A Group of friends, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.
Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and assortment of cups – porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite – telling them to help themselves to the coffee.
When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: “If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones.
While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of problems and stress. Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee.
In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups…..And then began envying each other’s cups.
It’s amazing how many of us chase after the fancy cup and focus all out attention there forgetting that what we are really after is the coffee in the cup.
We stress ourselves because our colleague has a better looking cup forgetting that the same coffee goes into whichever cup and the taste of the coffee is not affected by the cup.
As you stress yourself because you desire a better car, a better paying job, a bigger house, a better smart phone and all these other things that we chase after, remember there is someone stuck in hospital and all they are praying for is LIFE!
Jesus came that we may have life…that’s the key thing because without life all these other things that we run after have no value. Reminds me of the story of a rich lady who was in the titanic when it was sinking.
She run to her room to grab something before jumping onto the life boat…she left all her expensive jewelry and the thing that she saw value in was…oranges…food to sustain life.
Are you alive today? Remember, life is the coffee, all these other things. The money big house fancy car and all are just but the cups…tools to use for what God has called us to do. They do not define who you are or change the quality of life you have.
Like the bumper sticker on one fancy car said…. “Don’t let the car fool you, my real treasure is in heaven!”Don’t focus so much on the cup that you fail to enjoy the coffee. Make the best of what you have….enjoy your coffee
Matthew 6:25 (AMP)
“Therefore I tell you, stop being [a]perpetually uneasy (anxious and worried) about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink; or about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life greater [in quality] than food, and the body [far above and more excellent] than clothing?”
Word For Today: Coffee Cups-Stress in work and life
