My journey with coffee.. oh its been such a crazy one. It started off as Mocha Frappiccino’s from Starbucks during the college years. Then when I realized the cost of them after getting married, though we both had good full time jobs, I realize I was blowing money. I would tell Timothy I wasn’t addicted, but would find myself going through the drive through almost daily. Then, I discovered that Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffee (loaded with cream & sugar) was half the price, so then found myself going there (almost daily). Through pregnancy and the baby stages of colic (both of my kids screamed 24/7 for the first 3-4 months of their life), I found myself turning more and more to coffee for strength, energy & stress relief. I was pretty sick with lyme disease for a few years after Priya was born and got off coffee for a while because it would exasperate my symptoms. After I started to feel better, I started to drink it again. I came to Australia and its a huge coffee culture here and the coffee tastes so much stronger and better, so of course I loved having a daily coffee.
What I realized in this over-a-decade love with coffee, it slowly became an addiction because I realized that I “needed” it every day. All of the sudden, the Holy Spirit did a tug on my heart, asking me to give it up. I became the king (or queen) of excuses as to why it wasn’t wrong: I’m a mother of two young children? I’m tired like all the time? But Lord, I need it to function. I only have 1-2 cups/day. Everyone else drinks it. It’s not a sin in the bible. 99% of Christians drink it with no conviction.
I came up with so many excuses every day, that the conviction eventually disappeared. God knew my heart and that I was going to not give it up. Some of you may think this is rubbish and crazy, or too “extreme”. Obedience is never extreme, in the bible there are tons of scriptures on disobedience and how much God hates it. I remember I wasted a year of my life in disobedience dating a guy who was a non-believer. I can’t afford to be in rebellion and waste more time with an un-surrendered area of my life, its not worth it.
As of Monday this week, I gave up coffee. I know that it has been my go to for stress. I know that I’ve “needed” it too much. I know that it has affected my body. I know that it has given me less patience. I know that it has altered my mind a little bit and have had a bit more negative thinking because of it. I want to be super clear- it doesn’t affect everyone the same way and some people drink it with no side effects. At the moment, I’m not one of them. I also want to say I am in no way saying that its sin to drink it or that its wrong. It just right now is a personal conviction. Will God release it back to me in the future? Maybe, maybe not. The important thing is that I let it go right now.
What is it in your life that God is asking you to give up? It’s an amazing thing that God is a God of second, third, and 47 chances. This is never an excuse however to keep living in rebellion before God. Let’s never take our life in Him for granted.
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
(Romans 6: 1-4)