Coffee

A friend sent me this  in a big red box full of goodies and I really wanted to share this story with you..

Coffee

Do you enjoy a good cup of coffee? While I don't really enjoy the taste of coffee, I do enjoy smelling the coffee beans and aromas of coffee as they are brewing. Do you have a favourite 'coffee' cup that is yours? Yesterday in worship, one of the pastors shared the following story. I wanted to share it with you and get you thinking...

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to the coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said, "If you noticed,all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases, it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink,. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups...and then you began eyeing each others cups."

"Now consider this: Life is the coffee, the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. they are just tools to hold and contain Life, and the type of cup we have does not define, noe change the quality of Life we live. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee."

I was really challenged by this very simple story that holds such truth. I am a "cup" holding the eternal "life" of Christ in me. Have I become so concerned with the appearance of my "cup" that those around me don't know what I am holding? Does my "cup" have a lid on it that prevents the "aroma of Christ" from escaping and filling the air around me? Is my "cup" so insulated that others cannot feel the warmth of Christ's love?

Father, please forgive me when my concern with appearance hides You from others. Please forgive when I fail to share Christ, but instead,put a "lid' on my faith and keep it to myself . Father, please help me to be a see-through plastic cup so that others will see You in me, smell Your aroma in my life, and feel the warmth of Your love through me.