I grew up drinking Southern sweet tea…the kind where you didn’t measure how much cane sugar you poured from its brown paper bag into the pitcher. You just poured until you figured you’d reached saturation level—too little and it wasn’t sweet enough…too much and you’d end up with grainy sugar at the bottom. Then you poured boiling hot, strong black tea over the sugar, stirred, and filled the pitcher with cold tap water.

 

I grimace now to even think about drinking that much sugar.

 

I love unsweetened tea; and always order mine with lots and lots of extra ice. It’s so frustrating to go through a drive through, pull out of the parking lot, take a long drink and then discover it’s sweet sweet Southern tea. I’ve thought of spitting it out, but I haven’t. Yet.

 

Sometimes I hold up the cars behind me while I taste my tea before I leave the window. There’s no other way to be sure that my order is correct because I can’t see or smell the sugar; and if I want to know for sure, I have to test it.

 

Dear friends,

     do not believe everyone

     who claims to speak by the Spirit.

You must test them

     to see if the spirit they have

     comes from God.

For there are many false prophets

     in the world.

1 John 4:1-5

 

 

Taste tests are best.