Everything in my life is being filled with richness: my relationship with Sandy, with my children, with the saints in the church, with the building, with my work, and with my inventions. The most stunning of all is my eyesight, which has been in the hands of the Lord by Him leading me to an eye doctor who supplied me with a new pair of prescription glasses. Everything that was clogged is clearer, sharper, more wonderful, enjoyable and full of laughter and fun. Now this is what I call revival!
Back to the Iron Chef meal. With everything in my life being so enhanced, I was surprised to discover that God was going to enrich something that I had never even considered necessary. And that was my taste buds. Yes, those little things in my mouth that are connected with my smelling ability. This surprise happened to me as Peggy Cole and my family were about to enjoy a custom-designed outstanding five-course meal. This well-known chef was about to take me into the wonders of exquisite culinary dining.
After we finished the first course, the waiter immediately asked for our opinions of the dish. I had been on a strict regiment of not eating salt in my food and found that my taste buds had really become alive to any food that had incredible seasoning yet was still salt-less. Our first course included steak tartar, which really sparkled in my palate and I couldn’t wait to tell the chef how luscious and interesting his dish was. So when they asked me for my opinion I said, “When I get to heaven and they serve us the marriage supper of the Lamb, I’m going to ask Jesus that the chef be allowed to prepare this dish because it is that phenomenal!”
The successive dishes were climbing an extravagant staircase to heaven and I was ever so prepared for the fourth course. They brought forth a dish that included ox tail that had been cooked four different ways and rolled into a delicately prepared cake roll. When I bit into the exquisite entrée, it was so savory that it exploded with incredible flavors and symphonically scrumptious notes that danced on my palate and excited a certain vision center in my brain that had never been turned on before.
I knew that smells can really influence your memory, but this was something I had never experienced before. It was an exciting taste that caused a fun explosion of memory and visions. When the waiter again came to the table to ask for my opinion I replied, “When my palate bit into the ox tail roll, it exploded with notes and tones that invoked such memories that I envisioned myself on a grassy hillside grabbing the tail of a fleeing ox and throwing him into a fire to be cooked. As a result, sparks from the fire flew up into the sky and they became one with the stars.”
I was about to continue with my explanation but everyone at the table drowned me out with their laughter. For a moment I felt silly for having such a grandiose vision. The thing that amazed me was I hadn’t even shared with them the complete vision I had really seen. A few minutes later I tried sharing it again but I just received the same bemused laughter. So maybe now that I’ve got your attention with this blog, I’ll share with you the whole vision that God gave me as I bit into the ox tail roll.
The ox tail vision:
The sparks flying in the air from the fire resulted in a heavenly vision of stars that merged into the sparks. In the vision I was traveling through a constellation of stars that appeared to be in the shape of a huge ox, and each star was a palate of incredible notes of flavor. All of us landed on a planet in the star system that was inhabited with incredible animals, and we were dressed in beautiful evening attire. We literally spent an entire universe of time eating and feasting from planet to planet on the incredible the delights that our God had provided in the ox tail constellation of stars.
Wow! The vision was so wonderful I tried a third time to relate it to those at the table. But again they jovially said, “Richard, please don’t go on again with your description.” But the ox tail stars and constellation were the best part of the vision because I had seen us feasting 40 years on each planet. Just think how fun the incredible explosion of flavors would be in God’s wonderful universe.
The fantastic whirlwind of pleasure continued into Monday the next day. I was overwhelmed by the wonder of every rich flavor, sight, desire, and pleasure that God was bringing to us as a church family. Suddenly, about 11:40 in the morning, when I had stopped in front of the marquee of “A Place To Meet Jesus”, the Lord spoke to me, “Richard, am I going too fast?” I started laughing out loud. I then replied, “Not yet.”
I continued to laugh at what the Lord had said to me for the rest of the day…
A Place To Meet Jesus 