2009

30 Days of Tasting

Day 30

This is it! The final day of our 30 Days of Tasting! But stay tuned—Brent Bill and I are inviting you to join us in our next sensory experience, beginning 10/20—30 Days of Seeing. I will write more about this in the next day or two.

As I look back over this experiment, it has been a wonderful exercise in becoming more aware of God through my sense of taste. Taste is a unique sense. It involves more than perception—it also entails ingestion. What we take in with our sense of taste doesn’t stay outside us but is received into our bodies for the purpose of nourishing our bodies so that we can work, play, love and be.

In the same way, as we taste the goodness of God and draw near to his presence, it isn’t an end in itself. Drawing close to God is the sweetest, most satisfying union of all. The impact of that bond is not merely to encounter Jesus. It’s so that we are transformed to become the person he created us to be and live an authentic life of love toward others.

I resonate with the way Robert Mulholland describes the outcome when we root ourselves in God. In his book, The Deeper Journey, Mulholland writes, “The root of our new nature is a radical abandonment to God in love in the depths of our heart, and the fruit is a radical availability to God for others.” As we taste God in our world and become more aware of his presence, we become available to be moved by God toward others and the meaningful work he has called us to do.

I can look back over the last 30 days and see how my greater attentiveness to God has inspired movement. He prompted me to initiate with an old friend whose life is in turmoil. In a conversation with a stranger, I was aware of loving her and interested to share my own spiritual story. As I went about my day, I prayed more frequent prayers of availability to God, asking him what he wanted of me. It really did help me live closer to God by isolating the sense of taste.

At this point in my 30-year journey with Christ, my greatest longing is to live consistently from my true self in him. I am far from being consistent. But I know that life becomes an adventure when I live in God for the sake of the world. When I do, I am living the life for which I was created.

I hope you will you join us, beginning Tuesday, October 20 for our 30 Days of Seeing. It just might be the adventure you have been looking for!

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