Over Cups of God's Word

Last night, Joseph went away to Antipolo for an overnight planning with his fellow board members in our church. Since my calendar was free of any work deadlines, I decided to text and invite several of my “busiest” friends for a night of coffee, hoping that at least one of them would yield. As expected, I had some “sorry, I can’t make it” replies. Most of these friends that I had invited were mostly working for cutthroat industries – the Media and the Call Center – so it was pretty understandable why. I was particularly struck though with one of my friend’s follow-up message. After saying that she had duty that night, she followed it up with this question: “Why mare? Is there a problem?”

I was really stumped… found it funny at first… then it didn’t take long before I got really concerned. I got worried about her connotation of “coffee talk”. Apparently for her, a coffee talk means a session of catharsis, when in fact all I really wanted to do was to keep tabs with friends whom I haven’t seen so much lately.

Nevertheless, I also checked myself. Then I figured that not too long ago, I used to look at it the same way too. Before I had Christ in my life, I remember that coffee with my girlfriends usually meant one of us reporting a full account of a recent love tragedy. Meeting up was always centered on boy-bashing… on lamenting about our love lives… on whining about our impending doom as fag hags or spinsters… etc...

I had a spiritual make-over after I received Christ. I was now Miss Glass-Half-Full. But I would have to say that my conversion didn’t come that easily. When someone receives Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, salvation doesn’t just end there. Receiving Him is just the first step. If as human beings we never get satisfied with what we have in our hands, then the same hunger should be applied to our Christian Life. Once you become a Christian or a person living for Christ, there are five means of spiritual growth: BIBLE, PRAYER, WORSHIP, FELLOWSHIP and WITNESS.

In my early phase of being a Born Again, I would have to admit that I had some difficulty dealing with the FELLOWSHIP part. First let me just briefly explain what the word “fellowship” means. For non-Bible Christians, the word would probably automatically mean Bible Study. Yes, that’s also true but in actuality, “fellowship” for Christians means pretty much the same way how any other person reading the dictionary would define it. It’s basically FRIENDSHIP!

At first, I felt awkward being “friends” with a group of women whom I thought didn’t go through the tragedies that I had. I felt out of place with them. Honestly, I even thought that our personalities might not match. But then I realized that joining my church mates in Bible Study was not merely being part of a “club” or a “clique”. It wasn’t about fitting in… IT WAS ABOUT FOLLOWING GOD’S WORD. It’s not about ME… it’s all about HIM. This was no sorority. So by His grace, I finally found myself immersed in my Circle of Care (our small group Bible fellowship) and that led to my deeper and more loving and intimate relationship with Christ.

Fellowship helped me a lot in getting to know our Lord more. Fellowship made me fall in love with Him. Coffee talks for me now meant gathering together to praise God – definitely the only ONE who will never ever disappoint us in LOVE. We praise Him for the blessings, and even more, we praise Him for the trials that make us stronger in faith.

There’s always a big difference between a professed Christian who commits herself to a regular meet-up with fellow Christians and another one who does not. I’ve been with my small group for two years now and I have witnessed the entry and exit of some members. Every time we have a new member coming in, it was always a delight. On my observation usually the new members are those who are currently having a crisis. Of course, ministering to these ladies is a blessing in itself. However, I just noticed though that once that certain new member’s crisis eases up, we slowly start seeing less of her until she finally drops out of the group.

There’s a saying: Pag gusto may paraan. Pag ayaw maraming dahilan. Humanly speaking we are all guilty of that in some way. With that kind of trend happening in our small group, I feel a bit of sadness that people only need God when they are in need. Although we let them go graciously, and even continue to pray for them (the departed ones, as we joke about it, hehe), I just can’t help but feel frustrated. Our God, yes the God who miraculously extinguishes our problems definitely deserves more than just a simple “Thank you ‘til next time ulit, Lord ha?”

Being in fellowship fortifies our faith. Being in fellowship with Christ is actually having Him over for coffee. When we commune with our friends and talk about Him, and offer our concerns, we are not just strengthening our bonds with our girlfriends or small group members, we are actually bonding with Jesus Himself. Being in fellowship is having coffee with Jesus. And we all know how coffee conversations bear fruits of wisdom and branches and branches of beautiful inspiration.

I am currently praying for a lot of my friends to yield to my invitation of being in fellowship with Jesus. I have also been praying for their salvation; that they finally receive Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior. I know, by God’s grace that sooner or later, my friend’s connotation of coffee talk would be taking a break with friends over hot cups of God’s word.

My Circle of Care @ Country Style