Steeping

I like my hot tea strong. With milk. OK, that part doesn’t sound strong. But the milk is supposed to soften the bitterness, not weaken the flavor.

With the glorious advent of insulated tumblers, I make my tea, leave the tea bag in, and let it steep while I sip it hot for hours.

Steeping.

Good for tea.

Harder for me.

This has been a steeping year for everyone—lots of waiting, sitting, time to think. Plenty of closed doors, thanks to COVID and other factors.

It doesn’t always feel very productive to steep. Actually, it doesn’t feel productive to stew. There’s a difference between steeping and stewing.

I can go round and round with my thoughts until I’m stuck in a stewpot that is far from transformational and life-giving. Everything begins to look futile. Here on this low simmer I also may be inclined to burst a bubble and splatter some scalding mess if the lid comes off.

Somewhere in the stewpot, Jesus’ tender voice tells me one more time that He loves me.

I don’t feel particularly lovely or lovable in the stewpot. And I don’t want to talk about love right now. I want to talk about doing something besides sitting here. I feel like the day-laborer in Jesus’ parable, standing around at the eleventh hour. “Can I please have a job? Can I do something in Your kingdom that matters?”

Instead of giving me a job, He tells me that He loves me.

And I respond as authentically as I know how. “Clearly I’m missing something. I believe that You love me. Help my unbelief.”

He smiles and supportively nods, “There you go.”

I still don’t really get it. But somehow a shift occurs from stewing to steeping.

I recall past I-love-you’s that came when I heard the sound of birds’ wings or smelled that certain fragrance in the forest. I remember seeing it in the color of the sky and reading it explicitly in Romans 5:8 or Hosea or a hundred other Scriptures. I look at the photographs I intentionally placed on my wall to remind me of those times and places where He communicated in my own language that He sees me and knows me and loves me. In a starry night. In a canoe. In a bouquet of purple roses.

And I am steeping in a much better place.

It’s OK to be overwhelmed by His love. There’s that much of it. This is no general, generic, theological construct. He is passionate about you and me. I need to stay here and feel it and be permeated by it until it transforms my perspectives, my thoughts, my decision-making. I am loved by God. You are LOVED by God.

I hope that when I’m on the move again, what flows out of me carries the strength of something that has steeped well for a long time.

But even that isn’t the goal.

Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God. To love Him back, we might say, since He initiated loving us first. Of course, there are a hundred thousand ways to express obedience to that command. Many are active. But one of them involves sitting in this chair for as long as it takes and steeping in His love until our bond is so deep that I can’t tell where I stop and He starts. The goal is for me to be saturated in His love like strong tea.

He even added a splash of milk this morning. Not because His love has any bitter edge but because He still sees me searching for the significance factor.

I was guiding my daughters through an overview of 2 Timothy in homeschool today. Paul, the departing mentor, was giving his last good-bye. He had run hard and run well, the epitome of a significant life. And of all things, he described his reward coming not for the running but for the waiting.

“In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.” 2 Timothy 4:8 NASB

The verse is familiar, always inspiring. But I had an old Good News Translation out, and the last phrase caught me off guard:

“…to all those who wait with love for him to appear.”

He considers the posture of longing significant. Crown-worthy. We are rewarded not because we were looking for escape from an ever-devolving culture but because we were looking for Him.

Waiting with love. Steeping in love. Until it would be easier to remove the diffused tea from its water than to separate me from this love relationship. Until my longing for His presence to come far outstrips the list of things I want to accomplish for His Kingdom. I’ll steep here for as long as it takes.