Black Coffee and My Spiritual Reset
By Jessica Brodie
Have you ever loved something your whole life, then over time lost the taste for it? I’ve been a coffee drinker since my early teens. Even growing up in sunny south Florida, I loved everything about it: the warmth of the liquid, the feel of the coffee cup cradled in my hands, the smell of the freshly ground beans roasting in the soft morning light. The caffeine boost didn’t hurt either after late nights studying or reading far past my bedtime.
Decades later, I noticed one day my coffee started tasting “off.” I switched brands, changed from powdered coffee creamer to real cream, shifted from sugar to Stevia and then monkfruit…
Then two weeks ago, I listened to my own voice in horror as the words spilled from my lips.
“I have a confession to make,” I told my husband. “I don’t think I like coffee anymore.”
Matt raised an eyebrow. “It’s probably all the junk you put in it.”
“But I’ve always put junk in it. That’s how I like it.”
He cocked his head. “What if you just drank it black?”
The very thought made me shudder. “But it’s bitter, and it tastes like battery acid.”
“What if you just tried it, like an experiment? Maybe forcing yourself to drink black coffee for a while will give you the taste of what real coffee should be like? And then maybe you’ll start to like it again in your regular way.”
My husband is a wise man, even if he doesn’t really like coffee.
It’s been more than a week now, and I’ve forced myself to drink black coffee every single morning. It’s harsh and bitter, yes. But it’s more tolerable now—kind of like when I had to take cough medicine when I had bronchitis. The first few days I had to hold my nose to handle the flavor and the burn, but by Day Four I was used to it.
And I have to admit I do feel much better without all the stuff in my coffee. I put relatively healthy things in—just fresh cream and some monkfruit, which is a healthy and natural sugar alternative. But it’s lighter on my belly without those extras, and I find I’m actually tasting the coffee again. I have a ways to go until I’ll like coffee again, and maybe I won’t. But it’s been a good experiment, like eating salad without dressing or hot tea without honey. You really taste what you are consuming.
My black coffee experiment is a lot like what I’m embracing in my spiritual and emotional life right now: a reset. It can be really important in times of overwhelm and difficulty to eliminate all the “noise” in your life—extra activities, all the rat-race rushing around to and fro like a maniac. I’ve long sensed a need to slow down and focus on what really matters: God. Nature. Relationships. Love. All those Holy Spirit nudgings.
I think Jesus would agree. Through Scripture, God reminds us repeatedly that we are to push aside the complicated and embrace the pure, the true, the authentic.
We’ve come so far since creation, when we roamed without clothing or barriers in harmony with our Creator. We’ve come so far since we worked the land and lived in tandem with the earth. Now we rely on air conditioning and grocery stores for survival, for motorized vehicles to transport us everywhere instead of our own two feet. I’m not saying these things are bad—surely, God gifted people with the abilities to create these things, and they can be used for such good and for His glory.
But sometimes it’s important to reset, to get back to the basics.
When Moses led the Israelites out of their slavery in Egypt, they began to complain as time passed. They had no food, and they grumbled about their new and harsh living conditions.
God told Moses, “I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God’” (Exodus 16:12 NIV).
God didn’t give them complex meals with seasonings and special garnishes—He gave them what they needed. And He only gave them enough for that day. Every day, they needed to receive His new gift of food for their survival.
The Israelites needed to learn to rely on God again, and that’s what God was teaching them. (We need to know this, too.)
Jesus was talking about the same thing when He urged people not to worry so much.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” Jesus said in Matthew 6:25-27.
I’m sipping black coffee as I write this, and I have to admit—I’m grateful. It’s warm, the cup feels good in my hands, and the caffeine helps me focus and helps with my mild asthma. I’m even starting to appreciate the flavor… a little.
Today, if you are in a place where everything seems complicated and it’s just not working for you anymore, look within, Do you need a reset? Do you need to return to the basics, even if it’s not comfortable?
I urge you to pray on this. Ask God to guide you. And then jump in, trusting God will take care of everything.
God always does.
