The most subtle flavors are easy to overlook. Attention changes experience.

One of the humbling things about tasting whiskey is how often I miss something the first time through.

The obvious notes usually announce themselves. Caramel. Vanilla. Oak. Cinnamon. Heat. Sweetness. Those are the easy ones. They are the notes that step forward first and introduce themselves before I have had much time to think.

But then, if I slow down, something else may appear.

Maybe there is a little orange peel hiding under the sweetness. Maybe there is a cherry note I did not catch at first. Maybe the spice turns out to be closer to clove than cinnamon. Maybe there is a faint touch of leather, tobacco, cocoa, mint, or dark fruit that was there all along, waiting for me to notice.

The whiskey did not necessarily change.

My attention did.

That is one of the things I love about a good tasting. The experience deepens when I stop rushing through it. If I only take one quick sip and move on, I may still know whether I like it, but I probably will not know everything it had to say. Some notes require patience. Some require quiet. Some require coming back to the glass after a few minutes and admitting my first impression was incomplete.

I think life is like that.

Some of the best gifts are easy to miss because they do not come in loudly. They do not always announce themselves with fireworks, thunder, or a dramatic musical swell. They may arrive as something small, quiet, familiar, or easily dismissed.

A kind word. A small gesture. A moment of peace. A sentence that lands at exactly the right time. A student’s slow growth. A wife’s way of saying, “I know you,” without having to say the words.

The danger is that I can move too quickly through my own life and miss the notes God has placed there. I can taste the obvious things — the stress, the frustration, the deadlines, the disappointments, the expenses, the unanswered questions — and assume that is the whole pour.

But it rarely is.

In 1 Kings 19, Elijah was exhausted, afraid, and hiding in a cave. He had seen God work in dramatic ways. On Mount Carmel, fire had fallen from heaven. The power of God had been displayed in a way no one could reasonably miss.

But after all of that, Elijah was discouraged and running for his life.

Then the Lord told him to stand on the mountain. A great and strong wind tore through, but the Lord was not in the wind. Then came an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. Then came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.

After the fire came the sound of a low whisper.

That is the part that gets me.

God had shown Himself through fire before. He certainly can work through the dramatic. But in that moment, Elijah did not encounter the Lord in the loudest thing. He encountered Him in the quietest.

The loud things got Elijah’s attention. The whisper carried the presence.

That makes me wonder how often I miss God because I am waiting for Him to be louder. I want the unmistakable answer. I want the clear sign. I want the breakthrough, the fire from heaven, the kind of moment that settles everything in a flash.

Sometimes God gives that. But often, He gives the whisper.

He gives the small mercy in the middle of an ordinary day. He gives the unexpected encouragement. He gives the person who remembers something that matters to us. He gives a little peace before He gives the solution. He gives enough light for the next step instead of a full map of the road.

Those things are easy to overlook if I have trained myself to recognize only the dramatic.

I see this in marriage all the time.

Daryl does little things to let me know she loves me. Not always grand, sweeping, movie-scene gestures. Sometimes it is something as simple as knowing a friend is going to another country and asking that friend to bring back a shot glass for me because she knows I collect them and she knows it will mean something to me.

That is a tasting note.

It is easy to miss if I am not paying attention. It is not just a shot glass. It is thoughtfulness. It is memory. It is love taking the shape of something small enough to fit in my hand.

I try to do the same for her in my own way. Every so often, I bring her flowers just because. Not because it is Valentine’s Day. Not because I am trying to get out of trouble, though I am not above keeping that option available. I bring them because I know they mean something to her.

Flowers are not practical. That is part of their beauty. They are not groceries. They are not a paid bill. They are not an item checked off the household list. They are a small way of saying, “I thought of you. I know what makes you smile. I wanted you to have this.”

Small things are not always small.

Sometimes they are the subtle notes that make the whole experience richer.

Luke 24 gives another picture of this. After the resurrection, two disciples were walking on the road to Emmaus. They were confused and grieving, trying to make sense of everything that had happened. Jesus Himself came near and walked with them, but they did not recognize Him.

That is almost hard to imagine until I realize how often I have probably done the same thing.

Jesus was with them. He was speaking to them. He was opening the Scriptures to them. Their hearts were burning within them, but they did not yet understand why. Only later, when He broke the bread, were their eyes opened. Only then did they look back and realize what had been happening on the road.

The grace had been present before they recognized it.

That may be one of the most honest pictures of spiritual life in the Bible. Sometimes we do not understand what God was doing until later. Sometimes the note is in the glass, but we do not have the palate for it yet. Sometimes the mercy is real before we have the eyes to name it.

I saw that this year in a letter from a former student.

She graduated this year, but I taught her back in eighth grade. At the time, her grades were terrible, which was frustrating because I knew she was smart. I knew she was capable. I could see potential in her, but I could not always see much evidence that she was ready to use it.

So I did what teachers do. I encouraged her. I talked to her. I tried to remind her that she was capable of more than her grades showed. I hoped she would eventually turn a corner, but I did not really know whether anything I said was making a difference.

This year, our graduating seniors wrote letters to former teachers, and one of mine came from her.

She thanked me for things I had said to her. She wrote, “I remember feeling positive and more hopeful after our conversations.” She also said my encouragement was part of the reason she was accepted to a university in South Florida.

I cannot tell you how much that meant.

At the time, I had not seen that note. I saw the missing work. I saw the bad grades. I saw the frustration of a bright student not yet becoming what I believed she could become.

But something else was there under the surface.

Hope was there. Encouragement was there. A seed was there.

I just could not taste it yet.

That letter was a reminder that some of the most important work God does in a life happens beneath the obvious flavors. Encouragement can feel wasted when there is no immediate evidence that it mattered. Love can seem unnoticed. Prayer can seem unanswered. Faithfulness can feel fruitless.

But not every seed announces itself the moment it begins to grow.

That is why attention matters. It teaches me not to trust only my first impression. It reminds me that the obvious notes are not always the whole story. It slows me down enough to notice the whisper, the small kindness, the quiet growth, the hidden grace, the Savior walking beside me on a road where I thought I was alone.

The tasting note I missed was not missing from the glass. I was missing from the moment.

And maybe that is true more often than I want to admit. Maybe God’s mercy has brushed against my life in quieter ways than I expected. Maybe the answer came first as peace instead of a solution. Maybe love arrived as a shot glass from another country or flowers on an ordinary day. Maybe growth was happening in a student long before I saw the proof. Maybe Jesus was walking with me before I recognized Him.

The most subtle flavors are easy to overlook.

But once I notice them, the whole experience changes.

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Copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt.