What’s in your coffee?

A while back I was enjoying a cup of coffee as I prayed in my prayer room. I usually share this room and my morning prayer time with one of my cats (see yesterday’s blog) who is on a special diet. Although he’s a twenty-pounder, he’s the youngest, and my smaller male pulls rank while he’s eating and barges right in, gobbling down that enticingly forbidden prescription food. To avoid that, my prayer room doubles as a private feline cafe.

As I was finishing my time with the Lord, I drained the last gulp or two from my coffee mug. Something with the texture of a crumbled dunked cookie flowed into my mouth with the last slurp. That’s odd, I thought; I didn’t dunk anything.

I spit out the remaining liquid and crumbly stuff into a napkin over the sink. And there, right before my eyes, were small chunks of cat food. Yuck! And contrary to the label, it did not taste like chicken.

As I spit and rinsed, spit and rinsed, and spit and rinsed again, I wondered how it happened to find its way into my coffee. Earlier in the morning, I had dished out the chow for my cats while simultaneously making my coffee. Evidently, something went terribly wrong in the preparation.

And two thoughts came to me.

1.  In our own lives as we go about our daily routines, things can get misdirected, lines might get crossed by accident, and we end up with less than pure intake. In fact, at times we eat “cat food” in life without even knowing it. Things may not seem quite right with what you’re hearing; the input from others may seem funny to the taste, but on you roll at the speed of light without giving it a second thought.

This is why it’s so important for you, in your busy life, to test your intake with the Spirit of God and His Word. If something doesn’t “taste”, “smell” or “feel” right to you, lift up a quick prayer and ask God to sort it out for you. Then later, if the Lord hasn’t brought clarity to you yet, spend some more time in prayer and look into the Word to find out what God says about it.

A man of God I highly respect used to say that when we listen to sermons or read Christian literature, we are to “have as much sense as an old cow; eat the hay and spit out the stubble.” I would add, this pertains to everyday life as well.

There’s a lot of cat food out there and there’s a lot of stubble. That’s why you need to be spiritually alert. Know what you’re hearing; know what you’re receiving as “the way it is”.

2.  You will survive with cat food in your stomach; you will survive some stubble. You’re just not going to receive the pure nutrients of the Word of God by consuming these things, and therefore, you’re not going to be nearly as strong as you could be in your walk with God.

If you go to church and find that you’ve been fed some stubble with your hay, just spit it out; don’t blast the messenger as a false teacher. Does Flossie the cow start an email campaign alerting the other cattle that Farmer Smith is a false farmer because she found some stubble in her hay last week? No, she eats her hay and spits out the stubble.

There’s a difference between stubble and poison. There’s a difference between cat food that is accidentally dropped into a cup of coffee and the intentional twisting of doctrine. You’re not only responsible to train your senses to discern between true food and stubble or cat food; but also you need to train your senses to discern between stubble and poison, cat food and toxins. The differences may seem subtle to you, but to God the differences are huge—as different as human misunderstanding versus the purposeful twisting of truth.

You are accountable every day you mature in Christ to develop discernment and to walk in it. When you are presented with stubble in your hay—or cat food in your coffee—spit it out! However, if you are fed a constant diet of stubble or cat food, you may want to find another place to dine.

On the other hand, don’t make the mistake of labeling those who have served some stubble or cat food in their messages as false prophets or teachers, or as those who preach “another Jesus”. Maybe they just had a bad week or a rough year. If you spend some time praying for them in love, you just might be blessed to learn how powerfully on-target they can preach.

It is my conviction that, as Christians, we need to refrain from labeling ministers and other believers in a knee-jerk reaction. Yes, we are to discern what we hear, but not everything that contains some stubble or bits of cat food is heresy; and not everyone out there who is labeled as false is, indeed, false.

And if you drop by my house for coffee, I’ll do my best to give you the straight stuff, cat food-free.

Dorothy