I was reading a cooking magazine a few months ago which claimed to have formulated the best recipe for chicken and dumplings—one of my family’s favorite meals, as well as a great way to stretch a dollar of the weekly grocery budget.  Halfway through the article I found a big problem.
 
   This magazine is based in Boston, its editor from Vermont.  I already had a suspicion what their “best” recipe would contain—big puffy dumplings resembling drowned biscuits.  In the South, especially the poor rural south, most prefer flat “slicker style” dumplings, akin to noodles or pasta, enriched with egg yolks and sometimes butter, even chicken fat if possible.

    Sure enough, near the end of the article we readers were informed that the panel of tasters greatly preferred the “Yankee style” dumplings (that was their wording, not mine), “except for two holdouts from Kentucky.”  Really?  Do you suppose if the magazine had been based in Atlanta, with the panel predominantly Southern, that the results might have been overwhelmingly in favor of the Southern style dumplings “except for two holdouts from Connecticut?”

    Taste has a lot to do with your background, what you grew up eating, what your parents did and did not like, and what was available in your area.  My boys loved fried okra.  Some of the friends they brought home from college didn’t even know what it was, and were almost afraid to try it.  We are blessed to live in a society so wealthy that we can choose what we like and don’t like.  For most of us, eating has more to do with pleasure than necessity.

    Unfortunately, that spoiled attitude has spilled over into our spiritual lives.  We think we can take it or leave it as we choose, without ill effect; and if we take it, we think we can choose how we take it.  Our Creator doesn’t get to choose how He wants to be served.  We get to choose how, when, where, even if.  We get to choose which parts of this law we want to follow, and which we want to ignore.  We can even interpret it any way we like, even if our interpretation ignores the context or plainly contradicts another part of it.  We get to do all this choosing and He must be satisfied with what we want, and what we like.  No wonder anthropologists talk about Deity as something each culture creates.

    Yes, each culture creates gods they want to worship, but that is not Deity.  Until we understand that the concept of Deity does not involve our likes and dislikes at all, we will never be approved by that Deity.  As long as we think our opinions matter, we are not serving God, we are simply serving ourselves.

    God is immutable.  Truth is absolute.  Obedience is not a request but a demand.  We can choose to disobey, but the consequences will not be pleasant.

Thus says Jehovah, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts: I am the first, and I am the last; and besides me there is no God.  And who, as I, shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order for me, since I established the ancient people? and the things that are coming, and that shall come to pass, let them declare. Fear not, neither be afraid: have I not declared unto you of old, and showed it? and you are my witnesses. Is there a God besides me? yea, there is no Rock; I know not any.  Isa 44:6-8.


For the recipe accompanying this post, click > Dene's Recipes page

Dene Ward

When my mother raised us, she always said, “I’m not running a restaurant.  You get what I serve,” and what she served was always fine with me.  I don’t recall a single bad meal.  Even recently I heard a television cook reminisce about coming to dinner as a child and eating what was put in front of her, so my family wasn’t weird, and neither was I when I followed suit as an adult.  It was as much about finances as anything else, but it certainly helped teach a few things, like, you don’t always get what you want in life and be grateful for whatever there is.

But once in awhile I tried to please everyone as much as possible.  If the main dish was one boy’s favorite, then dessert was the other boy’s favorite.  It was the best of both worlds for them—a favorite entrée and a favorite dessert. 

Recently I have come up with a dessert that has to be the best of both worlds.  I haven’t decided whether to call it a cheesecake brownie or a brownie cheesecake.  It has two layers: a brownie bottom, and a cheesecake top.

So, if you like chocolate and cheesecake, you can have both in one piece.  If you want chewy and smooth and creamy this is the dessert for you.  If you like chocolate and vanilla, this is even better than Neapolitan ice cream.  It’s even part convenience food and part “from scratch.”  The brownie layer is a mix and the cheesecake layer is all homemade.  A friend told me it’s perfect for her and her husband.  He has celiac disease, so he eats the gluten-free cheesecake layer and she eats the brownie layer.  Like I said, the best of both worlds.

Now try to convince your neighbors that as a Christian you have the best of both worlds.  All they can see is what you can’t do and how much you sacrifice in time, energy, and types of entertainment.  Especially if all you do is complain about what you can’t do, ruing the messed up weekends, the missed ball games and picnics, what else do you expect?  You are supposed to make your life look like something they will want, not something they will hate.

So perhaps we should start by convincing ourselves.  We don’t have to go to church; we get to assemble with our spiritual family.  We don’t have to dress differently; we get to look like decent, classy people instead of prostitutes.  We don’t have to give up drinking and smoking and drugs; we get to keep our dignity, breathe clearly, and preserve as many brain cells as possible.  We don’t have to give up revenge and gossip; we get to get along with people and stay out of trouble.  We don’t have to watch our language; we get to look like intelligent people with a real vocabulary.  We don’t have to give up status and money and things; we find our joy wherever we are in any situation—we have learned in whatever circumstances we are “to be content,” Phil 4:12, and contentment equals happiness.

God does not expect us to be miserable in order to earn Heaven.  Being a Christian is not a horrible life.  It is a life of joy, a life of fulfillment, a life of health, a life of spiritual wealth.  I have more family than any of my neighbors.  One of them was amazed at the food brought during my surgeries, at the women who cleaned my house and the teenagers who raked the yard after Keith had a stroke.  If I ever need help, I don’t have just one person to call, I have a whole list.  

My marriage is intact and happy.  My children are happy, productive citizens, and servants of the Lord to boot.  We don’t have money problems because we don’t love things and don’t need luxury to be satisfied.  We don’t have legal problems because we are honest and law abiding.  We don’t lose our faith over our illnesses and disabilities because we have something far better in store for us.

Which leads us to the next world.  If this life has been good—not perfect, for how could it be in a cursed world—the next one will be nothing short of amazing, an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you,1 Pet 1:4.

God promises us a “best of both worlds” life, far better than a “best of both worlds” dessert.  But He doesn’t make you eat it.  He gives you a choice.  You can have this world and the next if you do it His way.  Otherwise, this one is all you get.

For bodily exercise is profitable for a little; but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life which now is, and of that which is to come,  1 Tim 4:8.

For the recipe accompanying this post, click here.


Dene Ward

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Do a little research and you will find that the term “comfort food” was added to Webster’s Dictionary in 1972.  It refers to foods that are typically inexpensive, uncomplicated, and require little or no preparation at all; foods which usually bring pleasant associations with childhood, just as an old song can remind one of a long ago romance, or a smell can instantly bring back situations both good and bad.  

Comfort foods vary from culture to culture, but in our country usually include things like macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, fried chicken, ice cream, peanut butter, and brownies.  Folks tend to use comfort foods to provide familiarity and emotional security, or to reward themselves.  It’s not surprising that many of these are loaded with carbohydrates which can produce a soporific effect as well.  Comfort food followed closely by the comfort of sleep.

Since it became fashionable I have tried to figure out my own list of comfort foods. Here is my problem:  my mother was such a good cook and so adventurous, trying many recipes day after day, that I never had one dish often enough to form an attachment to it.  One cooking magazine actually runs the column, “My Mother’s Best Meal.”  I could not possibly pick one.  I would need a whole page to list them.  So for me it isn’t comfort food, it’s comfort cooking.  When my mind is in turmoil, I cook all day long, trying, I suppose, to recreate the warm, homey, safe atmosphere of my mother’s kitchen.

Comfort food works for the soul too.  The best part is, you don’t have to be a good cook.  You just open the word of God and feast.  You turn on the water of life and drink to your heart’s content.  You produce the fruit of the lips in praise to God whenever and wherever you desire.  You gather with your brothers and sisters and wallow in a fellowship that has absolutely nothing to do with coffee and donuts.

You can get fatter and fatter with all that spiritual nourishment and still be healthy.  In fact, in this context at least, the skinnier you are, the sicker, the sadder, and the weaker you are.

So grab a spoon today, and everyday, and dig in.

Work not for the food which perishes, but for the food which abides unto eternal life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him the Father, even God, has sealed, John 6:27.

Dene Ward

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            When we camp we eat more convenience food than any other time of the year.  When you are trying to pack a week’s worth into one cooler and two 2 x 1 x 1 ½ foot plastic containers, and when there is no place to put leftovers, a packaged pasta or rice mix and a small can of vegetables is the perfect-sized accompaniment for whatever meat Keith is grilling that night.  Let’s face it, an inch thick rib chop, seasoned with herbs and spices and cooked over a wood fire is the star of the show anyway.

            As for dessert, store-bought cookies are a staple.  However, my family is spoiled by homemade cookies so just any old Chips Ahoy won’t do, not even Oreos.  So we splurge a bit on the cookies. 

            A box of Walker’s Pure Butter Shortbread Bars, imported from Scotland, are a favorite.  Melt-in-your-mouth-rich with the flavor and mouth-feel of real butter, and barely sweetened, they are the perfect accompaniment to a cup of instant hot chocolate—another camping necessity. 

            Another standby is any Pepperidge Farm cookie, depending upon what’s available when I hit the stores the week before a campout.  Walker’s Shortbread makes them look like a bargain, so I buy two kinds rather than just one.  If you have ever had any, you know they come in fluted paper cups, like big, white, muffin pan liners, either nestled in a variety box or stacked in a tall foil-lined paper bag. 

            To minimize the amount of trash we need to stow away from the coons, possums, and bears, we usually toss anything that will burn into the campfire as we finish its contents.  On our last trip we tossed the cup from the first layer of Chewy Fruit and Nut Granola Cookies into the fire.  Somehow in the draft of the fire it landed right side up in the middle of a scrap board Keith had just thrown in as well.  Both sat right in front of an oak log that had coaled up on the bottom, but not yet begun to burn.

            Temperatures were in the forties that night, so we had a good hot fire going with backlogs to reflect the heat our way and glowing embers several inches deep.  Ordinarily a thin piece of paper in a fire like that won’t last five seconds, including burn time.  Because of how it landed, that little cup sat there five full minutes.  Once, a gust of wind tried to blow it into the fire, but the fire’s updraft on either side of it pushed it right back to the middle of the board.  Only a small dark singe mark on its pleated edge showed how close a call it had been.

            Finally, though, the board itself began to burn from either end and the flames crept inexorably toward the paper cup.  Suddenly, in one rapid whoosh, the cup caught fire and was gone in less than a second, its final glowing ash floating into the air before finally winking out in the cold black above.

            Too many times we are like that little fluted paper liner.  We get ourselves into a place we have no business being, into circumstances that should have ended badly.  Yet because God is good, we are saved from the world of hurt we deserved.  Then, instead of appreciating the second chance and removing ourselves from that dangerous place, we stay there and gloat.  “See?  Nothing happened.  I’m just fine.  I told you I could handle it.”

            We sit there smug and confident, certain that everyone who cautioned us was wrong, while disaster sneaks up closer and closer.  In fact, we reach a point where the danger around us seems normal.  We no longer even notice.  We may have a close call or two, but for so many it just adds to the feeling of superiority instead of waking us up.

            And so suddenly, one day, we are gone in a flash—without warning it seems.  But no, we had just become blind to the warnings all around us, fooling ourselves into believing we were safe, while everyone else saw the fire creeping in from all sides.

            Pay attention to where you are today.  Take a mental step back and see the whole picture, not just the safe little ledge you think you have built.  Listen to those around you who can often see much more clearly than you can in the midst of all that smoke and glare.  They wouldn’t say anything and endure your scorn if they didn’t care.

But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And on some have mercy, who are in doubt; and some save, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh, Jude 20-23.

Dene Ward

            At the end of every gardening year I always end up with extra plum tomatoes and nothing to do with them.  My pantry is full of canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, and even tomato jam.  So what else is there?  Now that I have a grandson who is a manic dipper of anything he can pick up in his chubby little fingers, I had a sudden epiphany.  “Ketchup!” I said to myself.  “Make the boy some ketchup.”

            So I found an easy recipe—not a quick one by any means, but once you get past the initial chopping and measuring stage, all you do is stir once in awhile for a couple of hours. 

            I did not want to put a lot of energy into something I had never tried, so I made a small batch.  I filled a five quart Dutch oven halfway with chopped plum tomatoes, onions and peppers, sugar, vinegar, and spices, and put them on to cook.  About two and a half hours later I poured up one generous cup of ketchup.  It was definitely the best ketchup I had ever tasted, and plenty for Keith and I who take a year to go through a 32 oz bottle, but it was not going to do for a ketchup fanatic, and it certainly wasn’t worth the work.  Now that I know the recipe is good, though, I will fill two of those pots to the brim and in about the same amount of time have something a little more worthwhile.

            And that is our problem when it comes to converting the world.  We only fill one pot half full and then wonder why we got such a small return.  Then we become discouraged, or worse, decide that God’s way doesn’t work any more and then we really get into trouble, going places and doing things we have no authority for, denigrating God in the process.

            We see the 3000 baptized on Pentecost and say, what’s wrong?  Why can’t we do that?  Let’s do a little math.  Most scholars estimate the population of Jerusalem during a feast day at 1 million or more.  Three thousand out of one million is not that much.  In fact, it’s the same as 300 out of 100,000, or 30 out of 10,000 or 3 out of 1000.  That’s less than one third of one percent, or, to be silly about it, it’s a short one-third of a person for every hundred. 

            Stop being so negative.  Stop allowing sheer numbers without perspective to discourage you.  This is a Biblical principle.  The road is narrow.  Only a few will find it.  We just have to make sure that their inability to find it wasn’t our fault.  And we have to remember above all, that it isn’t God’s fault either.  It is not the fault of His methods.  It is not the fault of His plan.   We certainly cannot improve on the ways of the Almighty.  What we can do is implement them.  Fill as many pots as you have with tomatoes.  If you want a 3000 day, then cook a million.  Most of us can’t do that, but we can cook a hundred in a lifetime surely.  And if all you get is one cup of ketchup, that’s wonderful.  In fact, it’s better than Pentecost.  You did not fail by any means.  You did your part, and, even better, you did it God’s way.

For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe. Seeing that Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumblingblock, and unto Gentiles foolishness; but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 1 Corinthians 1:21-25

Dene Ward

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            A few weeks ago I got out a pretty dress, put on my heels, found a pretty pair of sparkly, dangling earrings, and dabbed on some lipstick.  Keith and I went out to celebrate our anniversary.  He trimmed his beard, wore a coat and tie, and polished up his dress shoes.  Do you think either one of us for a moment thought that because we chose to dress up for each other on that evening that we didn’t love each other the other 364 days of the year?  If we had, we would not have been celebrating number 40.

            Our assemblies have gotten more casual in dress as the years have gone by.  I understand that dress has nothing to do with the heart.  Sometimes people clean up the outside when it’s the inside that matters.  I would never judge a person as being less than devoted to the Lord because he wore jeans to the assembly, or because he waited on the Lord’s table without a tie on.  I think most of us have gotten past such superficiality. 

            Recently, though, someone said in my hearing that we needed to realize that we serve God all the time, not just on Sundays and that dressing up on Sundays was a sign of being a “Sunday morning Christian.”  I certainly agree with the first part of that statement, but I think the second half goes too far.

            I still wear a dress to our Sunday morning assemblies because that is what I have done all my life.  I see nothing wrong with dressing up—it’s one of the few chances I get.  It does not mean I don’t love the Lord the rest of the week, any more than dressing up for an anniversary dinner means I don’t love my husband the rest of the year.

            Why is it wrong to judge a person who does not dress up, but perfectly fine to judge a person who does? 

            That is just a small example of a big problem we all have—one way or the other we often do exactly the same things we criticize others for doing.  We may be just as judgmental, just as tactless, just as inconsiderate as others.  We have just wrapped ourselves in such an aura of self-righteousness that we cannot see it in ourselves.  Our vision has been clouded by what we want to see, not what is really there.

            I have developed another eye problem—a growth that is fogging up the vision I still have, and which will gradually worsen unless it is removed.  Unfortunately, because of all the other conditions, the surgery to remove the growth is as dangerous to my vision as allowing the growth to continue on. 

            But there is no argument here: it is far more dangerous to our souls to allow that spiritual haze to grow unabated than to remove it.  Self-righteousness breeds true, and becomes more and more difficult to see in ourselves as the years go on. 

Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye, Matt 7:1-5.

Dene Ward

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I was reading the Q and A column in a cooking magazine based in Boston.  “You’re kidding,” I spoke aloud when a reader asked how to dispose of bacon grease without clogging her sink.  Dispose of bacon grease?  Keith was equally appalled, but on a whim he asked a friend, who is originally from New England, what he did with his bacon grease.

            “Why?’ he asked with a suspicious look on his face.  “What’s it good for?”

            What’s it good for?  I guess this is one of those cultural things.  Bacon grease to a Northerner must mean “garbage.”  Bacon grease to a Southerner means “gold.”

            My mother kept a coffee can of it in her refrigerator.  I do the same.  My grandmothers both kept a tin of it on their stoves.  They used it every day, just as their mothers had.  In the South bacon grease is the fat of choice.  In the old days only better-off farmers had cows and butter.  The poorer families had a pig, and they used every square inch of that animal.  Even the bones were put into a pot of beans and many times the few flecks of meat that fell off of them into the pot were all the meat they had for a week.  In a time when people needed fat in their diets (imagine that!), the lard was used as shortening in everything from biscuits to pie crust.  And the grease?  A big spoonful for seasoning every pot of peas, beans, and greens, more to fry okra, potatoes, and squash in, a few spoonfuls stirred into a pan of cornbread batter, and sometimes it was spread on bread in place of butter.

            I use it to shorten cornbread, flavor vegetables, and even to pop popcorn.  Forget that microwave stuff.  If you have never popped real popcorn in bacon grease, you haven’t lived.  I am more health-conscious than my predecessors—in fact, we don’t even eat that much bacon any more.  But when we do, I save the drippings, scraping every drop from the pan, and while most of the time I use a mere teaspoon of olive oil to sauté my squash from the summer garden, once a year we get it with dollop of bacon grease.  Any artery can stand once a year, right?

            As I said, it’s a cultural thing.  Things that are precious to Southerners may not be so to Northerners, and vice versa.  Don’t you think the same should be true with Christians?  What’s garbage to the world should be gold to Christians.

            One thing that comes to mind is the Word of God.  In a day when it is labeled a book of myths, when it is belittled and its integrity challenged, that Word should be precious to God’s people.  David wrote a psalm in which at least seven times he speaks of loving God’s word, Psalm 119.

            We often speak of “loving God” or “loving Jesus,” but you cannot do either without a love of the Word, a love shown in obedience.  Whoever does not love me does not keep my words, and the words that you hear are not mine, but the Father’s who sent me, John 14:24.  Jesus even defined family, the people you love more than anyone or anything else, as “those who hear my word and do it,” Luke 8:21.  Surely the ultimate love was shown by the martyrs depicted in Rev 6:9 who were slain “for the Word of God.”

            Do we love God’s Word that much?  Then why isn’t it in our hands several times a day?  Why aren’t we reading more than a quota chapter a day?  Why can’t we cite more than one or two proof-texts, memorized only to show our neighbors they are wrong? 

            Bacon grease may be gold to a Southern cook, but it is hardly in the same category.  Yet I think I may have heard Christians arguing more about when to use bacon grease than when to read the Bible.  Maybe we are showing the effects of a culture other than a Christian’s.

Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." John 14:21

Dene Ward

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