It Is Good

And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.
And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

—Genesis 1:31

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I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.

—Ecclesiastes 3:12-13

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Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!

—Psalm 34:8a

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After God finishes each creative work in Genesis 1, He declares His creation ‘good’ and lavishly gives us free reign to enjoy its goodness. It is no accident that the psalmist enjoins us to taste and see that the Lord is good—not simply to reason or confess that God is good, but to taste it. My body, this tea, and the quiet twilight are teaching me God’s goodness through my senses. I’m tasting, hearing, feeling, seeing, and smelling that God is good.

Pleasure is our deep human response to an encounter with beauty and goodness. In these moments of pleasure—of delight, enjoyment, awe, and revelry—we respond to God impulsively with our very bodies: ‘Yes, we agree! Your creation is very good.’

Mysteriously and wondrously, God revels even more than we do in the slight bitterness of tea, the feel of sunshine on skin, a ripe avocado, a perfect guitar lick, or a good plot twist. In ‘The Screwtape Letters,’ the senior demon Screwtape scolds his underling for allowing his patient the smallest experience of pleasure—a walk in a beautiful place, tea, or a good book which he read ‘because he enjoyed it and not in order to make clever remarks about it to his friends.’ Both pleasure and pain, says Screwtape, are ‘unmistakably real, and therefore…they give the man who feels them a touchstone of reality.’ He diabolically warns that people should not be allowed to maintain any ‘personal taste…even if it is something quite trivial such as a fondness for country cricket or collecting stamps or drinking cocoa.’ Though small practices of enjoyment may seem trivial, the demon sees in them ‘a sort of innocence and humility and self-forgetfulness.’

When we enjoy God’s creation, we reflect God Himself. God does not stoically pronounce creation ‘good,’ like a disinterested manager checking off a quality checklist so He can clock out early. God delights in the perfect acoustics of ocean waves, swoons over the subtle intensity of dark chocolate, and glories in robins’ eggs and peacock calls.

G.K. Chesterton saw in God a childlike wonder. Children never tire of beauty and pleasure. They embrace enjoyment with abandon. They don’t feel guilty about taking time to search for feathers, invent a game, or enjoy a treat. Chesterton imagines that God revels in the pleasure of His creation like an enthusiastic child:

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again;’ and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.'“

We have sinned and grown old, and become dulled to the wonders around us. Though it may seem counterintuitive, enjoyment takes practice. Throughout our life we must relearn the abandon of revelry and merriment.

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We are not only grateful for pleasure; our hearts wonder what kind of Creator makes a world that overflows with such loveliness and beauty.

Being curators of beauty, pleasure, and delight is therefore an intrinsic part of our mission, a mission that recognizes the reality that truth is beautiful. These moments of loveliness—good tea, bare trees, and soft shadows—are ‘church bells.’ In my dimness, they jolt me to attention and remind me that Christ is in our midst. His song of truth, sung by His people all over the world, echoes down my ordinary street, spilling even into my living room.

—From ‘Liturgy of the Ordinary’ by Tish Harrison Warren, p. 129-140

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It is good, beloved. It is. (gentle, reassuring)

Let us consider, Together, all of the pleasures at our disposal, shall we? (tender, hopeful)

The smell and look and feel of old books. The warm cheesy goodness of a breakfast burrito—stuffed with sausage, potato, egg, green onion, cheddar cheese oozing. The birds singing sweetly. The cold breeze that blows our hair slightly. The warmth of sunlight on our face. The sound of gentle music, soothing songs. The flicker of a candle burning, the faint smell of pine and whiskey. Soft skin. Clean, cold water to drink. A hot shower. A fluffy towel. His material provision for us in so many ways. A pillow stuffed with feathers to hold when it is time to rest. A glorious sunrise. Mountains. Clouds. Trees. A garden growing. Bright orange carrots pulled from the dark, fertile earth. Peeling potatoes. Washing dishes. Lemon soap. Lilacs and peonies. The smell of freshly cut grass. Water meandering down a slow-moving brook in a green valley full of little, white buds. Fingers intertwined. Tender lips on one’s cheek. A quality ink pen. Milk chocolate and homemade pizza and an old-fashioned bottle of Coke, ice-cold. Hymns of long ago belted out, our voices blending into One. A new day. His mercy, His long-suffering, His Words to us. His Love.

O, beloved—let us marvel Together! Let us worship and honor and adore Him! His Beauty—it’s everywhere, ripe for the taking! Just like in the Garden, beloved, He gave all things for the good of His children; just like in the Garden, when He only withheld one thing, one thing they were meant not to grasp…O, beloved—let us learn from the folly of Adam and Eve, our first parents. (gentle, pleading) They too had Beauty everywhere. They could have relished and delighted in the glory He had already given them, my love! They could have, like little children, found more than enough to satisfy them in the ‘monotony’ of His blessed, newly created world! What if they would have fixated on each ray of sunshine, each drop of water, each flower petal, each morsel of food, each pleasant sound, each fragrant scent? (tender, pondering) What if they would have been so distracted by His present goodness that there was no room left for any striving, any pining for future blessing?

Come, my love! Let us not be so concerned with ‘this behavior’ or ‘that’ which we must stop or start, or ‘this thought’ or ‘that thought’, or even ‘obedience’ or ‘how we are to live’…no, beloved! (gentle) Rather, let us be consumed with His Beauty, His goodness, His creation, His provision, His Love! Nothing is ‘ordinary’ here. Nothing is purposeless. Nothing even exists except that it might help us to know more of our magnificent Lord! He is a God of Beauty and Freedom and All Good Things! He desires joy for us, and peace—not perpetual feelings of failure and self-pity, beloved—no! (earnest)

O, beloved—may we, like Him, be enthralled with the mysterious rhythms and repetition that exist here and now! May we, like Him, savor and soak in Beauty. May we know more of Him as we slow down, quiet our thoughts, and ask Him to suckle and satisfy our spirits like a newborn at His mother’s breast. May we sing and shout of His glory! May we delight in that which He has already so graciously given! May He give us eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to know—without a doubt—that He is even now in our midst, revealing Himself in the most subtle, tender, thoughtful ways to us, day by day, moment by moment—in and through each of our senses, our ‘taking in’ of His goodness in this very place, in this very season, in this very state of our souls!

It is good, beloved. Our souls—jolted awake once again—know this to be true.