When I’m asked if I like some kind of food our hosts are planning on serving, my favorite response has been, “Yes, if it’s called food, I like it.” That statement is mostly true. I have eaten some strange, unusual and even odd foods over the years and truthfully, most of them I have liked.
When you’ve lived in multiple states and visited or lived in other countries, you are bound to encounter a lot of different foods along the way. I have practiced a philosophy about foods that says, “If people say it is good, there is probably a good reason why. Therefore, I’m going to try it and see if I agree.”
Now, in truth, I haven’t liked everything I’ve tried. Raw herring eggs and seal meat are not on my list of greatly desirable foods. Those two foods probably won’t fall in the area of common everyday foods you’re going to encounter. I doubt if most of you will come upon the chance to try them anywhere in the near future. But there are some more common foods that I can say I don’t like them either. Some, but not a lot.
I don’t like anchovies or sardines. As a child, I was like most children and had an aversion to vegetables. Every time mom cooked vegetable soup, I would groan and struggle through the meal. I probably ate more crackers crumbled into the soup than the soup itself.
One of the fruits I never really liked was bananas. I don’t like bananas in fruit salad, jello, cakes, cookies, or bread. I don’t like banana flavoring in things, but I do like Abba Zaba candy bars. Go figure that one. But when we moved to Brazil and encountered fresh bananas, especially the little short ones, I did like them. Crazy!
While I do like most foods, a few don’t like me. I like walnuts, but they cause sores in my mouth and, recently, they have begun to create allergic reactions in me. Cashew nuts have always made me feel a little sick at my stomach and caused me headaches. I discovered in studying cashew reactions that people who have tendencies toward migraine headaches have problems with cashews because they constrict blood vessels in the brain. Also, cucumbers make me burp – constantly – even the burpless ones.
One food I’ve never heard anyone say they didn’t like is honey. It is healthy. It is a great sweetener, and it is delicious. That is interesting because of what we encounter in the Bible. The land promised by God to the Israelites was to be a land flowing with “milk and honey” – meaning a land that was good, productive, wholesome, and pleasant. Psalm 19 says that “The Law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul … more to be desired than gold … sweeter also than honey.” (Verses 7, 10). Psalm 119:103 says, “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey in my mouth.”
The Bible, its words, its instructions are like honey in our mouths. It is something good, healthy, wholesome, and pleasant in its sweetness when we learn to love it and take it in as the principles of life for which we live.
For me, when someone asks if I like honey, or if I like the word of God, I can wholeheartedly say “Yes, I like it!” And really mean it!
– Just a Thought Dale Fillmore is lead pastor at New Day Church.
