“Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all of our days.” Psalm 90:14
Running late, I slid into the booth at The Waffle Shop to meet a friend running even later than I. When she arrived, I admired her new hairstyle and she noticed my “cute” summer jacket. No sooner had we ordered and my pancakes and her number three special were being served. (You gotta’ love our local Waffle Shop!) Typically, when I order blueberry pancakes, the wait staff brings my requested heated syrup in a clear glass container with a spout for ease of pouring it on my half stack. This morning was not typical. My hot syrup arrived in a coffee cup, odd but hey, it was hot and that's essential for me to enjoy my breakfast, odd but true. The “syrup cup” was identical to the one from which I was already sipping my morning coffee. . Engrossed in conversation, somehow I hardly noticed. It wasn’t long before I inadvertently picked up a cup and mindlessly took a gulp of … you guessed it …hot maple syrup! I coughed and gagged and immediately spewed a mouthful of syrup into an empty juice glass followed by a violent scrubbing of my tongue with a Waffle Shop napkin as I desperately tried to rid my taste buds of the sickening sweetness that lingered. I lost my appetite. Even my desire for the good coffee that remained in the other cup had vanished. Actually, I was done eating all together at that point, leaving half of my half stack to waste. Too much sweet is just too much.
Sadly, I have to admit to experiencing far too many moments like that at the table of life. Inadvertently, and mindlessly I take a gulp out of the wrong cup. Oh, usually not at The Waffle Shop, of course but at the retail counter, the refrigerator, the office … believing a lie that my next purchase, the food I crave, working longer or harder and many other substitutes for “real life,” will satisfy the longing in my soul. Somehow it always proves me wrong. The promise of those things doesn’t deliver. They prove more often that although there is nothing wrong with purchasing something new, eating something I enjoy or working more, none of them shake out to be the real deal, as they say. And it seems that they never offer soul satisfaction but more often than not leave me feeling more unsatisfied than before I sipped from their cup. King David drank from the wrong cup a time or two and in his error, he actually discovered that there a cup in which satisfaction could be had. God’s unfailing love. Love that offers to satisfy in the morning, as we face our day ... the best time for sipping a fresh brewed cup of life.
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