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