On tea, overthinking, and our remarkable ability to complicate things.
Christianity, Faith, Christian Living, Humour
No redirection needed
When I was a young teen, I discovered English Breakfast tea. It became my favourite hot beverage until I discovered coffee and, well, tea didn’t stand much of a chance after that.
My love affair with the blend was renewed a couple of years ago when I won a silent auction package that included a tin of loose English Breakfast tea. I managed to make that tea last for over a year.
I even discovered an old mesh tea ball that had somehow survived more than a dozen moves. It was barely in one piece, but it still worked.
I relished the old rituals I’d learned from my grandmother, whose heritage was British. There was a proper way to make tea, and I loved every bit of it: fresh cold water in the kettle, warming the teapot, measuring the loose tea, and letting it steep.
So yes, the day that tin was empty was a sad one.
I made a special trip to my local shops in search of more English Breakfast tea. My search was fruitless, so naturally, I bemoaned my predicament on Facebook.
A dear friend in England saw my post. She was coming to Canada soon and made sure a package of English Breakfast tea was tucked into her luggage for me.
I thanked her profusely. I was already looking forward to quiet mornings with my Bible and a porcelain mug filled with delicately scented tea.
The next morning, I filled the kettle with cold water, warmed my teapot and reached for my trusty ancient tea ball.
That’s when I discovered the hinges had finally rusted through.
Another trip to the local shops proved fruitless. Apparently, mesh tea balls were not as essential to the general population as they were to me.
Eventually, I turned to the Internet, found a supplier, and ordered two, just to be cautious.
After all, you never know when a worldwide shortage of mesh tea balls might occur.
Three weeks later, my order finally arrived.
I filled the kettle with fresh cold water and set it to boil. I warmed the teapot. I carefully unlatched my brand-new tea ball. I pulled a porcelain mug from the cupboard and warmed that as well.
Everything stood in readiness for the precious tea, and I was feeling quite pleased with myself.
I carefully opened the package my friend had brought all the way from England.
Inside, of course, were tea bags.
I had spent three weeks preparing to solve a problem that didn’t exist.
Unfortunately, I have to admit that tea balls aren’t the only place where I do this kind of thing.
I still tend to procrastinate when I think something is going to be complicated. Migrating a website. Writing an article that I know I’ll have to sit with for a while. Most problematic of all, having a difficult conversation.
I’m even guilty of looking at illustrated instructions and deciding I won’t be able to follow them before I’ve really tried. Sometimes the instructions actually are terrible. But often, my fear of how complicated something might be stops the process before it begins.
More often than not, once I get past that first reaction and look at things one step at a time, I do much better than I expected.
I’m grateful the Lord knows I’m a verbal processor. He patiently lets me talk my way through the tangled mess until I can see the next step.
Lately, I’ve been wondering how often we do something similar in our relationship with God.
I don’t think God ever intended our relationship with Him, living a fulfilling life with Him, and loving other people to feel hopelessly complicated.
That doesn’t mean life isn’t complex. It is, and gloriously so.
When I look at God’s creation in nature, and then at the complexities of the human body, I marvel. I think about the intricacies of human relationships and the way each person can view the same situation from a completely different perspective. And then there is our relationship with our Creator. We can spend our entire lives getting to know God and never reach the end of Him.
Complexity isn’t the problem, at least not on its own.
We humans have an extraordinary talent for taking something beautiful and making it complicated.
And honestly, it started early.
In the garden, God gave Adam and Eve extraordinary freedom. They walked with Him. They lived in His provision. There was one boundary.
We know what happened next.
Trust was broken. Shame entered. Hiding began. Then came blaming.
Later, at Mount Sinai, the Israelites saw the thunder, lightning, and smoke and heard the trumpet. They were terrified. They backed away and basically said to Moses, You go deal with Him. Listen to what God says, and then come back and tell us.
God desired a people who knew Him. Humanity kept finding ways to put distance between us and Him.
And over time, people became remarkably good at adding layers of tradition, interpretation, and expectation around what God had said.
Jesus confronted that tendency.
When someone asked Him which commandment mattered most, He didn’t make things more complicated.
His answer was beautifully simple: love God.
Love your neighbour. That’s it.
Not easy. Certainly not superficial. Those two commands can take a lifetime to learn how to live.
But they’re not complicated.
And when sin had created a separation that we could never repair ourselves, God didn’t leave us trying to work our way through an impossible set of instructions.
Instead, Jesus came.
The cross is gloriously complex in everything it accomplished, but the invitation on the other side of it is wonderfully straightforward.
The invitation is still wonderfully direct: Come to Me.
Trust Me.
Follow Me.
Love one another.
Maybe that’s something I need to remember when I’m standing back from something God has put in front of me because I’ve already decided it’s going to be too complicated.
Sometimes the next step will be difficult. Sometimes it will require courage. Sometimes I’ll need to sit with the Lord and talk my way through it for quite a while.
But difficult and complicated aren’t the same thing.
And sometimes I’ve spent three weeks waiting for the spiritual equivalent of a mesh tea ball, only to discover that God has already handed me a tea bag.
Until next time,
