Sensing Faith

“With our eyes we see, with our ears we hear, with our fingers we can touch.

With our nose we smell, with our mouth we taste, now thank you very much!”

Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good…”  And Charles Spurgeon opens his short essay on faith and the senses with:

Faith, in the Scripture, is spoken of under the emblem of all the senses. It is sight: “Look unto me and be ye saved.” It is hearing: “Hear, and your soul shall live.” Faith is smelling: “All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia”; “thy name is as ointment poured forth.” Faith is spiritual touch. By this faith the woman came behind and touched the hem of Christ’s garment, and by this we handle the things of the good word of life. Faith is equally the spirit’s taste. “How sweet are thy words to my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my lips.” “Except a man eat my flesh,” saith Christ, “and drink my blood, there is no life in him.”

If faith is to be sensed in an order, it seems to me that these senses reflect an order of intimacy.

Our attention may be got by hearing before sight, even if we are unwilling. We have little choice in this. Stopping our ears or stuffing our head under a pillow will not silence the voice of God calling us.  Adam hid from God, but he could not hide from the sound of his Maker’s call.  Samuel, was roused repeatedly from his adolescent sleep by a voice he did not recognize, until his teacher, dear old Eli, told him how to respond.

But, as our hearts begin to respond to our Savior, we begin to look toward Him.  We see where our help comes and we look to Him as the handmaiden looks to the hand of her mistress. We may learn to fix our eyes upon our hope, our goal, even though it be distant and not yet within our grasp.

Drawing nearer, we can apprehend the aroma of our Lord’s goodness. We catch the scent of the feast to be laid before us.  Even if we are traveling a road that leads through the valley of the shadow of death, we smell preparations being made for that table being set for us, in the very presence of our enemies. This smelling and not yet grasping that whets our appetite and drives us more swiftly and surely home than the crop of any taskmaster could.

And finally we meet!  We are embraced as prodigals to our Father’s bosom.  We wash His feet with our tears and wipe them with our hair, all the while never ceasing to kiss His feet.  We have begun to grasp, even in part, of just how very much we have been forgiven. We recline against our Lord, as at His last meal on earth, and feel the beating heart of the one true and living God.  We place our fingers in the holes in His hands at His behest, if that is what we need to believe. We wrap our arms around the One we thought had been lost to us forever, wanting never to loose our embrace, until we are gently reminded that it is not yet time for the eternal reunion; that we must be patient just a little while longer.

Then, finally, after we have understood what can be gotten of our Lord through these external senses, we are able to taste and see that He, indeed, is good. That His kisses are sweeter than honey. We eat the bread of life and are fully and forever satisfied. We drink living water, and never thirst again. We are revived, sustained, strengthened and encouraged as we take in His word and share this feast with those around us.  We eat His bread and drink His cup in remembrance, thus proclaiming His death until He returns for us. What we have heard and seen and smelled and felt of His Holy presence is taken into our body, and we know the love that surpasses knowledge.  We know within our being, and not just our head.

On that day, when He brings home His bride to the glorious wedding feast that will not merely meet, but will completely eclipse our expectations, we will be joined with our Maker and finally enjoy the fellowship for which we were created. Even as all creation groans to be released from the law of sin and death, and waits with longing to sing when that freedom is realized, so every fiber of our being will sing, overcome in joy as we are made one with Jesus, the joy of man’s desiring. Ecstasy.  Rapture.  As sand in our mouths, these words will be pale in comparison to the joy that will be ours on that day.  For we will know Him, even as we are fully known.