I Love You More than Candy

How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

Psalm 119:103

My wife and I sometimes use childish terms to express our love to our children. We'll say things like, "I love you more than I love pizza." Or "I love you more than peanut butter!" Or, if we really want to express the full height of the human emotion of love, we'll say, "I love you more than I love candy!!!"

Psalm 119:103 smacks of this kind of communication. By comparing His Word to honey, God stoops to use a metaphor we'll understand to help us see just how good His Word is. Now I can't claim to be an ancient Middle Eastern culinary expert, but I believe honey was the primary, and possibly even the only, sweetener the ancient Israelites had at their disposal. So to say that God's Word tastes sweeter than honey in that culture is really saying something. It's like saying God's Word is sweeter than sugar. It's better than candy.

Most believers have experienced this sweetness that God's Word can provide.  There's nothing sweeter than when the right passage of Scripture hits you right when you need it in just the right way. It isn't merely that in these instances the Bible hands us exactly what our souls were desperate for, but it is also the arrestingly beautiful way God's Word communicates these truths that makes it so good. 

But God's Word can't meet you where your need is if you never read it, If it's never in front of you, if you never find the time to pick up your Bible to read and think deeply about what it says, then it won't be sweeter than candy to you. Instead it will be more like that bowl of hard candy your great aunt leaves out at her house on her side table that no one ever eats. How sad!

So "taste and see that the LORD is good!" (Psalm 34:8). Take a moment and read a chapter of God's Word today, and the next day, and the next. Make room in your life for something good. I promise you won't regret it.