caffeine

Here I am, in the library, taking a break from reading some very dry art history.
Blogging is more fun, and I don't fall asleep while doing it.

It's the liturgical season of Lent.
It is my church's and my family's custom to give up something. 
We don't give it up for merely the sake of giving it up or to look religious and pious.  It's a reminder of all that God gave up to become human, suffer, and conquer death so that we could be free. 
Obviously, anything I give up is less than a grain of sand in comparison, but it is still a good reminder.

This Lent I gave up coffee.
I joke about my addiction to it a lot. It started as a "I need to stay awake and finish this paper!" type-deal, but I don't really drink it to stay awake anymore.  Although that is sometimes a side-effect, I really drink it because I enjoy it a lot. 
The first two weeks were plagued with incessant and persistent caffeine headaches; I drank a couple cups every 3 days when I just couldn't focus because my head hurt so badly. (Yes, I tried ibuprofen, and it didn't help.)

I am finally headache free.  The physiological addiction seems to have lost its hold.  However, now I have found a stronger and more latent addiction.  I have an emotional addiction to coffee.

Yesterday, as I was walking through the misty and chilly rain to my car, I was looking ahead to the week. I became overwhelmed by stress.  (I'll spare you the details.  Basically, it's insanely busy, and I only have one day where I do not have anything planned.) 
Instantly, a coffee craving hit.  It was one of those where you aren't satisfied by any food or drink until you get what you crave.  I thought about how much I would love a creamy cinnamon dolce latte from Starbucks or some of Just Love's fresh roasted coffee.
It was then that I realized I find a lot of comfort in coffee.


Okay, you're probably thinking "What's the big deal? Why am I reading your ramblings?"
 My comfort should be found first and foremost in God!I realized while walking to my car yesterday that one of the places I had been naturally moving to for comfort was not the feet of Jesus but the coffee house/ coffee maker.

[Disclaimer: Coffee is in no way evil or wrong, and I think that a lot of awesome things go on in coffee houses.  I think the sacred invades the secular. (That's another blog post I am working on....)]

Anyway,
I would have never told you pre-Lent that I needed coffee to feel secure and calm and stress-free.

This may seem super trivial.  Admittedly, from a worldly standpoint it is.  People self-medicate with things way worse than coffee.  However, I am not called to look at things from a worldly vantage point. 

Anything that takes the place of God in my life is an idol for me.  Coffee is truly not the problem here.  The problem is that I am relying on transient things to bring me transient comfort.  I am accepting the rags of the temporary when I have already been given robes of the eternal. 
God is my eternal, unending, and unshakeable comfort. 
If I am willing to sing that God is my "all-in-all" and that "all I need is God," then I need to be willing to live that out.  I echo Paul in saying that I will not be mastered by anything.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God."

-2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Entropy vs. Embodiment

Rules never saved anyone.

The Bible says, "what the law was powerless to do..."

The law merely pointed out our desperate and obvious and glaring need for God.

Like flowers ripped from the life-giving earth, thrown in water that can never sustain, and destined to crumble into ash, we are destined to return to dust.

Our very nature is entropic; it becomes more and more chaotic and disorganized.  

We are the antithesis of our Father; God is not a God of chaos.

He set the universe spinning with His words.

He set up the process of cellular respiration, nuero-muscular junctions, star-death, and made "dark-matter" (whatever that is; we don't even know).

He made the elements of the world; He gave them unique properties so that they would all react with each other in certain ways.

So many mechanisms in our body work "just-so" so we don't die.

Everyone around you: 

"weird," "normal," gay, straight, bisexual, homophobic, conservative, liberal, protestant, catholic, orthodox, atheist, agnostic, buddhist, hindu, muslim, republican, democrat, rebel, goody-goody, introvert, extrovert, independent, frat-boy, sorority-girl, artist, rockstar, popstar, pornstar, student, teacher, pastor, preacher, priest, disabled, homeless, addict, stay-at-home mom, business professional, yuppy, hippie, scientist, writer, actor, sports-fanatic, athlete, traveler, red & yellow, black & white

Every. Single. Person. was designed by God for His glory.

He looks at every person, and He loves them radically.

He humbled Himself, became human, died an agonizing death on a roman torture device,

AND HE CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD.

He defeated death so that our nature could be totally redeemed; He defeated death so our souls could return to their original state, eternal.

Why do we get stuck in rules?

Yes, rules are relevant; they are guides to a closer walk with Christ.

However, if we start preaching rules and guilt and "why weren't you at my church on Sunday?" then are we even preaching the gospel of Christ? or are we preaching the gospel or moralism?

If our religion begins to become legalism, are we walking in love?

If we first look at a person as gay, are we walking in love?

If we first look at a person as an atheist, are we walking in love?

Unless we look at people first and foremost as image-bearers of God, as brothers and sisters whom God loves radically, then we will not be able to love them the way we should.

Unless we realize that God loves us radically and encounter that love daily, we will be unable to love as we should.

Yes, Christians are called to lead a life worthy of Christ's calling, but do any of us Ever actually succeed in doing that daily?

No.

If you answered yes, then I am sorry, but you are seriously deluded.

We all are desperately in need of God's grace.

Shouldn't that make us more empathetic and less judgmental of those we come in contact with?

The love of Christ should supersede every natural inclination and opinion we have.

Loving, truly loving, is so hard. 

I struggle with it daily.  However, it is So important.

The essence of our Father is love, and I pray that I, and each of us, can be more of an embodiment of His love each day.

1 Corinthians 13

 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.