Be The Coffee Bean

The world can feel like it’s boiling, and it’s easy to wake up already bracing for the next problem. I start the day with a short story that puts a surprising mirror in front of us: a father boils three pots of water and drops in a potato, an egg, and coffee. They all face the same heat, but they don’t all come out the same, and the difference says a lot about stress, resilience, and what we’re letting shape us. 

We talk about how adversity can soften you until you feel worn down, or harden you until you feel shut off. Then we lean into the better option: becoming like the coffee bean that changes the water around it. That’s the turning point of this five-minute morning devotional, because it moves from “what’s happening to me” to “what’s happening in me.” If you’ve felt confused, angry, or overwhelmed lately, you’ll hear a simple way to reset your mindset and your faith before the day gets away from you. 

Transcript

Welcome And Daily Five Minutes

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Good morning and welcome to Starting Right with Danny Mack. I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great five minute start to your day. So grab your cup of coffee, sit back, relax, and let me help you start your day right. Once upon a time there was a daughter who complained to her father that her life was miserable and she didn't know how she was going to make it. She was tired of fighting and struggling all the time. It just seemed that as soon as one problem was solved, another soon followed behind it. Her father, who was a chef, took her into the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each one on a high flame. Once the three pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in one pot, eggs in the second pot, and ground coffee in the third pot. He then left them until they started to boil without saying a word to his daughter. She moaned and waited impatiently, just wondering, Dad, what are you doing? But after about twenty minutes he turned off the burners, he took the potatoes out of the pot and placed them in a bowl. He pulled the boiled eggs out and he placed them in a bowl. He then ladled the coffee out and placed it in a cup, and turning to her he asked, Daughter, what do you see? Potatoes, eggs, and coffee, she replied. A little closer, he said. Touch the potatoes. She did. And she told him that they were soft. And then he asked her, Okay, take an egg and break it. After breaking off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally he said to her, Take a sip of coffee. And as she did, she said it tasted good, and it actually brought a smile to her face for the first time that day. She turned to her father and said, Dad, what does all this mean? Well, then he explained that the potatoes, the eggs, and the coffee beans had each faced the same adversity the boiling water. But each one reacted differently. The potato went in strong, hard and unrelenting, but in the boiling water it became soft and weak. The egg was fragile, with a thin outer shell protecting its liquid interior until it was put in the boiling water, and then the inside of the egg became hard. But then there was the coffee beans. They were unique. After they were put in the boiling water, they actually changed the water and created something new. The man turned to his daughter and said, Now, which one of these are you? When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a potato? An egg or a coffee bean? Now that simple and somewhat silly story tells a lot about how we are to react to the things that are happening around us. You see, when the egg and the potato were put into the hot water, they were impacted by what was around them. And that's where many of us are today. We're sort of in hot water. We are feeling that we're in hot water, and we're letting that situation around us impact us, and it causes confusion, and it causes anger, and it causes tremendous amounts of stress. Because what is happening outside of us is getting into us. But what Christ wants us to do is quite a bit different than that. He says that what is inside of us is supposed to impact everything else around us. In Matthew chapter five, verses fourteen to sixteen, Jesus said, You are the light of the world, like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand where it gives light to everyone in the house, and in the same way let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your Heavenly Father. Darkness doesn't overwhelm light. Light disperses the darkness. Today we have the opportunity to declare the goodness of God and let his light that is within us shine to everybody else around us, and in doing that, we can help dispel their darkness. We can help them to see that there's some good and there's some hope into every situation that's going on around us. Our families and our friends need that from us. They need to see God's light shining brightly. So I encourage you today, my friends, let that light shine and impact the world around you. Be blessed. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Thank you for listening today. And I invite you to join me Monday to Friday right here on Starting Right with Danny Mack.