THE COFFEE BEAN 

 

  

I have a wonderful conical coffee bean grinder.  It does a perfect job of grinding the fresh French Roast beans I purchase from Costco which come from the San Francisco Bay Coffee Company, a family owned business in San Francisco.  These beans are delicious and brew a tremendously wonderful cup of coffee.  YUM!! 

 

As I stood watching the beans go down the hopper and listening to them being ground to bits by my precision grinder I began to think about how this represents the Christian life.  (Now, stay with me for just a moment ;) 

 

The whole bean, though it's  perfectly roasted and looks just right in it's beautiful oily sheen, is not usable (except for decoration!) until it goes through the grinder.  It's true quality and purpose is realized only AFTER it's been broken and ground up.

 

Now, I suspect you may be thinking that I'm stretching a point and writing under the influence of a couple of cups of espresso!  But did you know the Bible actually speaks to this very fact.  Obviously, it doesn't use coffee beans as an illustration but rather uses gold (in the refining process) and clay (in the potters hand.)

 

The point is this:  We Christians don't amount to much until we are "broken and spilled out" for the sake and glory of Christ.  Our true nature and purpose will only be realized as we experience those times of grinding, refining or shaping.  We may be the most glorious looking bean, the most remarkable gold ore or the softest, most pliable clay, but until we are "processed" we are incomplete.

 

Coffee beans, gold ore and clay are inanimate objects and basically cannot resist the processes they are put through in order to achieve the end results.  Christians, on the other hand, can resist, fight, grumble and complain as they run screaming and crying to escape the process of purpose.

 

My encouragement to you today is to remind you that the process is not meant to destroy you but rather it is to bring you the full and planned purposes of God for your life.  Your "flavor" your "beauty" and your "service" can only be realized as you go through the "grinder" the "fire" or the "shaping." 

 

The Apostle Paul encourages us in the book of Romans - (Romans 8:35 -37)  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.  Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

 

 

I pray you are blessed today.