I am writing this week’s column from the beach, Oak Island,
NC to be exact. This is our annual family beach trip. We have been coming here
for the past 8 years or so, and we have stayed at the same condo complex each
time, but we have stayed in different condo units. We are creatures of habit, I
suppose. But we have found something that we like and we have stuck with it.
This works for us. All of the condos are laid out the same, and inside they are
all furnished about the same, and we don’t come for the condo décor anyway, we
come for the beach.
One
thing that we do check in the amenities list is what kind of coffee maker the
unit has. I know, this might sound a little trite, but Heather and I really do
like our coffee. So we need to know, is there a conventional coffee maker, or
is there a Keurig. We have a Keurig at home, and I guess we are a little
spoiled by it. Anyway, this year SSV #202 at Oak Island, NC showed it had a
Keurig. So we brought 48 K-Cups with us (and other than Little Debbie’s and bottles
of water this was the only food we brought).
When we
arrived at the condo we saw a very nice Black & Decker 12-cup coffee maker,
but no Keurig. We searched the cabinets. We looked in the closets. No Keurig.
No problem. We had to go to Food Lion to get real food anyway, so we bought
coffee filters and coffee. It’s all good, we are on vacation, after all.
Sunday
morning I sat waiting for the coffee maker to brew. It wasn’t a pause-n-brew.
And I waited. And waited. It seemed like I waited longer for this cup of coffee
than I had ever waited for any cup of coffee ever in my entire life of waiting
for coffee.
And
then I realized that I have Keurig-patience. Not with everything, mind you. In
some things I feel that I am a pretty patient person. This has been an area
where God has grown me over the years, and I thank Him for that and recognize
that while I am not where I need to be, I am not where I used to be either.
Colossians
1:10-11 says, “live a life worthy of the Lord a please him in every way: bearing
fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened
with all power according to his glorious might so that you might have great
endurance and patience”.
We are
all growing in this Christian life; growing in grace, growing in love, growing
in understanding, and, yes, growing in patience.
And
while we may grow in our patience with waiting on hearing God, or in our
interactions with family members, maybe there is a patience involved in little
things in life…like waiting on the coffee to brew. It’s in these little
day-to-day activities and times of waiting that we need the Black &
Decker-patience, not the Keurig-patience. We need the patience to just be still
and wait, not just in the monumental life-changing decisions that need to be
made, but also in the little ordinary decisions that might not seem to have
such a huge impact on our lives.
Because
it is in these little things, like waiting for coffee to brew, that we can
experience God. Maybe these are times in our day that He has given us to
connect with him. During that long brew cycle, that red light, that train that
has blocked your road, or that mid-day power outage where you can’t watch TV or
surf the web.
Maybe
these are times we have with our Lord. Maybe these are times we are growing.
Growing from the Keurig to the Black & Decker.
May God
bless you this week, and may you grow in patience, even if it is during the
brew cycle.
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