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
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