Home Cooking

Proverbs 15:16 (The Message) A simple life in the Fear-of-God is better than a rich life with a ton of headaches. 

I suppose every kid has dreams of conquering the world and living what he believes to be "the good life." In his mind he can accomplish this through obtaining power, influence and wealth. This dream is the driving force that keeps him motivated and pressing forward through the challenges of life.

At one point this young man even thinks of himself as being smarter, craftier and wiser than any of the past generations and he intends to prove it. However, after years of repeatedly running into walls of resistance, he finally comes to the conclusion that his original plans may have been a little aggressive and therefore they need altering.

The young man also begins to realize that his undisciplined lifestyle does not match the required disciplined lifestyle that is needed for obtaining such an aggressive goal.

Like most folks, he starts out in life at one extreme, but reaches for the other extreme while trying to find his own place in life. After a while he begins to back away from that extreme and then establishes a "worthwhile predetermined goal" that will match the price that he is willing to pay for his success.

Once he begins to realize that perhaps the past generation was not quite as dumb as he originally thought, he is now ready to learn from their wisdom. The past generation of trailblazers had also started out in life just as aggressively as he had.

Later on in life, after obtaining some of the cherished power, influence and wealth he so longed for in his early life, he now feels like Solomon.

"Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?" (Ecclesiastes 1:2 KJV)

The older he gets the more he realizes that living the "simple life" is the life to be cherished. However, what is a simple life to one may not be a simple life to another.

I have been privileged to eat at some of the finest restaurants in the world and I have enjoyed every one of them. However, over the years I have come to the conclusion that the restaurants that I really enjoy eating at are the simple little ‘Mom and Pop’ restaurants.

San Antonio has more good places to eat than most cities its size, but the restaurant that my wife Karen and I enjoy going to is a little café called Mr. & Mrs. G’s. This little restaurant is owned and run by a wonderful older black couple who are second to none when it comes to serving good home cooking.

The people who pack this restaurant out every day are usually ordinary hard working folks who need a lot of good food to keep them going. When I first started going to Mr. & Mrs. G’s the parking lot was filled with pickup trucks, but the other day when we were there the parking lot was filled with Mercedes Benz’s, BMWs and other fine automobiles. Apparently the word had gotten out about all this good food.

When being served a plate of food at Mr. & Mrs. G’s one is guaranteed to get a working man’s size serving. The choices from their cafeteria style serving line are southern fried chicken, golden brown pork chops, a piece of catfish as long as your arm, ham hocks, barbecued ribs (that would make a grown man cry), sweet potatoes, black eyed peas, mashed potatoes, cream corn, turnip greens and a serving of banana pudding that is large enough to put you to sleep for a month.

While in the restaurant that day Karen and I were surrounded by ordinary folks who unashamedly bowed their heads in prayer thanking God for their food.

As we drove away from the restaurant that day we had a new appreciation for the simple life. This was a life of unseen riches that was not visible to the natural eye and could not be bought or influenced by all the "power and wealth" in the world.

Father,

Thank You for allowing us to see the riches in the simple things of life. You have shown us a Godly wealth that is beyond the reach of the natural mind and can only be appreciated by spiritual revelation.

Amen