My personal favorite, however,
is that "Drinking coffee will stunt your growth". I have been drinking coffee for thirty years
now and I am happy at 5’7”, haha. Joking
aside, I remember as a child being at church and hearing both my dad and
the older people in the church telling me this as I would work to sneak a cup
of joe in hopes that no one was looking. Many times it did not work to my advantage. But there is no true research to support this.
Truth be told, at one time people
believed that caffeine was the reason for osteoporosis, which receded bone mass
and height. And if that was true, then why
did parents deny children coffee but offer them soda? I'll let you 'brew' that one
around for a minute.
While coffee may not stunt our
growth, there is one thing that comes to mind which has that power. That thing would be sin. Now obviously the growth I am referring to is
not a physical height per se, but our spiritual growth. In looking at the younger days of the prophet
Samuel in I Samuel 2:26, we see that he was dedicated to the LORD's service and
lived with Eli. In time he began to grow
in stature (his physical frame) as well as in favor (pleasure) with the LORD
and men. He was found with favor
specifically before God because he put aside sin and chased after the righteous
ways of God. Was he perfect? By no means. But he saw the benefit in saying no to sin and
yes to God's commands.
Psalm 119:1 reads, "Blessed are those whose ways are
blameless, who walk according to the law of the LORD." In walking according to His law, we are
growing and reaping the benefit of blessing. Psalm 1:3 confirms this in saying about the
one walking in God’s ways, "That person is like a tree planted by
streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not
wither - whatever they do prospers."
What does water do for a tree? It
helps in the growing process. But on the
flip side, walking in the ways of sin will only have us finding that our spiritual
growth is stunted, for as Psalm 1 goes on to say, those who are not like the
tree planted by the stream, those who are not growing, are like chaff which the
wind blows.
Now I am not here to condemn
you in what I say, for it was just this morning on my way to work that God
challenged me with this same thought. I
want to see the effects of growth in my life.
But in order for growth to happen I need to remove the obstacles that
are stunting my growth. I need to remove
the sins as God is showing me. And it
isn't that I need to get rid of only a little sin in order to grow, but rather
I need to get rid of all sin in order to grow. As long as I leave an open door for sin, sin
will continue to romance me from God.
It is time we realize the
perhaps hidden truth of this myth. While
coffee will not stunt our growth, physically or spiritually, sin most definitely
will stunt our growth in the spiritual. But I don't want to be stunted. I am pretty sure you do not want to be either.
What must we do? In the spiritual we must stop drinking our coffee of sin. We must stop drinking in sin and suffering its
effects, but instead allow ourselves to be like the tree planted by the stream
- planted and growing firmly with our roots fully in God and His ways.
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