Daily Devotional – October 27

Biology

Imagine developing an artificial sweetener so potent that a single drop could make a lime taste as sweet as candy and transform fiery tabasco sauce to the sweetness of honey. The chemist who discovers such a miracle sweetener will find both fame and fortune. Such a sweetener has already been invented by God, but He seldom receives either appreciation or credit for His brilliance.

Europeans visiting West Africa in the 1700s noticed the locals chewing on the fruit of a local shrub (later named Synsepalum dulcificum) and discovered that the fleshy pulp around the seed completely transformed the taste of bitter, sour, or spicy foods to sweetness. After years of study, it was discovered that a chemical called miraculin (apparently in honor of its miraculous taste transforming properties) binds to the tongue’s taste buds, and under acidic conditions, it magnifies a person’s sweetness receptors a thousand-fold. Since even spicy, sour, or bitter foods have some sugar, the enhanced sweetness is all that is tasted!

What a God we serve who can take even the bitter and make it sweet. If He can do this with something as complex as the chemistry of taste, He can do the same with the sorrow and bitter circumstances of our life.

How sweet are thy words unto my taste! Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

~ Psalm 119:103

Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett

References for this devotional.