Making Coffee

"Behold I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me."

-Revelation 3:20

'And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him."

-Hebrews 11:6

He likes to help.  Well no, that's not really true.  He likes to DO it.  By himself.  Well, maybe I can offer a little help, but he knows how he wants to do it, and so he takes control.  This morning he "helped" make coffee.  Those 3-year-old hands opened the cabinet drawer and pulled out the coffee pot, almost dropping the carafe.  I saw it going though, and scooped it up before it hit the ground.

Filling the pot with water was a challenge also.  He took the carafe to the refrigerator, cause that's where you get water, right?  It's a challenge for anyone to fill up the carafe from there, but when we worked together, we did it.  Next, he wanted to put the coffee grounds in for me.  He sat in the floor, and with a big spoon he spooned the coffee in.  It was a pretty messy endeavor, but some coffee made it into the pot.  Later, I took a wet paper towel and wiped up the mess from our escapades.  He was proud of himself knowing he did it for me.

As I cleaned up the mess, I heard Him in my spirit saying, "See?  That's what I do with you.  I want you to struggle, to learn, but I'm always there to scoop up things before they get broken.  And I will quietly clean up the mess when you finish."

Working with a child is a very easy way to explain how God feels about us, and how He works with us.  I am crazy about this little boy.  I don't ever want anything to hurt him.  I want him to learn and grow.  I know there will be some difficult times along the way, even some tears, but I know that sometimes tears are necessary.  I will always try to clean up the mess in the background.  But sometimes, the messes he makes are ones that he has to clean up himself.  That doesn't mean I won't be there, watching and supporting.  It's the easiest way to understand the way the Father loves us.   The correlations are amazing.

Many people tie their feelings about how God feels about us to their experiences with their earthly father.  Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn't.  If one's earthly father exhibited kindness, fairness, a firm but loving hand, then the comparison works.  On the other hand, if experiences with our fathers were difficult or negative, sometimes it leads us to have a difficult time trusting God.

It actually took me many, many years to learn some of the lessons that have served me the most in my relationship with Christ. It is hard to understand the Father's true traits if He is just a casual aquaintance we 'kind of' ' see on Sunday morning.  Relationships are not built on causal meetings once or twice a week.  Relationships require a much deeper level of communication than that.  Christ can not show me....PROVE  to me......His faithfulness if I don't know Him well enough to recognize it.  And as I've said many times in the past, He's a gentleman.  He will stand back, waiting.  He will never force Himself on anyone.

The awful truth is, so many of us ( at one time myself included) have a Sunday-Go-To-Meetin' kind of relationship with Him.  Once a week, an hour or two.  We might even be helping in some type of ministry in the church.  Our hands might be held high during worship.  We probably say all the right things. But the bottom line is this......unless we are regularly in the Word, and unless our prayer life consists of more than a 10 minute "asking" session,  there is really not much of a relationship to speak of.  And tragically, we miss out on all those 'coffee making'sessions we could experience with Him.

My relationship with all my grandchildren is one of the greatest joys of my life.  Those relationships are not a 'send a card for your birthday' kind of relationships.  We have spent countless hours doing things together, communicating, building memories.  If I had a grandchild I only saw once in a while, and never really spent time with, our relationship would be casual.  The deep, rewarding  and meaningful bond I have with them would have never been established.  Would I have still loved them?  Of course. They are my grandchildren.  But we would have missed so much!

So don't miss the opportunity to make coffee with Him.  Pursue Him.  Talk to Him.  Let Him show you who He is through the Word.  Let Him demonstrate His faithfulness to you.  Let Him clean up your messes.  There's nothing like it.  Nothing.