“Taste and see that the Lord is good. How happy is the person who takes refuge in him!” (Psalm 34:8)
I’m not going to lie.
I love brisket.
It’s a thick, tender, falling apart on the plate, bathing in its juices, beefy delight.
It’s truly one of my favorite main dishes. An eleven-pound brisket slow-cooked for eighteen hours on my pellet grill graces my table throughout the year, especially when I host church fellowship times. I’m getting a reputation.
In case you don’t know, brisket is one of the nine beef primal cuts and is located in the cow’s lower chest just above and between the forelegs, depending on the cut. What’s impressive is that brisket isn’t even the finest cut of beef from a bovine. Because of where it’s situated on the cow, the muscle is interlaced with collagen connective tissues, which make the meat tough. It takes a long time of continuous heat and moisture to break those fibers down until the meat falls apart when you look at it.
Hungry yet?
So was I. That is until my friend walked through the door just now with a brisket feast from Mission Barbecue here in Naples, Florida. Mission Barbecue is so tasty. You can find them across the United States. Check them out sometime (Mission-bbq.com/locations-and-menu).
Know what’s better than brisket? Free brisket. Yessiree, my friend already paid for it and handed it to me.
My brisket repast derailed what I was going to write today, and I decided to opine in another direction based on my lunch. Let me testify to you why I like brisket so much.
Brisket is delicious. The word delicious means “delightful to the senses, pleasing in the highest degree.” When I opened the proffered black clam-shell lunch container and saw the meat strips piled in that glorious heap, every one of my senses kicked into high gear.
My eyes beheld the delicate smoke ring around the edge of the meat. My nose caught an immediate whiff of the aroma that gently wafted outward to fill my office air. My fingers could feel the brisket surrender to my touch as I slowly carved out every single forkful. My ears picked up the quiet squish as the super-soft beef slowly and luxuriously separated into morsels. Finally, my taste buds swooned as I savored each bite, seasoned only enough to augment the smokiness while not overwhelming the natural beef flavor.
Oh, my goodness.
Brisket sparks enjoyment. Enjoyment means to take pleasure or satisfaction in something. For me, brisket is one of the very definitions of enjoyment. It’s one of the few foods that I force myself to eat very slowly, enjoying every wave of pleasure that flows through me.
Brisket makes me want more. This is a dangerous thing because brisket ain’t cheap. Restaurant brisket is not expensive because of the cut of beef but because of the long process of preparing it properly. It must be held at a moderately high temperature over a long time so those collagen fibers will melt down, causing the surrounding muscle tissue to relax without drying out the meat. For me, properly cooked brisket feels velvety, almost like it was slow-cooked in butter. (Can’t you just hear your heart screaming right now?) That kind of taste experience leaves me wanting more and more and more.
Brisket leaves me contented. Even though I may want more, having just enough gives me that deep, well-fed, contented feeling. To be content means that a person’s desires are bound or constrained by what they already have. In other words, I’m happy with what I have, and my desire to want more is inhibited. Now you can see the strange irony that I wrestle with after a brisket meal. I want more, but that desire is captured and held in check by what I’ve consumed already. It’s quite a remarkable feeling.
And now, the coup de grâce. Brisket leaves me with an afterglow and anticipation. Contentment soon mellows into a lovely afterglow as I settle back into my chair to reflect on my gustatory experience. Others associate this with the infamous after-dinner tryptophan-infused glow from gorging on Thanksgiving turkey. Same thing.
Oh, my goodness. Yes, brisket is one of the best things the Lord ever created for us. And speaking of the Lord, my brisket lunch sparked in me a Bible verse I had learned long ago.
“Taste and see that the Lord is good. How happy is the person who takes refuge in him!” (Psalm 34:8)
As I was ever-so-slowly consuming my brisket and thinking of the many reasons I enjoyed it, the thought struck me that the same reasons applied to being close to the Lord. Here’s what I came up with.
Delicious. The Lord is delightful to my senses, pleasing in the highest degree. When I spend quality time with the Lord, my mind and senses ignite. For example, I have to bring a notebook with me to church worship services because as I focus on the Lord, He begins to download thoughts and pictures that speak deeply to me about myself or my situation. Sometimes, I get a new insight about His nature or character, His physical and spiritual creation, His word, or anything else He chooses to reveal to me. Many of my blogs and podcast topics have been inspired by worship, quiet times, or simply enjoying God’s world. If I take the time during a walk to focus on the Lord, He takes hold of my senses and uses them to speak to me. And because He uses my physical senses, what He reveals is memorable.
Enjoyment. During those times when I “take refuge in the Lord” and the separation between the physical and spiritual world seems particularly thin, I experience pleasure and satisfaction in such a way that it starts blocking out desires for other things. I love music. But when I feel close to the Lord, my first instinct is to stop the music and just listen. The sense of His presence overrides all else, and nothing else satisfies by comparison, as many others have attested to.
Makes me want more. When I’m particularly close to the Lord, the more I want to be close to Him. It’s like the person sitting on a mountaintop who says, “We need to do this more often. Can’t we stay here a little longer?” On a serious note, it takes continuous, willful sin to break that desire for more of the Lord’s presence, and that happens to me, sadly, all too often. I thank the Lord I can always come back to the table for forgiveness and reconnection. I constantly need to remind myself that it’s better to fill up on the Lord than do my own thing and become famished.
Contentment. When I’m wise enough to want more of the Lord and fulfill that desire, I find contentment. My natural desires are more easily contained when they’re satisfied in the Lord’s way. And though there are many things I may want in life to please myself, just being with the Lord now helps me see what I already have and to be content. Apostle Paul understood this well. “I don’t say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself. I know how to make do with little, and I know how to make do with a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content—whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need. I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:11-13). I think Augustine said it best in his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
Afterglow and anticipation. After public and private times of being with the Lord in worship, prayer, or meditation, I’ve known that divine afterglow. The temptation to sin seems far away, the windows of heaven are open, and the heavenly breeze of the Holy Spirit winds His way around me. The spiritual afterglow grows into anticipation for the next time I can dine in the Lord’s presence. The Psalmist captured this anticipation in Psalm 42:2 when he wrote longingly, “I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and appear before God?”
All of the above is what happens when we “taste and see that the Lord is good.”
Here’s the best part. Know what’s better than a relationship with the Lord? Just like brisket, when you get it for free! Remember, Jesus paid for your relationship with Him and is ready to hand it to you. Have you partaken of the goodness of the Lord?
Sources:
Brisket, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisket
Delicious, etymonline.com/search?q=delicious
Shining the Light of God’s Truth on the Road Ahead
Pastor Jay Christianson
The Truth Barista, Frothy Thoughts