Strange Coffee

I like coffee. I like flavored coffee, especially Hazelnut. And who would have ever thought that chocolate flavor in coffee could be good? And each person has their favorite roast of coffee for their preferred strength. Me? I like simple dark roast Community Coffee -- a strong taste.  But have you ever considered what it took to get those flavors in coffee?

As a scientist I can see many ongoing experiments. I could see someone trying to put pepper flavor in coffee. That won't work. I could see someone trying to put chicken or beef flavor in coffee. That won't work, either. Have you every heard of mixing curry flavor with coffee? I haven't either. I am certain that someone is always trying many experiments to devise a new, great-tasting coffee, thus creating a niche in the market for them to make millions.

But why haven't we heard of some strange flavored coffees? Simple. They just won't work.

It seems to me that some favors are not meant to work with other flavors.

In a similar way there are some patterns of living that are not meant to work in any life. It is one thing to be a Christian in the counter-cultural 'lane', and it is another to be in a 'lane' leading to trouble, heart-ache and death -- the 'lane' God has warned us about.

What are the God-warned 'flavors' of living that won't work? In Rom 1: 19-32, Paul listed some impossible 'flavors', including:

• men and women in homosexuality
• unrighteousness
• wickedness
• greed
• evil
• envy
• murder
• strife
• trickery / deceit
• malice
• talking bad about other people (gossip, slander)
• hating God
• insolence
• arrogance
• bragging / boasting
• inventing ways to do evil
• those who don't obey their parents
• those who don't have (or choose to not to have) understanding
• being untrustworthy
• displaying no love for others.
• displaying no mercy for others.

 Galatians 5:19-21 is another list of awful tasting 'flavors'. They are:

• being sexually immoral (any sex outside marriage)
• impure
• doing anything to excite the senses
• honoring anything as more important than God (idolatry)
• 'druggies' (either prescription or illegal)
• being hostile
• personal animosity
• being and creating jealousy
• emotional explosions
• the spirit of causing division
• being preferential to hurt others
• envious
• drinking alcohol  and being in parties to become intoxicated. 

And as if these weren't enough, he added a phrase to including everything in-between ("and such like").

There should be no struggle in enjoying good tasting coffee. And there should be no struggle to enjoy life. All we have to do is not 'experiment' by trying to add things to this good life that will make it taste 'yucky!' We have already been told these experiments won't work.