Some Things about Jesus & Coffee
If all you need in life are coffee and Jesus, you may have a theology issue.
I know I just offended 92 percent of you, but the offense doesn’t stop there, and for that, I half-heartedly apologize.
You think you need coffee to survive; I usually do too. But we don’t.
We believe a morning without it will result in our literal death, but it won’t. (As far as I know, no one has ever died of a caffeine deficiency, but then again, I haven’t done any official research on it.) …
Can coffee make our day better? Duh.
Does it deliver where other beverages can’t? For sure.
Does perhaps the most excellent way to start our day involve its company? Absolutely.
But we don’t need it to survive—to thrive maybe, but not to survive (and if that statement makes you angry, this may mean you have a caffeine addiction and need to pursue help and perhaps take up green tea for a bit … no one is judging you). Don’t get me wrong, I’m a coffee fan up there with the best of them—like Lorelai Gilmore status. I have enough coffee dates over the course of a year to keep small Latin American countries funded. I practically get paid to drink coffee with people and listen to their stories (also, I just explained what most of you reading this would consider a dream job).
So I’m a big fan of the bean, trust me. I not only think coffee is great in moderation but even in excess.
I proclaim “needing” a coffee run at least twelve times a week, among other things. I make lots of proclamations like that, toward things such as Ben & Jerry’s, or a manicure, or new pillows from Target, or cookies, or a tan, or that new pair of jeans, or pizza, or brownies—and any other forms of dessert I forgot to mention, such as milkshakes. All these things are fine in moderation—just stuff that I don’t actually happen to need but do often happen to really want.
What this last week of my life has reminded me is that when we get down to it, the list of things we actually, truly need is not as long as we think. Which is a bummer if you’re like me and you like your stuff, even your unnecessary stuff. Often, I reach for that stuff first, rather than in the direction of Jesus, or His Word, or His presence.
Because I do need Jesus to survive, and I need Jesus to thrive—I need Him for literally everything. You need Him for literally everything too.
That will never be an inaccurate statement at any point in my life. When I think I don’t need Him, or I show Him that with my actions, I actually do still need Him. Or when I think I’m OK without Him, I’m really not. I forget that a lot. Yet, many mornings, I make time for the coffee and don’t make time for Him, which is weird. Why do I do that? Why do we do that?
I think it’s pretty simple. Coffee gives us immediate satisfaction—a tangible, physical, edible result paired with froth and fuzzy feelings. It’s warm and delicious and wakes up my body and my brain. I get to drink it out of an adorable mug, and I get to share it with friends. It’s filling and comforting and fuels my day. It’s immediate gratification that energizes the short game of our days.
Because let’s be honest, we don’t like the long-game stuff.
The long game requires discipline and patterns and paths we have to keep traveling on—paths that require lots of hard work and focus and commitment. But our relationship with Jesus is about the long game. Even though it may last our whole lives, it completely consists of daily decisions and moments. Does our walk with Jesus feed and satisfy us daily? Yes. Is time with Jesus the best way to start our day? Absolutely. But often, we go to God seeking Him for the quick fixes and the fuzzy feelings and the immediate results that He doesn’t necessarily promise us. Because, again, we’re fixated with the short game.
And we give up when we don’t feel better—or worse, we neglect Him entirely because we think we’re doing fine on our own. Or, if you’re anything like me, you just tend to cringe at your own constant neediness—even your neediness for God.
Because I hate coming across as incapable or incompetent in any capacity—personally, professionally, emotionally, or spiritually. I don’t want to feel weak or actually be weak or find out there are things I need that I can’t provide for myself. But that is the whole of the Christian life: what I need the most, I cannot muster up on my own. When my talents, and connections, and dreams, and relationships, and character, and charisma fail me, Christ never does. I disappoint myself, but He never has. It feels like He has some days, but He hasn’t.
My twenties taught me, perhaps more than most things, that everything will eventually fail us—most of all, our very own selves. And after an entire decade of dreams both coming to life and dying away, I think I’m finally beginning to learn how much I need Jesus. Not just want Him, but need Him—in the desperate kind of way.
I need Him in my job, for both the seemingly big and small tasks.
I need Him in my relationships—romantic ones and friendship ones and everything in between.
I need Him inside my heart and my mind—to inform me what to desire, how to think, how to act, and how to decide.
I need Him for comfort and I need Him for correction.
I need Him for healing and I need Him for hope.
I need Him for my sanctification and I need Him for my everyday saving.
I need Him for my forgiveness and I need Him in order to forgive.
I need Him as a Father and I need Him as a friend, a best friend.
I need Him for strength, and wisdom, and compassion, and patience, and self-control, and faithfulness, and all those other wonderful qualities I can’t seem to create for myself.
I need Him for eternal life and I need Him for daily living.
I need Jesus for everything. And so do you.
And He can be found in anything because all things are sacred in a life given over to Him. This is probably the highest realization we could have during these precious, unknown, crazy, fulfilling, wild, exciting, devastating ten years—that it’s OK to get comfortable in your neediness for God, because nothing could be more true of us.
Although this decade is meant to help you know yourself—learning who you are and will want to be and how to get there—it’s even more about knowing God. Knowing who He is and how He speaks and what His voice sounds like and what His character is. If you can set your heart and mind on discovering those things, you’re on a path toward life—a real, meaningful, remarkable, sacred life. One that doesn’t center around things that don’t tend to matter. A life not set on your own desires or dreams or goals, but His for you.
If you don’t know where to start, that’s alright; none of us did at one point. It’s good to ask for help from people who’ve been walking that path for a while. It’s also reasonable to have doubts, and questions, and not even know if God is the thing you actually want to give your whole life to. He can handle your questions, He welcomes them, and He has answers for all those and more.
Because this road—the road you’re on—it’s either pretty freakin’ hard, or pretty freakin’ amazing, or maybe always both. Our days and desires and emotions and jobs and cities and relationships can all change, but Jesus never does, never will. He is the constant and therefore the One we have to continually seek.
So let’s get comfortable in our neediness; that’s what I’m trying to do right now. Weakness can actually be our greatest blessing if a realization of it pushes us toward the Father. Because He died for that weakness, so you could know Him—and He would do it all over again if He had to.
And it turns out that Jesus is really, solely, indefinitely all that we need.
He’s usually not all that we tend to want, or desire, or feel satisfied by—because we’re selfish and only think about the here and now. But even we can’t change the truth, although we’ll spend most of our days searching for it. The truth that Christ is the only Way and the only Truth and the only Life. The whole of both our neediness and our satisfaction is summed up in that statement.
When that statement doesn’t feel like enough for us, may we know that the lack exists within our own hearts rather than in Christ. So let’s have the courage to ask Him to make that true for us—that Jesus is all we will ever need. Remember, He welcomes our asking. Asking reflects our need. Needing reflects our lack. And a lack assumes the possibility of filling.
Jesus fills. To the brim, and then some more. Coffee is just a bonus.