Recently my wife called me saying she had been in an accident. She was perfectly fine and about 1 minute away from the house. The van was mostly okay and it was not her fault. Those were the details I had as I drove to her.
Arriving, my instinctual reaction was to jump down the guy’s throat who had hit her and let him have it, but I knew I had to be measured. As it turns out, everything is working out and the guy was very apologetic. It was dark and rainy so truly an accident. And the van will be just fine.
How we respond to situations of stress reflect what we regularly take into our lives.
Or to say it another way, what comes out of us is a product of what we take in.
Or to say it another way, if you want to be the person that is thoughtful, insightful, and always knows the right thing to say and isn’t reactive with your emotions, . . . you have to be thoughtful, insightful, and regularly taking in the right thing, being mindful of who you want to be based on what you know God has called you to, and not emotional and based on what you want in a given moment.
Are you following me?
So back to yesterday’s coffee pot.
The water & the grounds.
First, the water. You need to be pouring Jesus into your life regularly throughout your day. It’s not enough to casually attend church when you feel like it & expect to become the person He’s designed you to be.
You need to be a regular part of the church community, serving and investing in relationships with others (start now but more on that later).
You need to be taking in Scripture. In addition to this devotional, you should be reading Scripture in long-form, chapters a day.
You need to have a regular prayer life. There are a lot of ways to establish this pattern so find one that works for you.
You need to steward your finances well. Give to your local church and support special projects/missionaries as you become aware of needs.
You need to be a part of worship regularly. This includes listening to worship music as you can & participating in that portion of your local church service, not sitting in the lobby drinking coffee and talking . . . or standing quietly with your hands in your pockets (as many guys are prone to doing).
Now, the grounds. You need to stop viewing pornography. Easier said than done I know, but if you want to be the guy that isn’t looking at porn, you have to stop looking at porn.
Parts of this journey are really that straight forward, but done IN TANDEM with ‘pouring water’ in your life regularly, you will find it easier than without.
You need to stop allowing your thoughts to wander toward lust. More on this later as well but Paul talks about renewing your mind (Romans 8 & 12). Dissect this section of Scripture as it holds the key on how this is done.
You need to stop looking at lustful images. It’s almost impossible to not ‘see’ things in the culture in which we live but there’s a difference between ‘seeing’ and ‘looking’. Stop looking.
Now, as we journey forward, know that this basic illustration says it all in one way but doesn’t in another.
However, this is the starting point. There’s a lot more to come in each of these categories.
But when you fall off course or feel lost,
come back to the coffee pot.
What do you need to pour in?
And what grounds do you need to stop adding?
Thoughts to Journal:
- Take Inventory (compare with yesterday’s):
- What do you need to start doing to pour more Jesus into your life? Think big & long-term (back to the 5-year question at the beginning of this devotional).
- What do you need to stop doing that is adding more grounds? Of this list, which are you able to control yourself & which do you need some help (and what does that help potentially look like)?
- In looking at the reading for (yesterday &) today, what does your fruit look like & what may need to change about it?
Reading: