20040814

the power of coffee, and the random button

now playing: this road / jars of clay (gurr, if you're out there, and you have my jars dvd... say "what what"... cause we're so ghetto it hurts, bro.)

This blog-post is brought to you at 8:49 am (as in, in the morning?!) post is brought to you in order to state one fact. I believe in the power of coffee. See, I may have planned to sleep til noon, but when those plans changed (not by my will... funny how much of life we don't control), all I needed to get me back in the game was a super big cup of coffee. Now, there is a dear lady whose husband happens to run my favorite Bible College, and she would say that I am yet again becoming an addict to this wonderful substance called coffee. That's not the way I see it anymore. Just like with a car, you have your regular fuel (food, sleep, that stuff)... but every once in a while, your car isn't going to run just right, so you throw something else in there... a little fuel line cleaner, a little octane booster, whatever... know what I mean? And in the case of coffee, well, all I'm saying is there's a definite analogy to be drawn with Nitrous Oxide. Especially if you've watched The Texas Kid react to espresso before.

Thinking back to the above, the little comment where I stated that my waking up at this point in time was not by my will: there's an interesting fact to be drawn out there: in the Realm of theology, there is a drive in some schools of thought to concedede anything in order to be able to protect the idea of a free human will. I'm not going to say that's wrong, I believe in the freewill of man, but I think it's pretty easy to see in everyday events how God's will supersedes that, and how our wills are limited by our sinfulness (or our regeneration). Take the simple analogy of me waking up this morning: did I intend to wake up at 830? Nope. Did the caller to my household intend to wake me up at 830? Nope, they were calling to talk to someone else. However, they were IMPEDING upon my free will. How dare they. I had decided to sleep in! And it's been ruined. They must not love me. They must not be fair.

That's ridiculous. And, while the analogy breaks down, I think you can probably draw some lines to a bigger plane of reality.

Take it a step further. Since I didn't get to bed til 130 last night (this morning, I guess), I was bound to stay in bed til probably 10 or 11. There wasn't any way I was going to wake myself up (just work with me here, it's an analogy). Could I have chosen to? Yes. I could've chosen to set my alarm last night, and woken myself up early, and gone for a run, and been disciplined. Given the choice, I'm always going to choose sleeping in. ALWAYS. I'm bound to. So, someone had to intercede in order to cause me to do otherwise. Should I resent that? When it's enabled me to reclaim my day? Heck no! I should be thankful for the grace shown to me.

That may be the most convoluted analogy on God's Grace that I've ever seen. But, i hope someone out there gets it. I'm gone for now.

ok, ok, in the analogy, sleeping in = sin, my desire to sleep in = my inborn sin nature, and the phone call that woke me up = grace. does that help?

3 comments:

Matthew said...

Ruth and I love your analogy. But, what's with the random button? What means that?

andrew said...

Doh, I never did explain that... i guess i forgot... last night, I was thinking about the fact that I needed to be able to praise God no matter the situation, and as I was thinking that, i hit the random button on Musicmatch, and boom... Tree63 started belting out Blessed be Your Name... talk about serendipity. :-)

Justin said...

Duder, we ARE ghetto, no doubt about it, but I don't know anything about a Jars DVD...