CHAPTER 48: THE CUP PEOPLE 2022
The Cup People is a study on stuck. Sometimes it’s stubborn, sometimes it’s just being stupid, ..or fear — most of the time it is pure arrogance, plain and simple. Whatever the case it is challenging to get out of an obstinate way of thinking, especially when you’re absolutely sure that you are right, right, right even though you are wrong, wrong wrong. The bible calls this way of thinking, “stiff necked.” Back in the days of the old testament, the Jews made a mistake and cast an idol out of gold .., in the shape of a calf.., this scripture is where stiff neck comes from.
Exodus 32:8-10 New International Version (NIV)
8 They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’
9 “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people.10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
Money, property and prestige get in the way of everything including learning, wisdom, common sense. However, let me restate this sentence, instead of money, property and prestige, let’s say the “imaginary perception” of an idol cast in the shape of money, property and prestige. Now, that sounds a little more dangerous does’t it? Considering the scripture just mentioned.
Back to the cup, stuck in a cup. Inside the cup, we imagine that we are above the nuisance of “little people” responsibility. Above the little problems others have, we are “a legend in our own minds”, so to speak. Perhaps I’m thinking I’m a part of the “in crowd” or I am the “in crowd.” In the cup I can pretend, nothing gets in, nothing gets out. Like a cup of coffee you left outside on the porch. After a few days outside — the coffee that’s left at the bottom of the cup turns into a science project, right. The left-over coffee turns to goo and little organisms are born and fight for survival in a little cruddy eco system, some stronger than others, some in charge, in charge of what I say? Doesn’t matter, in a short time it all dries up and turns to dust and in this chapter you with it, if you’re in there. Kids, we don’t want to be in the cup. Climb out of old thinking. Jesus has a plan for you! The cup is over!
Philippians 1:6 New International Version (NIV)
6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
If I can’t get myself out of the cup, I can’t help myself or anybody else. Cup thinking can definitely get in the way of progress. It’s an excuse to do what you think is important, not what needs to be learned or new things accomplished. You are the “driver,” God has just been left outside as a spectator, looking into the cup. Quit it! Accept new responsibility, revolution/evolution. Revolt against yourself and evolve. Don’t kid yourself that the new shiny object in front of you is the right way to go. Plan on evolving and pray for correctness, get your head out of “I did it before, so I’ll do it again..” Might be too late, change course, pray, listen to those who are wise, climb out.
Philippians 3:13-14 English Standard Version (ESV)
13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
What’s it look like in a cup? A prison that’s what, in the name of being important. It sounds great in the cup, but hey the rest of the world could care less. People in the cup fight for their right to be stupid and important in the confines of nothing. They come to believe that everything outside of the cup is irrelevant or bad. Slipping back into the safety of the walls of the cup, hiding in self importance, a vision of what? Nothing that’s what. If you are in the cup and you just figured that out, fight it. Drill a hole in the side of the cup and get out. Fight it, fight it, fight it.
Proverbs 4:6-7
Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you.
The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.
How many people have said, “I’ll borrow money until it get’s back the way it used to be!” And what pain when all the infrastructure of the cup finally turns to dust and blows away, leaving nothing for all efforts, except pain. Pain is a wake up call isn’t it?
A quote from CS Lewis from his book, “The Problem of Pain:”
The human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it. Now error and sin both have this property, that the deeper they are the less their victim suspects their existence; they are masked evil. Pain is unmasked, unmistakable evil; every man knows that something is wrong when he is being hurt. … And pain is not only immediately recognizable evil, but evil impossible to ignore. We can rest contentedly in our sins and in our stupidities; and anyone who has watched gluttons shoveling down the most exquisite foods as if they did not know what they were eating, will admit that we can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
— C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
Hebrews 12:1
New Living Translation
God’s Discipline Proves His Love
12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.
Chapter 48: “The Cup People.” Is it a sin? Wasting your talent is never good. I’ll say that. Wasting your life? I’d say that’s worse. We all make mistakes. Staying in the cup too long is a mistake. The measure of the man or woman is how fast they get off of it or in this case get out of it.
A cup is for coffee, that’s all. Let’s keep it that way. Amen.
