That’s a Good Cup of Joe

As of 2020, 7 out of 10 Americans drink coffee every week, with 62% of Americans drinking it daily. 

The average American coffee consumer drinks three cups a day. 

Coffee really is a phenomenon. There are fast-food chains to support the habit, maintain preferences in style, and countless ways to serve it. 

Though many like an espresso concoction or a slow-drip “cup of joe”, I prefer mine from a French Press. With a French Press, you can control the flavor in a timely manner and in an easily portable carafe. 

However, my reasoning for introducing this method is not necessarily to teach you a new method of brewing, but rather a new method of perspective. 

I particularly like the French Press because its method centers around the “press.”

If you never have noticed, let me enlighten you. 

Good things happen, when pressed. 

Diamonds are made, money is fabricated, and excellent, strong coffee is acquired. 

The Apostle Paul understood this. 

Read what pressure has done for him. He writes, 

“We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;

Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.

So then death worketh in us, but life in you.

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For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;

While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:8-12; 16-18)

Paul understood that pressure may truly break the outward man and we all know that pressure does not discriminate in breaking a person’s spirit either. Yet, day by day, God’s grace is often illustrated in these experiences, if we are acute enough to spot the sinews of His mercy. 

There is always hope. If we understand that the pressures of today do not always lead to the hopes of tomorrow. They point to the hope of eternity, where our focus should stay grounded. 

Like coffee, pressure makes you strong, or rather, the power of Christ strong in you (2 Corinthians 12:9). 

It is hard to consider the pressure joyfully and even hard to fathom that something good can come of them (Romans 5:3-4; James 1:2-3). Nonetheless, tried and true, God’s word is true (2 Timothy 3:16). Have faith (Romans 10:17). 

When under pressure, remember-
“O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him” (Psalm 34:8).