While traveling around the world I enjoyed many great meals and experienced local delicacies everywhere I went. Whether it was Belgian waffles, sausages in Vienna, a traditional English breakfast in London or noodles in Beijing, I can’t say I ever did without. Though I didn’t suffer too much, I missed some tastes of home. I tried to fill that longing when we visited the US, but it returned when we had to leave. Whenever we had access to a US military base, I would drown my sorrows in US fast-food, but that didn’t quite hit the spot.
You see I was dreaming of Bill Miller’s Bar-B-Q, with huge glasses of iced tea to wash it down. I looked forward to Reuben sandwiches, piled high with sauerkraut, from Jason’s Deli. I also wanted breakfast tacos, with all the wonderful ingredients I remembered so well. Most of all I missed southern-style biscuits and gravy, the kind I ate for breakfast when I was a child. Those wouldn’t be considered delicacies by most people, but I looked forward to having them on a regular basis when I retired.
When we finally moved back to the US, reality set in. Yes, I have enjoyed each of those delights, but not nearly as often as I dreamed I would. My daughter’s family ate at Bill Miller’s too often while we were gone, so we rarely eat there now. At my age those large glasses of tea are more than I can handle. These days I have to watch my diet, so I can’t eat my favorite foods as often as I would like. No, I am not suffering, but it isn’t like I dreamed it would be.
There is another dream I have. I wanted to satisfy my hunger and thirst for righteousness. I didn’t have to come back to Texas to get those, but I did have to come “home” to JESUS. It is better than my dreams and I don’t have to hold back or restrict how much I take in, because it is all good. JESUS said, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Mat 5:6 KJV). With that assurance, the only thing that could keep me from getting “filled” is me.
The way to be “filled” is to accept GOD’s gift. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16 KJV). When you accept that gift, you are righteous! Yield to the HOLY SPIRIT, renew your mind with GOD’s Word and you can continue to be “filled.” “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor 5:21 KJV). He is the one that makes me righteous, because it isn’t my righteousness, but His. I just have to “hunger and thirst” and be “filled.”
Wayne Lance (2017)