Sweet Honey from the Rock

Do you ever fall in love with the beautiful imagery and poetry of a bible verse before you really understand its significance?  I do.  Sometimes I just want to sit with it for a while without digging it apart or applying to it the sometimes banal discipline of study. For example:   Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.  (Song of Songs 2:15). How beautiful is that?! But the verse I’m caught up in right now is found in Psalm 81:16:   with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.
 

I’m not that big of a fan of honey. I think it’s because my family never ate it much when I was kid. In fact, the only place I remember seeing it on a regular basis was at Kentucky Fried Chicken where customers would rip open little white packets to slather on their heart-attack biscuits. Hold out a spoonful of white sugar, brown sugar, and honey, and honey will always come in third. I keep some in my house now, but mostly for sore throat remedies, smoothies, and one recipe for a goat-cheese appetizer. In fact, I use it so often for my allergy-coated throat, that it has become medicinal to me--the lumpy thickness sitting at the back of my throat becoming more and more hard to swallow.

But honey does have a certain mystique to it. It seems so ancient--like healing with herbs or planting crops by the shape of the moon. When I read in Psalms that God wanted to (and I believe still wants to) bless his children with wild honey from the rock--it gets me. It thrills me even when I don’t fully understand what it means. The line preceding it in Psalms 81 tells us that God wants to strengthened and sustain his people with the finest wheat too. God could have stopped with that, but he doesn’t.  Bread could be enough. But because our God is a God who treats, showers and woos us, He’s not just about basic sustenance, is He?  He is also all about pleasure and delight. He has that sticky, sugary, strange and laboriously produced gooey-goodness tucked away in some crevice or crack for his weary pilgrims.  

The Promise Land for God’s people was described over and over again as a land flowing with milk and honey.  I’ve heard it said that this description was used because it pointed to the diversity and fullness of the land that God was giving to his people. For honey to flow in abundance, the land would need a wide variety of grass and flowers.  It would be a land that has everything that you can imagine and more – everything you need.  True plenty!

I like the idea of abundance--a type of kingdom-living that involves spiritual milk and honey flowing out to me, and over me.  But when I have just enough energy to focus on walking firm-footed on this rocky path of faith, I’d gladly take a handful of some pure rock-honey. To discover an unexpected treasure in a cleft of rocks to my right or left—even with no rolling hills and herds in sight--would satisfy me and gladly keep me putting one foot in front of the other.

I want it! Really bad! I find myself praying that phrase over and over again – satisfy me Lord with wild honey from the rock.  I’m struggling with some heartsickness right now, and I am craving something in my daily walk that will remind me of God’s goodness. He holds out abundance as his ultimate kingdom-goal, and he is ultimately leading me on the path to riches, but right now I hope he just leads me to the next honeyed-hive.