Biscuits and Gravy
I recently watched a video called “British Highschoolers try Biscuits and Gravy for the First Time.” It was proper funny, as the British kids might say. A biscuit in England is more like a cookie, and our biscuits look like their scones. They didn’t even have categories for white sausage gravy, and they assumed it tasted as bad as it looked. My favorite part of the video is when the boy’s eyes light up when the biscuit hits his taste buds for the first time. By the end of the video, after trying fried chicken and sweet tea, the boys were hooked. They didn’t know what they had been missing.
My Grandma Betty could cook some Biscuits and Gravy (and yes, I capitalized it on purpose. They deserve that honor). My grandparents had a small convenience store with a kitchen where she served the world’s best biscuits and gravy (sorry, Tudor’s Biscuit World, but here I stand). That’s the thing about an ungrateful heart, you don’t realize what you have until it’s gone, and you don’t enjoy what you have while you have it. God is good, and you can taste it in Grandma’s biscuits. God didn’t have to give us taste buds. God didn’t have to give people creativity to create unique cuisine that melts in your mouth and puts a smile on your face. God didn’t have to provide us with families or the ties that bind.
A few years ago, I was at a function for my kids—one of those “refreshments afterward” deals. Last weekend I was at a similar event in Morgantown, and it did not surprise me that the refreshments were pepperoni rolls and Doritos. The former event did surprise me. They had a spread of sushi. I love to fish, and I’ve cleaned my fair share of trout. Never once in my life did I think, “that might be tasty raw and wrapped in seaweed.” But, as my Mom told me when I was a kid, when I was both starving to death and complaining about what was for supper, beggars can’t be choosers. So I tried it. And my eyes lit up. I didn’t know what I had been missing.
Its incredible how proud we are, thinking we can navigate this life independently, using our instinct and intuition to guide us. The proverb says, “he that trusteth in his own heart is a fool.” We don’t even know ourselves, and we think we can understand the mysteries of the universe on our own, or listen to other people give their opinions about what they also don’t know. Without Christ, the Bible accurately describes us as blind to spiritual realities and living in darkness. Jesus tells us that He is the light of the world. When Jesus saved me, my eyes were opened to the truth about myself, my sin, and the pardon and forgiveness found in Jesus Christ. I saw the light and started to understand what I had been missing.