This is National Chocolate Ice Cream Day.

What’s your favorite ice cream flavor? Strawberry? Cookies and cream? Pistachio? Probably the all-time favorite is chocolate. In fact, even if that’s not your favorite, you probably like it a lot.

Imagine that you’re talking to a person your age who has just moved to town. As you talk about family, interests, and likes and dislikes, you discover that your new neighbor has never tasted chocolate ice cream or anything chocolate. You love chocolate, especially chocolate ice cream, and eagerly gobble it up in a cone or bowl, whatever, especially on a hot summer day. So you try to describe the taste and your feelings to your new friend. What would you say? It wouldn’t be easy! You might say that it’s “sweet” and then try to find something else that has a similar taste (whatever that might be) and then explain that chocolate is sort of like that but different.

Eventually, you’d say, “Hey, you’ll never know till you have some. Once you taste it, you’ll see what I mean!”

Now imagine that you’re trying to tell someone about God and what he means to you. If the person has never met God and knows nothing about him, you’d probably have just about as much trouble as when you tried to describe chocolate ice cream. You could share verses and stories, and those would help, but eventually you’d probably have to say, “Taste and see!”

That’s what King David wrote in Psalm 34:8, our verse for today. And it’s so true. Anyone who encounters God finds that he is good and that he brings joy.

How does someone “taste” God? By reading his Word, praying, worshipping, and, most of all, by giving his or her life to him. Let everyone know!

Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who trust in him! (Psalm 34:8)

To Do

Read all of Psalm 34 and thank God for his goodness and joy you’ve experienced.

Also on this day . . .

1769—Daniel Boone explored the heart of Kentucky. This is Daniel Boone Day.

1775—The United Colonies made a name change and became the United States.

From Betsy Schmitt and Dave Veerman, 365 Trivia Twist Devotions: An Almanac of Fun Facts and Spiritual Truth for Every Day of the Year (Cincinnati: Standard, 2005). Scripture quotations are from the New Living Translation unless otherwise noted.