Oh, the good things in life.

So here I am, sitting in the Starbucks that is almost a half an hour away from the YWAM base, with Kristin and Katherine- enjoying an iced grande toffee nut latte for the first time in two weeks! I am almost too delighted for words. I cannot express to you how problematic my current life has been without the gloriousness of my regular Starbuck's drink. The drink that I, in a normal week back at home, drink on average: three to four times a week. I sitting here smiling like a crazy person at this heavenly human-manufactured item, and think to myself, "Oh, the good things in life. I might be suffering while I'm here, but at least I'll have Starbucks at my dispense once I get home. I mean, at least I can have it every once in awhile while I'm here, that's not too bad. ....God's just teaching me patience...probably...kind of. Right?
      
Wait - it's not bad to want Starbucks, is it?? God made it possible for coffee addicts, such as myself, to enjoy the beauty of Starbucks, right...? So it's perfectly okay to obsess over a trip to this all-too-familiar coffee shop..... RIGHT? 

As I sit here pondering all of these arbitrary, nonsensical questions, I come to the sudden realization that it isn't bad to want a Starbucks. It is not as if Starbucks is the devil. I am not being led by temptation to drink it. It's just that it really isn't of much importance in the long run. There are people all throughout the nations that do not have half of the "good things" that I get to enjoy in life. It's not like I cannot enjoy it if I have the chance to, but I really don't need to. I again come to another realization- I chose to come here to YWAM to put my focus on the God that made it possible for me to even enjoy this coffee- and for the past day I have been literally obsessing over the fact that I get to make a trip to Starbucks, not God Himself. For the past twenty four hours, I have put more thought into this coffee trip, than in God. Well, shoot. Thoughts of sarcasm begin to quickly fill my mind. How wonderful... I now understand completely, and I feel like an idiot. Everything makes sense now. Just because something in life is by your own definition, "good," doesn't mean that it should necessarily be a significant or consequential factor in your everyday life.

Do you have to wake up in the morning asking yourself if you can proceed through your day without a heavy dose of Starbucks? If your answer is, "No, I cannot survive the day without my grande iced toffee nut latte," then I strongly advise you to reconsider your daily needs. Because, my hope (and frankly, God's desire) is that you would actually be waking up in the morning asking yourself if you could proceed throughout the day without a strong dose of God, Himself. And your answer should hopefully be NO to the second question- not the first.

Because, in all honesty, do we really need any of these material things we constantly surround our lives with? The simple answer is: no. WE DO NOT NEED ANY OF IT. Do we want it? Well, sure. Do we need it? Well...no. But hey, it took me a whole blog post- and God's loving patience and guidance- for me to figure it out for my own silly self. So, just remember to think about the actual "good things in life" before you look to those "extra things in life." Because, trust me when I say this: Starbucks is never going to taste as good as God's love does.
:)