Having coffee with Jesus

For Lent this year, one of the things I gave up happens to be one of my favorite things: coffee. Oh how I just love coffee! Nothing beats the smell of it… especially when you take the raw green beans, roast them, and then immediately grind and brew them to get, literally, a fresh cup of coffee. This is how coffee is made in the Evans household, and I treasure it deeply.

 

I’m not a huge coffee drinker in that I don’t drink 5, 6, 7+ cups of coffee a day. No, I typically just drink one or two cups a day. (I’m also sadly notorious for leaving just a few sips at the bottom of each cup, no matter how much or how little I have had…) But there’s just nothing like that sweet smell of hot coffee coming from the mug that you’re holding so thankfully in your hands.

 

And all the joys and pleasures that I get from a simple cup of coffee is what I gave up this year.

 

Just a month before Lent, I honestly thought that I wouldn’t be able to give up something that I loved so dearly and I tried to rationalize why I couldn’t give it up. But, as the Good Lord does, He was pursuing me to make real sacrifices this year. Sacrificing things I love, things I live with daily, and things that make the morning so worth waking up to.

 

And I think it is precisely for this reason: so that prayer and my relationship with Jesus becomes something that I so love, something that I live with daily, and something that makes the morning so worth waking up to.

 

We are about halfway through Lent now and it has been 22 days since I have had a cup of coffee. I miss it so much, but the hour has not yet come. For now, I will continue to wander through the desert with Jesus to finish out this Lenten season. My love for Him will keep growing, our relationship will get stronger, and He will keep teaching me along the way.

 

And then on that glorious, most holy Eastern morning, I will have my first cup of coffee since February 12, and in my heart, I will be sharing that coffee with Jesus. In my soul, we will be sitting together at a coffee shop, talking as friends do, speaking to the One I love, and sharing my deepest gratitude for His overcoming death, for His Passion which has made my salvation possible, for His Mercy that I rely on when I fall short and fall into sin, for His unconditional love which is His essence. And together on the third day we will celebrate His Resurrection, over a cup of coffee.