Normally I would use one of those fancy, thermal, travel mugs to transport my morning coffee to work. However, on this particular morning, all my travel mugs were lying dirty in the sink. I guess the “dishwasher” (me) was “malfunctioning” (being lazy). So, rather than a travel mug, I filled up an ordinary, open-faced mug with coffee and headed out the door.
Have you ever tried driving with an open mug of hot coffee? I mean, you can’t just leave it sitting there in the cup holder – it would spill all over the console! So, naturally, I figured I’d be better off if I just held the mug in one hand and “drove carefully” with the other. Genius, I know!
Needless to say, a good bit of coffee found its way out of my mug and onto my shirt that morning. I never realized how many bumpy roads and pot holes there were on my way to work! I felt like a contestant on the 90’s Nickelodeon show “Wild & Crazy Kids” – you know, the episode where they had to hold a cup full of water and then ride a roller coaster? Except, I didn’t have nearly that much fun!
I can’t help thinking about how my life sometimes resembles that feeble attempt to hold an open mug of coffee while driving on a bumpy road – just trying to hold it all together! The reality is, more often than not, I’m a complete mess! Sometimes things don’t go my way! I sweat the small stuff! And I just can’t seem to get a grip! Then I read verses like Colossians 1:16-17…“For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth … all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
Let that sink in for a moment. For each of us, not only is He holding the entire universe together, but He’s holding our very lives together! The One who “numbered the stars and calls them each by name” (Ps. 147:4), and is “sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Heb. 1:3), has complete control over everything! Yet far too often, I respond to Him with indifference, arrogance, and a delusional sense of self-reliance – it’s the “I got this” kind of attitude. No wonder I keep spilling coffee, and making a huge mess of things.
Perhaps next time I feel as though I can barely hold it all together, I’ll remember that He is “before all things,” and I’ll take the advice He Himself gave me in Matthew 6:33-34 – “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself…”