Archive for January, 2010
I like coffee.
I don’t mind the expensive, name brand stuff. It’s nice. Here’s the thing, you have to see what I mean by coffee. You have to imagine sitting in a booth at a cramped, greasy diner where the food is cooked right there, feet from you. Every sip of coffee in this kind of place is accompanied by the smells of grease smoke and toast. The dark black coffee here is almost strong enough grip a spoon and hold it vertical. This is the moment where magical ingredient comes in. For there, in a small bowl by the counter, rests several sealed cups of half-and-half creamer. What? You didn’t know that half-and-half was a secret ingredient in amazing coffee? I know it might seem funny to imagine that a little plastic container might hold the key to unlocking caffeinated bliss, but I can’t help but wonder how many times we use another kind of “half-and-half” to make an altogether common deception easier to swallow.
I think our “half-and-half” problem is simply this.
You can be happy as long as you think you are better than at least half of the rest of humanity.
Oh, we are slick with our wording. “Well, she is no saint.” or “I wouldn’t say he’s as bad as Hitler or anything.” Please be honest now. Where do you place yourself? Where do you experience this?
Let me see if I can help. Where do you stand compared the world’s population when it comes to: prayer, working hard, being a good person, caring about others, going to church, being hospitable, giving, loving God? … Now, where do you stand compared to the world’s population when it comes to: lying, stealing, lusting, gossiping, pride, selfishness, tolerating abortion, listening to rap music, Harry Potter?
Do you see it? Young and old, we all play this little game. We play because we become deceived. Jeremiah the prophet said, “The human heart is most deceitful and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” (Jeremiah 17:9, NLT*) I have grown to accept that experiencing the greatness of God and admitting our pride go hand in hand.
This deceit can be our magical ingredient, our half-and-half. Do you see it? The blacker the coffee is, the more half-and-half we need. That’s the whole trick! With half-and-half around, you can simply control how much coffee you taste. And hey, even if you taste something you don’t really like… at least you aren’t as bad as Hitler or anything.
*New Living Translation of the Bible
“Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about what happens to you.” – 1 Peter 5:7 (NLT)
I’m sitting here, just finished eating lunch, and am researching some religious stuff that one of my non-believing friends has gotten into. It’s been on my mind most of the morning…. In other words, a pretty normal day for me. The idea struck me as I sit here that many of us are in the same boat on a fairly regular basis.
1. We have routines.
2. We have cares. (distractions)
3. Our cares often overlap our routines.
It’s funny how often we believe that we are intentional in our routines. We often ignore the overlap of work and our cares. For instance, I can be at work and realize that my mind hasn’t been on my task for ages and yet got a bunch done. I can also get insanely distracted with tasks during times I want to give to thought and prayer.
Many of today’s youth are drowning in their emotions to the point of utter distraction, and many are so fun and hobby focused that they are ignorant of the the empty cares the world IS forcing on them. In other words, either cares or responsibilities is often crowding the other out. Holding these two in balance is a learned discipline. The Bible contains stories of many men and women that keep a God focus in the middle of tremendous cares and incredible responsibility. Peter said that God cares about what happens in our day to day, big or small. Our loving God would have us submit our actions and cares to Him. He is intimately involved with our lives and no detail is small enough for Him to overlook.
I pray that parents will shepherd their kids hearts to take their cares to The Lord, even right in the middle of the day-to-day.
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