Take a Gulp This Instant!

Take a Gulp

Bubble tea is fun. It’s basically a party in a cup. Served in a clear container with a straw as fat as about 5 normal straws tied together, it’s a colorful, sweet drink with plump tapioca “bubbles” bouncing around the bottom. Take a gulp from your straw and you get an explosion of flavor along with a couple chewy tapioca pearls the size of small marbles. The consistency of these “bubbles” lands somewhere between Jell-O and gum. Weird? Sure—but fun.

Ordering this drink at a gourmet coffee or tea shop is like being a business executive making a string of VERY important decisions. First, you pick your tea—green, black, or Rooibos. Then you pick your flavor—mango, papaya, pina colada…? Next, your temp—hot or cold. Finally, pick your bubble—tapioca balls, fruit chunks, or coconut beads. (If all this sounds way too foo-foo fruity, I suggest a Hawaiian vacation ASAP.)

While its beauty is indeed something to behold, with its bright sherbet-like colors, fiestas exploding at the bottom of each cup, and gigantic straws, bubble tea isn’t made to sit there and look pretty. It’s made to be consumed.

You just don’t want to attempt to do so with a “normal-sized” straw. You’ll drive yourself crazy. Every time you take a sip, a tapioca bubble will clog it. You’ll try again. Same thing. Nothing gets done. Soon you’ll chuck the straw and try to gulp the drink down without one, but you’ll only get all the liquid at once, leaving the pile of tapioca balls at the bottom of the cup. No thanks. The joy of bubble tea is in the pearls passing through the huge straw, nice and smooth, one at a time.

Have you ever considered that maybe you are a straw? Perhaps God wants to accomplish His plans through you…but you think you are too small. Maybe you think you’re an “average-sized” straw, that God’s expectations are tapioca-ball-sized (too huge and im-“passable”), and you might as well not try. Are you leaving His work at the bottom of your cup, unaccomplished, because your perception of your ability is off? But what if God has promised to never pass anything ill-fitting through you, and that He already made you the perfect-sized straw for His purposes?

“And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:19

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9

Hit SEND This Instant!

Hit SEND

I love email. You can talk without talk-back. You can bare your soul without exposing your poor interpersonal skills. You can carefully pick and choose your words without fumbling around for the best ones. Email is quick, easy, and all-around painless…

UNTIL.

Until you commit your first major email faux paux. Your first tried and true, you-can-run-but-you-can’t-hide social blunder. Your “I thought I was relatively intelligent, but I can’t even send an email to the right people,” or worse, “I thought I had a life and a future ahead of me, but now I have none” moment.

My first real mess up occurred years ago and involved recapping a rather boring first date. Normally my emails to this dear friend of mine go into great detail, but I was pressed for time that morning and simply said, “It was fine. But no butterflies to speak of. What do you think that means?” In my haste, I hit SEND without verifying who I was sending to, breaking Email Rule #1: Always, always, always check and double-check the “to,” “cc,” and “bcc” addresses before hitting SEND. So, instead of sending it to Friend and Confidant, I somehow sent it to Ryan. Yes, the one and only First Date himself.

Needless to say, I ended things before they could begin. He got married less than a year later.

I’m sure you have had similar such email traumas, ranging from hitting “reply to all” instead of just “reply” (and the inside joke - that only the one person would’ve understood - makes you look like a first-class jerk)… to sending out an update about you and your spouse’s latest efforts to conceive to – not your prayer partners – but all the students in your classroom….

Have you ever been knocked off your high horse and cried, “Me, ME!!” in answer to the question, “Who’s the fool?” Have you ever - willingly or not - lost whatever it is that makes you feel self-sufficient and put together (a.k.a. your pride)? In these moments when you confess that you can truly do nothing by your own strength or intelligence, do realize you’re actually one step closer with God?

“So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and in his good time he will honor you. Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about what happens to you.” 1 Peter 5:6-7 (NLT)

“God blesses those who realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is given to them.” Matthew 5:3 (NLT)

Accentuate the Positive This Instant!

Accentuate the Positive

I’d never laughed so hard, or often … and at work, of all places.

My boss was one of a kind. I’m not even sure “boss” is the right descriptor. When I think of her now, I think “team leader,” “coach,” “mentor,” even “hero.” She had a knack for taking the most boring, mundane, stressful, aggravating, or impossible situations and turning them completely upside-down AND inside-out, so you felt like you’d just been to Disney World, not the office.

Instead of tears of frustration, she gave me sighs of relief. When clients brought insanity, she brought inspiration. When a project made me sick to my stomach, she pained it with gut-wrenching belly laughter. When negativity brewed, she literally sang out, “Ax-sennnnnt yoo-ate the positive… E-liiiiiiiminate the negative!” And when Friday afternoons rolled around, it was guaranteed she’d bring out the guitar and serenade us from one cube to the next. (It’s okay. We worked in the creative department of an advertising agency, not an accounting firm.)

It’s been a few years since I worked for her, my all-time favorite boss. But it’s funny. Her memory doesn’t stay back there, in that time and place. It somehow lives on -- in ME now. Bizarrely enough, I actually become like her on occasion. I respond just as I know she would. It’s the power of a good example.

Consider for a moment the opposite; consider the Bad Example. We’ve all got at least one – parents, teachers, coaches, bosses, relatives, or acquaintances. The people on your “Bad List” made you swear out loud, “I will NEVER (x, y, or z) to ANYONE like (insert name here) did to me!”

But, sadly, those bad examples rarely have the power to stop us from behaving as we most despise. That’s because we don’t learn from others how NOT to be, we learn from them how TO be. So, when we’re under the influence of a bad example, we’re more likely to follow that lead (and kick ourselves later), than to never act as they did in the first place. (Insert the common shocked-and-appalled gasp from women across the land who realize, “I think I’m becoming my mother!”)

What if the power that all of your bad examples hold on you today could be broken by the miracle of just one good example? What if you became the kind of person you most admire? What if that person, role model, and hero already exists? Could you get to know Jesus Christ so intimately that perhaps your thoughts, words, and deeds could become His?

“He (Jesus Christ) is your example, and you must follow in his steps.”
-- 1 Peter 2:21
“Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” (Paul)
-- 1 Corinthians 11:1