Lord of the Coffee Cup

I am sitting at my desk, 7:57AM. It's a Tuesday. I have been in the building for about 12 minutes. I have been at my desk for about 2. (I had to first go to the kitchen and putter around making the coffee).

I am a pastor, so my work day is supposed to be spiritual, meaningful, and significant. I begin with a prayer.

"Lord, I ask that you be the Lord of my coffee cup."

Say what? What kind of prayer is that?

In Matthew 6:24, Jesus says, "No one can serve two masters ... you cannot serve God and wealth." So, I read that, and I substitute whatever I would serve in place of serving God. In this instance, coffee.

Richard Foster talks about praying with a cup of coffee in his hand - letting the prayer last as long as the coffee is warm. The coffee is kind of a prayer guide, a rosary acceptable to Quakers. He even says he holds the cup to his cheek to feel the warmth and be reminded that he is filled with the warmth of the Holy Spirit.

I don't get quite as intimate with my morning java. But I sure do consume a lot of it. I have a consuming approach to food and drink (and maybe to life). That's not always bad. The Holy Spirit reminds us that the bridegroom has come. But out consuming must be an acknowledgement that all good things are based in Jesus. All good comes from God through Jesus. I too often consume because my appetite, no my tastes, are ravenous.

I don't eat or drink because of hunger but because I enjoy the feel of food in my mouth, the sensation of it landing in my throat. When it finally lands, my stomach says, "Hey, it's getting pretty crowded in here! We're going to need to bust out a wall and expand." My ego rejected the expansion proposal, but my stomach, in cahoots with my desire to be eating and drinking at all times, went ahead with it anyway.

My life is this constant tension - I want God to be master. Yet, my impulses lead to excess in spending, in eating, in debates (which become obsessive and distracting), and in other things. I have reached a point where I need to truly reach out to God and plead for Him to take back the lost territory. I need God, revealed in Jesus Christ, to be master of everything in my life. And giving life to Him is going to be tough. The stomach and the taste buds and the swallow muscles have not reached the same epiphany that my heart and mind and soul have reached. I need God to help me win this war. I need God to be Lord of everything in me.

Including this cup of coffee.