Specialty coffee, anyone?

This morning I compared two of the exact same coffee beans, from the same area and by the same roaster, but they had a very different taste. The only difference between the two is one was done using a wet-hulled process while the other used a honey process. A year ago, I wouldn’t have even known what those meant let alone that those terms existed.

Straddling the equator, I’m privy to some of the world’s greatest coffee. Growing up I drank coffee but wasn’t really that into it. Coffee just tasted like coffee. That was until I kept bumping into local “coffee snobs” on this side of the hemisphere who would tout “single origin” and “medium/ light roasts.” It sounded like a gimmick, probably made up by some hipsters struggling to be different. Until I started to taste the difference. “That’s not sour, but it’s acidic,” “Wow, I can taste the chocolate,” or, “Is that a hint of orange peel?”. Great, I’m becoming like one of them!

In drinking good coffee I became more thirsty for it.

Thirst for something greater

I’ve noticed in my daily life I can lose some of the delight and thirst for my Friend and Savior. I mean, I love Jesus, I’ve come with my family to a foreign place because I want to see others enjoy the richness of His life! And yet I wonder, how then does “dryness” or loss of affections set in? Could it be from busyness, from isolation, from my weakness in affections, or a lack of ministry? Jim Elliot, who was marked by a strong sense of passion, recognized how quickly tepid desires can grasp the hearts of His saints.

“I lack the fervency, vitality, life, in prayer which I long for. I know that many consider it fanaticism when they hear anything which does not conform to the conventional, sleep-inducing eulogies os often rising from Laodicean lips; but I know too that these same people can acquiescently tolerate sin in their lives and in the church without so much as tilting one hair of their eyebrows.”

Perhaps why we experience dryness isn’t the most important thing to focus on. What I’m realizing is that dryness towards the Lord doesn’t come from a lack of drink but from a lack of thirst. And the same way I learned to be thirsty for good coffee is the same way a servant of God learns to thirst for Him. It’s by tasting His goodness that I become thirsty for more. I don’t wait for desire to show up, I take part in those things which my desire should be set upon and allow desire to grow there. During the dry times is when I need to return even more frequently to read His Word, to gathering in the assembly, and to be on my knees talking to Him- even if it be with dry lips. Because, as counter-intuitive as it may sound, I think the way we become more thirsty for Christ is by drinking.