You at your best is not a result of a good night’s sleep or your favorite morning beverage. You at your best is the result of God’s transforming grace. 

I have the appointment today that I look forward to putting behind me each year. My annual physical is necessary and important and a bit uncomfortable. My new doctor sent a note saying to fast so that we can do lab work. My former doctor, now retired, said I could drink black coffee the way God intended before these labs. The new doctor, and she is very young, said I can only have water. 

This means I am not yet at my best today. I will survive. I will not complain. I will not drive straight to Starbucks upon leaving the doctor’s office. 

I will submit to the discomfort. I will ponder why the lab results are not completed in advance of the appointment so that we can have a full discussion today and not have to bother with follow-up communication by email, voicemail, and messages via the medical group’s app. 

These are not complaints, merely observations. They may or may not relate to the absence of my favorite dark roast and healthy snack. 

I will look around the doctor’s office when I arrive this morning and see how many other people haven’t yet had their coffee. It’s easy to tell. Most of them have to say something about this desperate condition. I will smile to myself and press on to endure the long moments separating me from the kindness made possible by coffee.

How good is our God? First, he gives us coffee. The Brits can have the tea. Tea is fine when it is refreshingly chilled on a summer’s day. It is welcome when heated and mixed with herbs to comfort winter stuffiness. Coffee, whether dark roast or medium, is the elixir of life. 

Second, patience, encouragement, and harmony are possible in spite of a lack of coffee. This is truly supernatural. As far as it depends on me, coffee helps make these three attributes possible. As far as it depends on God, he makes these attributes possible in spite of a lack of coffee, an empty tummy, and a roomful of people on the brink of angry outbursts.

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I will experience patience, encouragement, and harmony because of the inflow and overflow of the good, good grace of God. 

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Our Father, we often blame too little of this or a lack of that for our problems. Transform our thinking and behaving by your grace so  that we may reflect your goodness whether or not we have had our morning coffee and daily bread. Fill us with your Holy Spirit. Empower us for every moment. Overflow our lives with kindness. May others discover in us the building blocks of true harmony when we are at our best and when we feel like we are not quite up to it. Amen.