A dedicated, wise professor shared this profound story. Once there was a group of alumni, highly established in their careers, who got together to visit their old college professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in their workplace and home life. Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling his friends to help themselves to the coffee.When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the wise professor said: "If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups... And then you began eyeing each other's cups.
Now consider this: life is the coffee; the cups are jobs, money and position in society. The cups are just tools to hold and contain life. The type of cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of the life we live. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee God has provided us. God brews the coffee, not the cups.......... Enjoy your coffee!"
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who worry too much about the cups they hold in their hands. We complain or fret too much about our jobs, or the lack of money in our paycheck, or the disappointments that we were overlooked for a promotion or worst let go during a merger. Help us to look within ourselves and see the coffee that tastes of kindness, forgiveness and courage. You know that the happiest people don't have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything.
