Whales and Coffee

This is my whale mug. You are probably wondering why I have a mug that says "Whales of the 7 Seas," and to give you an honest answer; I don't know. My sister, Emily, is one of those people that has really good intentions in everything she does, causing everyone to love her, but sometimes her bad luck proves itself, and she has one of those moments where all you can do is laugh. This mug describes one of those moments. I guess to preface this story, you need to know that about 3 years ago I decided to watch Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, and ever since, I have had a slight (or not-so-slight) obsession with sharks. Ok now fast forward to about 3 months ago: June, 2012. I was working at a Christian summer camp and I received a package in the mail from my mom, with a few things that I asked her to send me...and this mug. My sister was in the process of moving to San Diego, CA, and she wanted to get me a souvenir, so she bought this mug...then she realized that it had whales on it, instead of sharks. I love this mug.

So right about now, you are probably wondering why I would possibly spend my time writing a blog about this "cute" sister moment, but I'm almost to the point, I promise. But before I get there I need to explain my full train of thought, and hopefully it will somehow make sense to some of you...or maybe not? Well anyways, this morning on the way to church, my friends and I were discussing how we drink our coffee (typical college kid conversation, I know) and one of my friends pointed out that he loved the coffee in Costa Rica, so he drank it black, but here, he had to put sugar in his coffee. After pondering this for quite some time, I came to two conclusions: 1. No two cups of coffee taste the same 2. People are coffee snobs. Unfortunately, I joined the 53% of the world that has to have at least one cup of coffee every morning at the ripe young age of 15; yes, I am a certified coffee-addict, but I drink my coffee black (I don’t partake in any of that ‘2 creams and one sugar’ high maintenance crap, no offense if you do). So, as I sit here staring at my whale mug, which is now empty, I can't help but think of the very intelligent Mike Ditka quote from the movie Kicking and Screaming, "Coffee is the number one drink in the world, even little kids in Mexico drink coffee!" Ok, so maybe it isn't that intelligent, but it still has some truth to it. Coffee is one of the only types of "luxuries" that most of the world gets to enjoy together, and I see it as a very simple concept, Black coffee tastes good, why are people ruining it? In my mind, it is as simple as that. So anyways, back to my 2 points: No two cups of coffee are the same and people are coffee snobs.

When I look at Christians, I realize that these 2 points are very relevant: no two are the same and we are “Christian-snobs.” Each of us is trying to cover up parts of our Christian lives that may not seem so "sweet" to the world. When in reality, Christianity, much like coffee, is actually really simple: God loves us, let's love him back. Boom. It is literally as simple as that. Why do we make it so complicated with all of these different Denominations and arguments about small differences in our faith? For my fellow type A personalities, who are also very detail-oriented, this may be a difficult concept, but we should be less focused on the details of our religion, and be more focused on the fact that all God wants is for us to show him that we love him back (duh, that's why we were created). I understand that this is very hard to do, because well, we can’t just shoot him a text or message him on Facebook to tell him. So, how do we do this? Well, for those of us that have taken the “Five Love Languages” test, (mine are words of affirmation and quality time) we know that everyone likes to be shown that they are loved in different ways. Well, what about God? This summer, I was taught about God’s love language and I will never forget it. It isn’t one of the 5 that Gary Chapman came up with, but God’s love language is: Obedience. All you need to do is obey Him. John 14:15 says, "If you love me, keep my commands." Sounds simple, right? Ha. As a member of the guilty party, I will testify to the fact that this is no simple task, especially as a college student that is constantly surrounded by every option of lifestyle known to man. We are often caught up by the patterns of this world so much, that we forget what Christianity really is. Here is your reminder: We deserve to die, but God did it for us, but since he’s so awesome, he came back to life, so it’s all good. So, I feel like I have rambled on long enough, but I am going to end with a simple, yet wise quote by one of the 8^th grade campers I had in my group this summer that I feel perfectly sums up our reason for loving God: “It is hard to obey God when everyone else tells me that I should do the opposite, but when I remember that I wouldn’t even be alive if Jesus wouldn’t have died on the cross, it makes it much easier to want to love Him back in any way that I can.” It really is as simple as that.

In Him,

Alyssa Trier