Tasting the Heavenly Gift

One of the most pleasant memories that I have of my childhood is dinner at my grandmother's house, when we would have chicken and dumplings. My grandmother made the best chicken and dumplings ever. Ever. I can remember the taste. The broth was superb, kind of just a shimmering golden broth. And the dumplings were plump, not too doughy. They weren't these drop-typed-up dumplings, but kind of a noodle dumpling. And the chicken was always one she'd probably killed that morning and put in the pot by noon and started working with. In all my years, as I have traveled around, I've tasted chicken and dumplings here and there. And I have never found any to live up to the taste of the chicken and dumplings that my grandmother had. Just three nights ago, on the way over from Cincinnati, we stopped at a place that was on Wednesday night. And there's a place called Walt's Barbecue on the west side of town. And I know Wednesday night is chicken and dumplings night at Walt's Barbecue. So we stopped in, and I had two bowls of chicken and dumplings, knowing full well I was going to have turkey the next day. It's probably the chicken and dumplings that's showing right now, as much as the turkey and dressing. They were good, the chicken and dumplings at Walt's. But they didn't taste quite like grandmother's chicken and dumplings. And so I'm still on my quest. I've tried Cracker Barrels chicken and dumplings. They don't do it. They don't do it. I don't know where they get those things, but they're nowhere near what chicken and dumplings should be.

But I'm still looking to find the taste, because it's probably nostalgic as much as anything else. But it's what I went through, and it's what I remember. And it's all wrapped up with cousins and aunts and uncles and an old log farmhouse, setting beside the road in farm country from southeast Missouri. And the memories that I've emblazoned with glory and too much probably nostalgia over the years to think to know otherwise.

There were certain elements of reality about trips to Grandma's, too, but I've forgotten all of those, because I just remember the good things, as we all do about things from our past. But I do honestly remember the taste of those chicken and dumplings.

And, you know, when we get to taste something, whatever it is that you have, that you have had at some point in the past that was really good, we never forget the sensation. We want more, and we will remember it for as long as we live, and we'll go to whatever point we can in searching it out. I will, from time to time, and in some of the food magazines I like to look at and read, I will see that people will ask for the recipe from a particular restaurant that they ate a meal in, and they say, well, I've got to have that recipe.

And so they'll reprint a recipe from some restaurant in San Francisco or Minneapolis, whatever, for cobbler, for whatever it might be, and I look at it and I realize, well, you know, it probably never tasted exactly like it was there, but go for it and try your best at that. A lot of factors have to come together on that. But this idea of a taste and remembering something and wanting to recapture that and come back to that, there's something about that that speaks to us from the Word of God that we should take note of in regard to the calling and to the knowledge and to the very power that we have from God.

If you will, turn over to Psalm 34, verse 8. Psalm 34, verse 8, which says this, O taste and see that the Lord is good, blessed is the man who trusts in him. Taste and see, it says, that the Lord is good. Now, at this point, I want to give credit where credit is due. The idea for this sermon today has come from a discussion that we had, an editorial discussion, a few weeks ago at the office.

And Jamie Snyder was there, Mike's wife, who spoke to you in the sermon ep. But Jamie was talking about this very verse and this concept of taste and see. And since she brought that up in a meeting a few weeks ago, I've been rolling it over in my mind. And so my sermon today is my first effort to begin to articulate the concept that is put here in Psalm 34, verse 8, where God says regarding himself and his life and his goodness and the way of life to which we are called, he says taste and see, which is an invitation.

In some ways and in some situations, it could be even a challenge. But more than not, an invitation to taste it. You ever, as a parent, you've made something, you've spent hours on it, and you try to get your child to taste something, and they won't do it? They kind of turn, and you try to put it up to the mouth and taste it anyway. I don't like it. I don't like it, Grandma. This is what they say to us now.

Well, taste it anyway. It's good. And you put it in your mouth, and you chew it up, and you make all kinds of faces, and you rub your tummy, and mmmmm. And so you try to win them over. Sometimes that's the way God is, with his law, with his way of life, with all that he offers to mankind as a way, he says here, and it's summed up in one sense, taste and see.

Taste it. Try it out. You'll find out that it's good. It tastes good. It has a good nourishing effect. It's a good way. It's a good way of life. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Now, there's a wealth of understanding and comment behind all of this, as it describes what we've been called to, our way of life that we live. A way of life that is different from, as we know, our neighbors and our family and their friends, none of my aunts and uncles who ate chicken and dumplings with us believe as I do.

Although some of them watch me on television. I have a 95-year-old uncle, my Uncle Roy, who tells me he watches me every Sunday morning before he goes to church. He says, I saw you last Sunday, Darius. Every time I go home, I say, I saw you last Sunday. You're doing good. You're doing good. Well, thanks, Uncle Roy. But do you know that you're not going to heaven? Of course, he's telling me about he's going to heaven. But I don't know if he's talking, if he thinks the programs we do, where he can talk about heaven and hell, if they're good in his eyes or not.

But none of them have tasted what life tasted. They don't know what I know. Now, they're good people. Oh, they're fine people. They're finer than some others that I know. They're good people. But they've not tasted what we've tasted to the point where they say, that does seem good. Keeping the Sabbath, keeping the Holy Days, this way of life is good. It's right. It's sound. It answers my questions. It gives me hope. It encourages me. It gives me the answers that I need. They haven't gone that far yet. That's God's business and that's God's dealing. But you and I, we have tasted, and what have we seen? What have we learned?

This concept is drawn out a bit more when you turn over to Hebrews 6. Hebrews 6, in the context of basic doctrines in verse 1 and 2. In verse 4, Paul writes this, Now, at this point, he moves on to another point because he says that if they fall away, he completes his thought that he began in verse 4, it's impossible for those who were once enlightened if they fall away, he says in verse 6, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God and put him to an open shame. Now, that's a pretty powerful concept there. Someone who falls away, if they've tasted the heavenly gift, and the power, the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, he says if they fall away, and it's a true falling away, it's impossible to renew them again to repentance. Now, that's a pretty strong state of mind. I really don't want to, don't need to focus on that today, although it speaks for itself. But if you just look at what is said in regard to the calling, the knowledge and the understanding that we have, because we were enlightened back in verse 4, he said, those who were once enlightened, who received a calling, who received, as Mike mentioned in the sermonette, the secrets of the kingdom of God, quoting from Mark 4. I believe he's quoting from the new NIV version, which uses the word secret there, which I think is a very appropriate way to put it. Sometimes the NIV translates certain sections much better than the New King James, and this is probably one of them to help us understand this. We've tasted the secrets of the kingdom of God. We've come to know that, and God, by the miracle of conversion, has opened our minds, and we've accepted that calling, and we have entered into that, and we have been enlightened. God says then we begin to taste the heavenly gift, and we taste the good word of God. There are two references here in verses 4 and 5 to this concept again of tasting.

Putting something in our mouth, letting it roll around, and we taste the heavenly gift. We taste the good word of God and the power of the age to come, which he was describing as this raw, got to get it right, raw crackling power that is flowing through the room, a very apt description. We've tasted of that. We've come to taste a bit of that power and to be exposed to it. You know, when you taste, none of us like to sit down to food that doesn't taste good. We don't enjoy that. We develop our tastes and our habits regarding food in our lifetime, and we sit down and we look forward to it. If it's a piece of fried chicken, the way that our wives or aunts make it, or someone at a particular restaurant, we just love the taste of that fried chicken. Or we love the taste of a pizza. We love the taste of someone's spaghetti sauce, marinara, a salad, a vegetable prepared just the right way.

And the texture, the preparation of it, the seasonings, the food itself, we just love it. And if you really get into food, which more and more people are today, we're kind of a foodie generation, it seems, that we're in, people love to eat. We always do. And that's great.

But as we enjoy those tastes, it's something we keep coming back to. And it not only gives us nourishment, but it gives us enjoyment, pleasure, to a degree, perhaps even entertainment. The company, the friends, the family is good. We take in the entire experience, and we taste something, and we enjoy it.

And this is what throughout the scriptures, many, many scriptures we can turn to develop this idea to learn and to understand what it is that we are involved with. It is something that is of God, and we are to taste it and experience it and keep coming back to it.

And Hebrews here says that once we've tasted the good word of God, and we've tasted the powers of the age to come, the secrets of the kingdom of God, that is being brought right up to the face of something eternal, spiritual, is what is being described here.

That we keep coming back for it, we hold on to. You know, there's nothing like going to the Feast of Tabernacles or going to a Holy Day, Trumpets, or Pentecost, the Passover service. We anticipate it. We plan for it. And God always delivers. God always delivers on it, no matter what the challenge might be to get us there, health, finances, job, families, whatever it might be that has worked at us through the months prior to that. Once we get there, once we do what we obey, we take part in the entire atmosphere that is created. Let's just take the Feast of Tabernacles, which is the big one.

We engage in something that we enjoy for eight days, the entire experience of Feast of Tabernacles and the Eighth Day. And we love it. Certainly we eat, but there's something spiritual there. As we get a foretaste, isn't that the phrase that was used over the years? It was when I was a kid. We go to get a foretaste of the world tomorrow, the world to come. We go to get a foretaste of the powers of the age to come. And we do that through the holistic experience of the Feast of Tabernacles. And every year it keeps producing because of it being God's truth, being God's calling to us to come before Him at that time. And we go with open minds and open hearts, and we go spiritually ready to participate, to listen, to be fed, to be encouraged, to be inspired by instruction and also by the people that we're with. And through service to each other and through all that it goes to make it happen, it creates something that we usually say was a wonderful experience, best ever. We use all these superlatives, and it is true. And the reality is we must come back to scriptures like this and realize that we're tasting of something that is far more than the good food. It's far more than the physical environment in which we may go to do that, a seaside location or a mountain spot. It is truly a taste of the world to come, the power of the age to come. This was my fiftieth time to go and do that this past year. Number fifty, hard to believe for us. Next year will be Debbie's fiftieth, Feast of Tabernacles. We had an interesting experience this year. We went to Kenya in East Africa, and it was the most unique feast we've ever had. Is that correct? Most unique? It was most unique. It was. Laurie Mink will correct me on that later on, I'm sure. We kept the feast with people in an environment that was kind of like the Book of Acts in some ways. It reminded us exactly what it must have been like for the Israelites to have kept the feast. The brethren in Africa, they go to a spot in two locations that the church actually owns. It's about an acre of land that they put up a building, and they have a cookhouse, and they put tents up. And it's just like the old days. Well, not exactly. Because they bring in their food. They bring in corn and flour. They bring in chickens, live chickens. And they bring in goats, live goats. The chickens you may be seeing running around there today, they're not there that night because you've eaten them for lunch. And they're cooking out on open wood fires. And you have to realize, when God said back in Deuteronomy, take what you will, but if it's too far, then turn it into money. But you'd know that for some it wasn't too far. So they drove their food to the Feast of Tabernacles, took it with them, and ate it. Well, that's what they do in Africa to this very day, and this is what we were eating with them. They cooked for us. They used bottled water, and they cooked special for us because we can't exactly eat the way that they prepare. Our stomachs are not acclimated, so to speak. But it's chicken that's just been freshly killed, and goat that's been freshly hung, and everything else. I won't tell you the rest of it. But God's Spirit was there, and God's people were gathered to keep the Feast of Tabernacles and to get a taste of this age to come. And that's what makes it what it does. That's what makes the whole way of life to which we are called what it is. What is the power of this world to come? There's many different ways that we could approach this. If you will turn back to Philippians 3. Let's look in Philippians 3.

It is the power of the Holy Spirit. How does that power work? And what is it that we have access to that we should be using more and more on a regular basis in our life? In Philippians 3, Paul writes in the beginning in verse 7 of what he gave up. And he says, What things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ. Indeed, I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of the Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and have counted them as rubbish that I may gain Christ, and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith. So he willingly gave up all that he had to begin to taste something different and walk a different way of life. Verse 10, he says that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being conformed to His death, if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. So he says here that I might know Him and the power of His resurrection. The power that we have the opportunity to get a taste of, that power of the age to come, is the very power by which Christ Himself was raised from the dead, that entered His body and transformed Him into eternity, back into eternity, as His mortal body lay in that grave. And He was transformed by that power to bring back from death to life. And He says that's what I know. I know Him and I know the power of that resurrection.

Through a fellowship of suffering and being conformed to His death, if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I've already attained, verse 12, or am already perfected, but I press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. This is what He left everything and counted it all as rubbish to walk and to be a part of. And it did include sufferings, a fellowship of sufferings, Christ's sufferings, which is, in a sense, the way to understand and to realize what we still have to go through. It ennobles the sufferings that we're going to have in life anyway. As somebody said, none of us get out of this life alive. And we're going to suffer in the church, out of the church. There are going to be challenges that we will have to deal with. They are ennobled when we understand that there is a purpose, what the purpose is, and what that can do within us. And perfecting our character and drawing us closer to God in faith rather than pushing us away. That power does that if we yield to it. And if we allow it to do its perfect work within us. This is what Paul was saying. He was saying that I've come to taste the powers of the world to come. My mind has been enlightened, and I press forward toward that. I've tasted and I've seen that it is good. In Romans 6, he carries this thought into a description about baptism. Romans 6.

Verse 5.

For if we've been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. And so, it is, we are to be freed from that enslavement. Verse 7. For he who has died has been freed from sin. And if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. And down in verse 22, he says, we have now been set free from sin. And having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness and to the end everlasting life. Two places here. In verse 7 and in verse 22, he mentions that we are freed from sin. We're set loose from the power that sin holds over us when we choose life. When we choose to life as the key to tasting the power of the world to come. And the more we choose that, and the less we choose sin, the more we are able then to taste and to see of this good life, which God offers and has called us. Deuteronomy chapter 30, I think, is an entire chapter, almost, that speaks to this. In the context of Moses rehearsing to the Israelites the calling and the blessings of the way of life to which God had called them, brought them out of Egypt to have. All of the chapter 30 here, I think, covers that. But let's just look at verse 14, look at a part of this in Deuteronomy 30. And, well, let's begin in verse 11. He says, This commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. If you want to tie this verse 11 back to what was read in Mark 4, verse 11, where Christ said that to you have been given the secrets of the kingdom of God, or the mysteries of the kingdom of God, as it is also put there, to those who have been enlightened, we understand those mysteries. They're not a mystery to us any longer. They're not just parables. We understand the meaning of the parables. We're able to apply that meaning. And Moses is saying that this commandment, this command and this entire way of life, it's not secret. It's not far off.

It's not in heaven that you would say who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, nor is it beyond the sea that you should say who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we might hear it and do it. But the word, verse 14, is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it. It's in your mouth and in your heart. You can taste it. Taste and see. This way, this word, this commandment, this law, it's right here. It's not mysterious and it's not way off. It's right here. It is a way of life that is based on being honest, being true, and living by truth. It's by worshipping the one true God and not any idol. It is not by stealing. It is not by committing adultery. It is by honoring your family, your parents, and all that the commandments of the law encompass as a way of life. He says it's right here. Try it. It's in your mouth and it's in your heart. See, I've set before you today life and good, death and evil. Two ways. In that I command you today to love the Lord your God and to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments. That you may live and multiply. The Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, you're drawn away and you worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today that you will surely perish. You shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over Jordan to possess. And I call heaven and earth as a witness today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Two ways. And then He tells them, therefore, choose life. That both you and your descendants may live. Choose life, which is another way of saying taste and see. You have two ways before you. Life and death, blessing and cursing. They'd already outlined all that would be according to the blessings if you do it the right way. And here's the curses that will be as a result of doing it the wrong way. I, too, wonder if we're on the cusp of seeing some of those curses in regard to our own national heritage being ripped from us. Mr. Swagnerty was mentioning the drought situation, and every year we kind of get a little further taste of that.

And these storms that, mega storms that can cripple the financial capital of the world, such as Hurricane Sandy did, are, I don't believe by coincidence. I just don't believe that when I look at it. Now, you can say, well, you know, we've had these before.

Yeah. But I don't recall anything like this one. And I don't recall Katrina. And then seven years later, something called Isaac that hits the same spot.

And I've never seen a land hurricane like we had about two years ago that moved across the entire United States in about a 24-36 hour period from coast to coast, from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, called a Hurt Land Hurricane, right at the time of harvest. I think we have had a number of omens and signs that, in a sense, should serve as a wake-up call.

When a city like New York is brought to its knees and everything stops for 24-48 hours like it did because of a hurricane of that magnitude that forms and just runs ashore, it's time to take notice. It's time to be serious about something. And it's time to realize that these things happen, and they're even talked about in a book like Deuteronomy because of disobedience.

And there's a lot more that could be said about that. But when we look at what you and I have before us, we've made our choice, and we need to remind ourselves of that. God says, choose life. Two words, two very powerful words. Choose life. Whatever we do, every day when we get up, every major decision that's in front of us that we must weigh various factors with ourselves, our jobs, our families, the things that we might have to wrestle with inside of our own mind, these two words should be right in front of our minds. Every day, every decision, choose life.

Taste it because we've tasted and we've seen. Prove God now here that He will open up blessings for us. Choose life. Choose for God. Choose His way. Don't choose death. Choose life. And whatever decision that we have to make, choose life that you and your descendants may live. This is a very powerful concept that's brought out here. And it all comes back to, again, the way of life that God has called us to live and to understand. We can talk about the Sabbath. We can talk about the Holy Days, the weekly and annual taste of the kingdom that we receive, the rest, the restoration in our own mind of refocusing that holy time provides for us when we observe it, as God tells us to, providing a restoration of our right kind with a focus on the world to come. When you look at just the Holy Days, I thought about 50 times going to the Feast of Tabernacles this year. And I still kind of mull that over in my mind. I told some after coming back from this year's Feast, I would be a long time sorting through what we saw and observed and learned and what was for us personally a kind of a milestone feast in that way. But you have to keep all of those Holy Days from Passover and Unleavened Bread all the way to the eighth day to understand the full scope of God's intent to bring order and to bring peace to His creation. It's the very backbone of the life that God has designed.

That's the keel, if you will. As a keel is laid on a boat, it's the very first and most important piece of structure that is laid on any ship that sails the oceans. It is the keel. The Holy Days are like that backbone of the keel of the boat of salvation that God is building. Everything is built on all of that.

And as we keep it in all of its dimensions, we understand. And we keep doing it. It provides that beacon for us.

Because through that, then, we have access to the mind of God that allows us to have the joy of salvation restored to us.

You know, in Psalm 51, when David prayed, restored to me the joy of my salvation. David had tasted something that was now bitter in his mouth and in his stomach. Adultery had been pleasant for a moment, but it quickly became very bitter.

And when he finally came to see that, and the momentary joy and pleasure that he had, soured, caused him to have to connive and commit murder, and then see the loss of the son that was born from that union, he quickly altered everything.

And he had to say to God, restore the joy of my salvation.

The good taste that was in his mouth when he obeyed God, and he wrote some of the earlier Psalms, and at another time in his life when he was a young man as a shepherd, playing his musical instrument and writing music, of praise and worship and expressing his appreciation and joy to God. He'd lost that because of a momentary decision, and he had to say, God, bring it back so it tastes good again.

David never completely lost that.

You know, you all know the last words of the book of Ecclesiastes where Solomon says, what is the main purpose for life? I'm paraphrasing.

Fear God and keep his commandments.

Solomon had veered and gone off course, and yet he never lost sight of that knowledge and that understanding.

Finally, at some point in his life, and he came back to it, and this is my interpretation of the book of Ecclesiastes, when he came back to it, he said, this is the sum of it all. Fear God and keep his commandments. Tastes and see.

Tastes and see. It works. It's good. Fear God, and it will all work out and keep his commandments.

And he'd gone off and had to experience everything else from discouragement, depression, despair, near rejection of everything.

You know, both David and Solomon are examples of men who kind of lost their way at various times and no doubt got thirsty and hungry for something that they had had before.

And they went looking for it. They wanted that taste again. Kind of like I want with my grandmother's chicken and dumplings, I guess.

If you look at Psalm 107, Psalm 107 is a whole psalm of thanksgiving.

That begins in verse 1, Give thanks to the Lord. He is good, and his mercy endures forever.

God is good. God's way works.

And he talks about those who have wandered in verse 4 in the wilderness, finding no city to dwell in. Verse 5, Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. And they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distress. He's describing a person who's lost their way. And then they cry out to him. In verse 9 he says, He satisfies the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with goodness.

Those who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, bound in affliction and irons, because they rebelled against the words of God and despised the counsel of the Most High.

He brought down their heart with labor, they fell down, and there was no help. And they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, verse 13, and he saved them out of their distress. The song goes on with more of this. I'm not going to read it all. But he satisfied their longing. He filled their hunger with goodness.

And that is always the promise that God holds out to us. Because we've tasted and we have seen. And we have had our minds enlightened. We've seen the loving-kindness of God. When you go back to Hebrews 6 again.

I commented that the latter part of that phrase speaks to those that it's impossible if one turns from that after having been enlightened. And again, taste it of this gift. There are, for you and I, and for someone who has been given that gift of the Holy Spirit upon repentance, and been brought up to the face of eternity, if you will, to taste the powers of the world to come, the age to come. The good word of God and the powers of the age to come in verse 5, which we have, and which many have. That is a wonderful blessing and impetus to a way of life. Again, the warning there is to not fall away from that, because if one does, there comes a point when it's impossible to be renewed to repentance. Because the Son of God has been put to an open shame. Now that's a point of no return. Now that's an extreme. And only God knows when that happens. But again, it shows the seriousness of our calling, and what we have tasted, and what we experience. It is a very serious matter. And yet, in this, with all these other verses that we've read, there is the mercy of God, the long-suffering patience of God.

I don't choose to dwell on the judgmental part of this instruction here today, because I see more often than not little signs here and there continually that the mercy, grace, and goodness of God, and the power of that spirit, that power that is there of the age to come, and how powerful that is. If a person does stray from it like David did, or like Solomon did, but look at David in particular and some of what he got off into. And yet, he came back and he wanted to taste it again. He said, restore the joy of my salvation.

It's never over until it's over. I have seen people return to faith after many years and many experiences apart from faith in various forms and shapes. And so have you.

I received a letter just recently from someone who had been wondering in that wilderness, Psalm 107 described, for a long period of time. And they wrote me a letter, and they said that as they began to rekindle a taste of the powers of the age to come, they did it after a long time. And frankly, I'd wondered, I'd probably not forgotten about them, but I figured, well, I don't know. Maybe they're gone from the church for good. I don't know. But they heard some sermons. They listened to some sermons about the Sabbath and about the new covenant, they told me. And they found them to be very helpful. That answered some of their questions. And it began to slake their thirst and to fill their hunger, a spiritual hunger that they had not been getting in the other places where they had been feeding, the Protestant churches, great beyond. And as they listened, something was rekindled. And I'll just read one paragraph. They said, God really put a large spiritual appetite in us to listen and take in what we were hearing, as they listened to some messages about the Sabbath and the new covenant from a true perspective.

They went on, they said, we have been in the desert a long time and it is so good to be back in the church of God. God is so merciful and loving. We may have been confused for a while and lost our way, but He was always there and never lost track of us. We need to pray and reach out to the many people still out there that are in the same situation we are in.

These people had tasted the powers of the world to come and it's that power that brought them back to faith.

And they may have a story to tell. And I see that quite often and it's encouraging.

When God's Spirit is really there, it takes, it's there. And a person can be in a wilderness for a long time and wandering here and there, but that taste doesn't go away. And when they taste it again, they know what they found and they can come home.

And they are reminded once again that God is good. And so should we be as we go about our life and be reminded of these things.

I'm still looking for the perfect plate of chicken and dumplings. I'm sure I will find them.

Maybe I'll have to make them recreate it myself, but I don't think I can do it. I've asked my aunts, the daughters of my grandmother, how did she do it? They said that she didn't have it written down. She just did it. And none of them claim to even be able to do it themselves. And they make a pretty good pot of chicken and dumplings, but it's not like grandma's. So I keep looking for that taste. But I know the taste of the world to come.

And I look forward to tasting much more of that. And I know that you do as well. Taste and see. God is good.