I recall a discussion I had with some friends years ago about how we thought we should offer a guest something to eat or drink when they walked into our home. Being young and just getting our feet under us, most of us didn’t have much. I remember someone saying something about cinnamon toast. People laughed, but I loved that, because I like cinnamon toast and would gladly eat it at someone’s house. No one has ever offered it, though. Maybe it seems too ordinary.
A persistent little ping on my spirit leads me to write this entry. I’ve got nothing. I’m pretty empty just now as I’ve been insisting to the Lord daily, but the ping is like a knock on the door that is hard to ignore. That same ping led me to write my first musical. I’ll tell you about it sometime. Anyway, I feel a bit like someone who has very little to offer, but is offering it anyway. I’m sitting here with a cold cup of coffee. Lucky you. Yet I think just now that’s what the Lord is asking of all of us. What does each of us have to offer? Let whatever it is that you can offer be your cinnamon toast. Let it be your cold cup of coffee. Do that, because we have a year coming up that will be one for the record books if I don’t miss my guess.
Smoke from the new year’s starter pistol is still drifting upward and already we’ve seen so much that it makes our heads spin. I started listing it all, but it just got depressing, so I deleted it. Were it that simple. Let me just say this. Despite the natural phenomena, newsworthy trouble and personal struggle; despite the news we believe and the news that we shake our heads at, despite everything, we need to address all of it not with more sound, but with silence. Our own. By ourselves. In our own little corner in our own little chair.
What we need just now even more than news or pictures or podcasts or blogs is a time of quiet. Just quiet. And that’s all I really want to say today. We’re all witnessing a mess and it’s going to get messier. But if you read a Bible, you know how to get through this stuff.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. (John 14:27) That’s it. Find time every day – even if it’s just ten minutes – and be still. Turn off every noise. And think about how good God is. How powerful and loving. How merciful. And listen. You might feel a ping or maybe something will come to you that God is gracious enough to put in your thoughts. Maybe, just maybe, that’s what He’s been waiting for all along.
And when you get up from your chair, offer someone your version of cinnamon toast.
