What would you do without MICROVILLI?

Our Creator God thought of everything!

He gave us five senses with which to relate to the world about us. Some people born with one or another sense defect or because of illness miss out on the fullness of this interaction.

Our sense of taste, for instance, contributes greatly to our enjoyment of life. The average person has about 10,000 taste buds on his tongue. Each taste bud has very sensitive microscopic hairs called microvilli (mye-kro-vih-lye) that send messages to the brain about how something tastes. Without them you would miss the saltiness of a potato chip or the sweetness of an apple and everything would taste like sawdust.

In an effort to provide us with foods that taste good, the food industry conducts research using taste tests to determine the public’s reaction to the flavor of their foods. In some markets people are hired to offer you taste samples of different foods with the invitation to buy the produce. “Try it—you’ll like it!”

“O taste and see that the Lord is good” the Psalmist invites. (Psalm 34:8) “How sweet are Thy words to my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (119:103) Intangible things of the spirit can be tasted like God’s words, the heavenly gift, and His kindness. Peter, speaking of growing in respect to salvation by longing for the pure milk of the word, adds “if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.” (1 Peter 2:3)

However, a warning is given in Hebrews 6:4,5,6 about those who “have tasted of the heavenly gift…and tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come and then have fallen away.” If they fall away, “it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.”

Things of darkness like death can also be tasted. (Matthew 16:28) We can only imagine what it was like for Jesus to “…taste death for every one” through the suffering of the cross. (Hebrews 2:9)

God has given us our spiritual taste buds for a purpose; let us not neglect or treat them lightly. Once we taste of the Lord, we will surely long for even more of His goodness.

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