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_____________________________________________ It was a Friday, like any other Friday, except for this Friday, I was working from home. I did my normal routine. Up at about 6 am, showered, tossed some clothes in the washing machine, made a pot of coffee, and fired up my computer. Knowing it was going to be hot weather, and we don’t have AC, I opened some windows around the house to let in some of that fresh, cool morning air. This is a habit I picked up from boyhood. My dad was always up early and he’d almost always open windows and sometimes doors and flood the house with the cool morning air. Then, upstairs to my home office. Sipping my black and very hot coffee, I checked my emails that had come in overnight. Not too bad; this time only 30 spam emails. There were a few from friends or colleagues. There was a good-news email from a longtime friend who sent me a note which explained how his outreach ministry was now going into Taiwan, China, and Asia. Another colleague dropped me a good-news email that his book had been accepted by a publisher. And, there were others. I was staring into the computer screen and oblivious to the world around me. At that moment, everything in my world was a computer screen and work. I had settled in, for another day. Then, outside my office window I heard the distant caw of a raven and it broke my concentration; it brought my mind into perspective, and made me look around me and note the context that I was sitting in. It was as though I had awoken from a slumber. I was sitting at my home-office desk surrounded by personal family items. A picture of my lovely wife was on my desk. My father’s Military Burial Flag Display Case was perched on my desk, books flanked me on both sides. I stopped . . . took a second . . . and looked around at my fuller surroundings: in mere seconds, my eyes took in mementos of loved ones, achievements, childhood, God’s presence, and more. It all came rushing in . . . I am blessed. In a reflexive spiritual action, I breathed a small prayer of thanksgiving to God.
God spoke to Elijah: “Drink from the brook and eat what the ravens bring you, for I have commanded them to bring you food” (1 Kings 17:4, NLT). Today, God fed me a spiritual nugget of food by way of a raven. I hope this Coffee Talk is your raven today.
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