A Cup of Tea with Jesus

It seems that so frequently lately, I have felt prone to a creeping anxiety and depression, not physiologically as was my difficulty for many years, but emotionally and spiritually. As I examine the anxiety, when it comes, I see that almost all of it has to do with relationships with people: me with them, them with each other, or them with God. A thought came to me early the other morning, that God is all about relationships, about healing and restoring them. This is His primary concern, His top priority, reconciling us first to Him and then to each other. He is the God of all reconciliation. (See 2 Corinthians 5:18-20.)

These anxious thoughts come with the sense, the conviction, that I must pray, but there is a lethargy there with the anxiety, and a hopelessness, that prevent me, discourage me, before I even start. I must recognize the discouragement as a ploy of the enemy and refuse to be held back from prayer. But then, even when I pray from this place, my words seem pithy and unsubstantial; they seem to fall to the ground powerless. They feel like “the vain repetition of the heathen.” A religious exercise. An ineffectual, obligatory gesture.

I realize that I must get with Jesus, truly get into His presence, and then really make my needs known to Him so that then He will garrison my heart and mind with His peace, as He promises in Philippians 4:6-7. So that afternoon, I determinedly block some time aside from the cares of this world and all my temporal responsibilities. I make a cup of tea, a rare event, using a big fresh sprig of peppermint from my garden, and sit down on the couch to visit with my Friend.

The first thought that comes to mind is this: Isn’t it kind of rude to sit down for a cup of tea with a Friend and not even pour a cup for Him? It reminds me of Graham Cooke, who says that He always pours a cup of coffee for Jesus as well as himself, and that he’s convinced that one day he will find that other cup empty at the close of their conversation. I get up and pour another cup of the tea, placing it on the coffee table a couple of feet from mine.

I settle back. I close my eyes, breathe deeply, and acknowledge and welcome Jesus’ presence. Immediately a great peace descends and settles around me like a gentle cloud of glory. It is such a relief, such a refreshing, that tears of gratitude come quickly to my eyes. It is so glorious, I wonder why I don`t do this every day. I breathe deeply once again.

I open a little old book I have recently found on our bookshelf: God Calling. I’ve never read it before. I turn to today’s date. The title of the reading is “Live in the Unseen.” It begins with a plea: “Our Lord, the God of the troubled and the weary, come and save us.” And then God speaks, through the words of the authors, two anonymous “listeners.”

I am your Saviour. Not only from the weight of sin, but from the weight of care, from misery, and depression, from want and woe, from faintness and heartache. Your Saviour.

Remember that you are living really in the Unseen—that is the Real Life.

Lift up your heads from earth’s troubles, and view the glories of the Kingdom. Higher and higher each day, see more of Heaven. Speak to Me. Long for Me. Rest in Me. Abide in Me. No restless bringing Me your burdens and then feverishly lifting them again and bearing them away. No! Abide in Me. Not for one moment losing the consciousness of My Strength and Protection.

As a child in its mother’s arms, stay sheltered and at rest.

Such a fitting reading. It deepens the peace I am feeling, and I am so at rest, even though I’ve only been sitting there for about two minutes. And then I hear the front door open. My husband is stopping off home, much earlier than he expected. My heart drops with disappointment. I am always glad to see my husband, but I have entered into a special place with Jesus, which seems as fragile as it is powerful, fragile in the same way that the Parable of the Sower tells us the Word of God, mighty and eternal though it is, can be choked out of our hearts by the cares and distractions of this world. I don’t want to be distracted right now.

“Oh Jesus,” I whisper, “please don’t let me lose this place.”

I get up to greet my husband. I find that he is extremely stressed, something he rarely succumbs to. Already running a month behind schedule with construction projects for various farmers, right in the middle of harvest time, now all kinds of things are going wrong. He comes and sits beside me on the couch.

“Let me read this to you,” I say, picking up the little book. “It’s very appropriate.”

He lifts his hand as though to block the flow of words. “I can’t listen to anything right now,” he says.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” I ask, even though he is a dedicated coffee drinker. “I poured it for Jesus,” I explain, “but He doesn’t seem to be drinking it.”

“Maybe it’s too hot,” he says, trying a sip.

“He prefers His lukewarm,” I say.

We both laugh. We have no idea how He likes His beverages, but we know He’s been very clear about how He likes His people: definitely not lukewarm. (See Revelation 3:16.)

After a few more minutes, Greg is able to listen to the devotional. We talk about it for a bit, and somehow, in the course of that short time, our burdens are unconsciously yielded over to Jesus. Then Greg drains his cup, gives me a kiss, gets up to leave, and says, “Thanks for the tea.”

“Jesus wasn’t drinking it anyway,” I answer.

Alone again, I marvel that the supernatural peace and quietness still surround me, undisturbed in spite of my solitude having been interrupted.

Oh, but I did, Jesus seems to saying.

What?

I did drink the tea. Remember how I said that when I was hungry, you gave me food; I was thirsty, you gave me a drink; I was sick, you visited me; I was naked and you clothed me; I was in prison and you came to me. And when I was questioned, “When, Lord?” then I said that whenever you did it for anyone, in My Name, you did it for Me.

You were “in Me”; you were “in My name,” moving in My Spirit. When you gave your husband that cup of tea—which was sitting there on the coffee table in front of him only because I had told you to put it there—and he drank it, I was drinking it too. Nice peppermint, by the way.

A holy mystery for sure. I glimpse it, but I won’t say I begin to understand it. Or maybe I should put it this way: my mind doesn’t grasp it, but my spirit does.

When I got up and left my place on the couch, I carried the peace with me. It occurred to me that I never had got around to laying out all my concerns and burdens to Jesus. He had simply shown up, reminding me of how real He is, and how sufficient. That was all I really needed.

And it was what Greg needed as well. When he got home late that evening, he told me that that short tea break on the couch had straightened out his whole day. It had broken the stress off him, readjusted his perspective, and filled his world with peace.