I’m not a big coffee drinker. I’ll occasionally have a cup during breakfast, or with dessert after dinner. When I do drink coffee I prefer it hot. My wife and daughters are into iced coffee, but not me.
I admit I doctor my coffee. I joke that I like a little coffee with my cream and sugar. While I respect those who drink their coffee black, I refrain from it except under extreme circumstances. I can do sour (I love lemons!), but bitter is a no go with my taste buds.
One Monday I came into my office and noticed that I had left a half drank cup of coffee sitting on my desk over the weekend. As I settled in and reached for the cup to dispose of it, I heard these words on the inside:
“Your prayer life is like 3 day old coffee…”
It was totally unexpected. I wasn’t having my daily devotion or morning prayer. I had just finished checking my emails and was getting ready to head to the breakroom. Now as I was reaching out to get the coffee cup left over from the week before, the Spirit of God was disciplining me. I sat there and looked at that Styrofoam cup, realizing that it had been sitting there for three days. My prayer life was being compared to it.
I didn’t have a grand moment of revelation. I thought, “Wow, Lord. OK”. I took the cup to the breakroom, poured it out, and threw it in the trash can. By the time I made it back to my office the day was moving at full swing. It was only later in the afternoon that my mind came back to what the Holy Spirit had said:
“Your prayer life is like 3 day old coffee…”
As I pondered that statement, it was painfully obvious that there was little about that three day old cup of coffee that could be looked at in a positive light:
The cup hadn’t leaked
The cream and sugar had kept it from turning bitter
Not exactly a ringing endorsement to launch a new Starbuck’s product line with. Here’s the reality of what that cup of coffee was:
It was stale
It was room temperature
Its contents were no longer blended
This is how God saw my prayer life at that time. It wasn’t that my life was devoid of prayer – there was coffee in that Styrofoam cup. It was that my prayer life shared the same properties as that three day old cup of coffee. It didn’t measure up to what God knew it should be from His perspective. He was pointing this out to me not because He was disgusted with me, but because He was disappointed in its quality. A master barista takes pride in the piping hot drink that he makes from quality ingredients, and wants it to be consumed in its best form. God is no different. The blessings He has made available to us He desires to see used in their best form.
That’s what God was working to get across to me that day by using a Styrofoam cup of coffee that had sat dormant all weekend. I’m sure that if I had walked around my office and offered that old coffee to my co-workers I would have received a constant stream of “NO!”s, with a couple of “Why would I want THAT?”s thrown in.
This brings me back to my prayer life at that time. How had it become like that old cup of coffee?
It Had Become Stale.
I was praying, but I had to admit that I hadn’t been MAKING time to spend with God as I knew to. I had fallen into a rut of TAKING time to pray as I could find it. Prayer was often a task to complete, not a focal point of my day. I was approaching it as an appointment with God, instead of an intimate time to spend together. Because of this, I had been approaching my prayer life as talking TO God instead of talking WITH God.
It Was Room Temperature.
My prayer life had lost the passion it should have had. Much of that was related to the approach to my approach to prayer at the time. In honesty, I wasn’t invested in getting prayer into my day.
Hot coffee – good. Iced coffee – good. Room temperature, or lukewarm coffee – not good. It’s not palatable. In Revelation chapter 3 Jesus spoke to the church in Laodicea and addressed the people’s attitude toward the things of God:
15 “I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! 16 But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!
Apathy is disgusting to God. You can be passionate for or against something. In either case, you are actively engaged. Apathy is not engaged, and has no commitment. Faith requires commitment. If you want your prayer life to be effective, it must be more than room temperature.
Its Contents Were No Longer Blended.
Over the weekend the coffee, cream and sugar had separated and were no longer blended together to complement each other. If you had picked up that cup of three day old coffee and taken a drink, you would have been greeted with different and distinct layers of taste, depending on how far down you decided to drink.
As I looked at my prayer life and allowed myself to be honest about its condition, I could see where I was sometimes working time in, and in doing so I was rushed. In being rushed, I wasn’t allowing myself to flow in prayer. I was covering the bases from the mental list in my head. I wasn’t being still to hear the Holy Spirit speak to my heart and lead me in my prayers. I don’t know everything and don’t have it all figured out. I need help, and it is available:
Romans 8:26
26 And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.
The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. In Romans 8 Paul writes of being led by the Spirit of God. You and I can’t following His leading properly if we are flitting in and out of fellowship time with Him.
When Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 2:1 he described different facets of prayer:
2 Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men…
Supplications, intercessions and giving of thanks. Cream and sugar. We can also see layers in the model prayer Jesus gave in Matthew 6:9-13:
Our Father in heaven,
may your name be kept holy.
10 May your Kingdom come soon.
May your will be done on earth,
as it is in heaven,
11 Give us today the food we need,
12 and forgive us our sins,
as we have forgiven those who sin against us.
13 And don’t let us yield to temptation,
but rescue us from the evil one.
Not giving ourselves proper time to spend in prayer will cause us to rush and miss out on all that prayer is to be. We short change ourselves on the benefits that spending quality time with God has for us. We end up with…
3 Day Old Coffee for a prayer life.
My prayer life needed to be freshened up. God loves me so much He made sure to get that message across to me. As you’re reading this, have you taken a moment to think about your prayer life? Be honest with yourself. Could it use some improvement? God wants so much more for you. Don’t settle for a prayer life that is stale, lukewarm and unblended.
