An Awkward Thing

Life as coffeehouse ministry consultants can be an awkward thing.

At times, it is exhilarating: the thrill of travel, the joy of building new relationships, the challenge of exploring extant coffee communities.

At other times, we ache (like the Apostle Paul) for missed fellowship with all of our friends and family members in the different churches and ministries and shops we've shared life with along the way. We remember them in our stories, in songs, and in our prayers.

Sometimes we just get really tired. :)

And it always feels a little strange...because we are seldom actually starting the projects that we help develop, and as foundation-layers, we're not likely to see all of the long-term fruits of our labors.

But we're encouraged by passages like this one from John's Gospel:

"'But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and gatehring fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper may rejoice together.

"'For here the saying holds true, "One sows and another reaps." I sent you to reap for that which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.'" John 4:35b-38 

And so it is with us. Sometimes we sow, sometimes we labor, and sometimes we get to reap a little.

But it's God who makes things grow!