God in my Coffee - cont.

Something went wrong with the screen on my I-pad and I couldn't scroll down to finish this entry.
I'm sure you're all wondering why it was titled "God in my Coffee."
Well, you see, after I got through the morning and got past the feelings and the lack of feelings (numbness?) and the mental tangent about "if I were a car . . ." - did you know that a tangent is the place where a line intersects a circle at only one point!?
Well after all that, I made it to Starbucks and ordered a short, bold, drip and they had to do a "pour over" ( is that T.M.I.?) and I took the lid off and smelled it and tasted it, because I always do that to test the aroma and flavor before masking all its imperfections with cream (now that's T.M.I.!), then, at that very moment, God met me and came to me and crawled up into my nostrils through the smell of the coffee!  And then I realized that He was there all along and waiting to be recognized and all it took was that familiar aroma - you know how our sense of smell is the strongest connection to certain memories?  Well in that moment I made a connection with all of the good things in my life and realized that God is good and the source of all that's good because "Every good and perfect gift comes from above . . . from the Father of Lights" and I'm sure that applies to coffee as well, whether it's Starbucks or Tully's or Peet's.  And that's my story because that's what happened to me.  He snuck up on me and surprised me when I least expected it - only now I'm going to be expecting it more and even looking for it!  And you should too.

God in my Coffee

My 10 a.m. appointment was canceled but I came to Starbucks anyway.  It's  been that kind of morning.  Not that things were really going wrong, I just didn't feel right.

I know we're not supposed to live by our feelings (I told this to my wife once early on in our marriage, now this "life altering truth" has come back to haunt me.)  After I awoke early (5:30) and attempted to pray for my family and the rest of the world, I lay back down to "soak."

My mind was fully awake and trying to get a head start on the day without waiting for my body to catch up.  Considering what was involved in getting up to face the day, my soul launched a counter-offensive, "We need some more 'down time' here, we're not ready for this, 'God loves me!  Cast all your care upon Him, He cares for you!  Hold me Jesus!'"

Funny thing, as long as I'm laying there, mind racing, I can have these conversations with myself (hence the use of the "royal we" in describing what we said to ourself, ourselves?)  But the feelings don't always settle out by telling myself to relax, by quoting scripture to myself, even by praying and crying out to God.  (I first discovered this during my 3 year bout with depression, when anxiety was a real problem.  I get some temporary relief but then the slow ride up takes the little car "over the top" just like an amusement park ride and down I go, hanging on for dear life.  Only I'm not amused.

There's only one thing to do.  Get up.  But why would I want to do that?  Because I've learned from experience that when I take action, the feelings come in line.  So I rise, put the coffee on, get dressed, and start to put out the breakfast.  It's amazing.  I'm starting to feel better about this day.

So what's up with these feelings?  I'm thinking that if I were a car, feelings would not be the engine, the fuel, the wheels, or the gas pedal, not even the leather seats.  (Don't ask me where the brakes are, I've been looking all over and just haven't found them yet!)  No, I think feelings are more like the guages.  They don't make the thing go or even tell me where to go, but if I pay attention to them, they can really help me with my driving.

What in the world does that mean?  If my speedo says I'm doing 90 mph I may want to think about letting up on the accelerator  (no one in their right mind would set the cruise control that high!)  Or if my fuel guage is on empty I know it's time to stop for gas.  And when the temperature guage registers on the "Hot" side I better look into what's wrong with my cooling system.

Back to my morning - I took my wife her morning coffee and went to wake up the boys.  Then we eventually gathered at the kitchen table for breakfast and family worship.  I apologized to Gramma for ignoring her at dinner last night while reading e-mails on the laptop.  Then we pray and I read while they eat.  It's a pretty exciting passage in Luke 4 when Jesus reads from Isaiah and announces in the synagogue that he has come to set the captives free.  But again I'm not feeling it.  All I can think of is the Justice Conference in February and how are we going to cover our bases here while we travel to So Cal for a week!

After reciting James 1 (more challenge than comfort here) and singing the "triple holy song" I close in prayer.  What's missing?  I tune the guitars and help the boys load up so they can go to "Worship class" and their other home-school co-op activities.  Soren needs help converting fractions to repeating decimals and the car needs to be warmed up and scraped of its ice.  Somewhere in there I failed to validate someone's feelings.  That was a BIG mistake and now I'm feeling it.  But it's nice to know where those are coming from, unlike the ones that float around like dark clouds, waiting to dump on me.

Suddenly "Hope Springs Eternal in the Human Breast."  I am, after all is said and done, an incurable optimist.  I see what I did wrong, I understand what I could have done differently, maybe I can do better next time!  It's not about the salt in the cookies.  That's a relief.  Like Soren said, "That's a funny thing to argue about."  (He's pretty sharp, maybe he'll do better than his Dad, though I sometimes  see some scary similarites.

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Thoughts on Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot”

http://www.upworthy.com/the-single-most-mind-altering-photograph-humanity-has-ever-taken

It's amazing that an atheist like Carl Sagan can draw so much inspiration here.
I think of David in Psalm 19 - "The Heavens declare the Glory of God!"

But for the Naturalist Nature or the Cosmos must take God's place, assuming the attributes of deity.
And in many ways this Great Reality -
 that we are so small and yet Human Life on this planet is so unique and significant -
serves a similar purpose as does an awareness of God.

The word "Perspective" is "spot on" here. (As the Brits would say.)
There's always something to bring my life, my problems, my suffering into a context
which both dwarves them by proportions, and at the same time reminds that small things are still meaningful.

Significance is never measured by size, but by impact or influence, like that "baby in the manger!"

The "pale Blue Dot" image and commentary would itself be brought into perspective
by a journey into the cells and molecules and atoms that make up this world,
and a consideration of their minuscule proportions, as well as their inordinate complexity and importance.