Black Coffee

The last time I was in a coffee shop, the selection I found was astounding. There seemed to be a special java-variation for each customer, individualized drinks blended to suit each buyer’s needs and wants. I often found that the hardest thing one can order is a simple cup of black coffee with no flavoring, froth or fizz. It doesn’t end with coffee; one can easily customize most anything today. Your computer can have personalized backgrounds, your phone can ring out with your favorite song, and you can “try on” virtual paint for the walls of your home via certain websites. You can have things your way. We mix and match options, colors and various customizations for our vehicles, a far cry from Henry Ford’s comment about the Model T: “People can have it in any color they want, so long as it’s black.” Not that variation is bad or wrong, but when you look carefully, you’ll find that this personalization can creep into other areas of life as well, most specifically, in the realm of morality.

You might hear something like this…
“You have ‘your truth,’ and I have ‘my truth.’ What works for you doesn’t work for me, but that’s okay as long as you don’t try to impose your beliefs upon me or attempt to sway me in my beliefs. It really doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you believe something. And if you believe something, it becomes truth for you. After all, truth isn’t fixed, but it changes with the culture, with time, and as wisdom increases. People can pick and choose what they believe from any and all ideological, moral or religious belief systems, and no one has the right to tell anyone differently.”

Ever wonder what happened to the idea of an objective standard? When I was a teacher, I used a test key to grade tests. It would be placed alongside the student’s paper and compared. It didn’t really matter what someone preferred or wanted the answer to be; the only thing that mattered was the answer.

Unfortunately, nowadays, moral choices are often demoted to the same status of merely stating opinion. Issues of right and wrong are placed on the same level as deciding whether you want whipped cream or steamed milk in your coffee. Too often we choose morality based upon personal preference rather than upon a universal standard.

Two verses come to mind… “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Prov. 14:12).

“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me’” (John 14:6).

The LORD God of the universe has an objective standard. He didn’t say, “I am one of the possible ways, a truth among many others that are just as valid…” Not only does He have a standard, He is the standard.

Now, if you will excuse me, I think I’ll go get a cup of black coffee.

Dustin C. George
Minister to Single Adults
www.sevierheights.org