Of Champions and Kings
I have been conflicted today, but only mildly so. Yesterday was the first day of judges certification for the 2009 World Barista Championship (WBC) to be held April 16-19 in Atlanta. Currently, I am certified as a United States judge through 2010 and can judge any of our country’s regional competitions or the national one, but not this particular international event where every competitor is a national champion. Obtaining WBC certification is a prestigious thing within the coffee industry, especially with the changes that have been made to this workshop and the both practical and academic knowledge requirements placed on the judges. I was sorely tempted to vie for this certification.
Judging at the 2008 United States Barista Championships
This workshop is attended by invitation only, but you had to apply to be invited. In my pride, I wanted to see just if I could obtain an invite with no intention of accepting it. Ultimately I restrained myself as I didn’t want to literally waste the time of the reviewing committee. The goal is to crown a new World Barista Champion at the conclusion of one of the premier competitive coffee events in the world, not play games backed by false senses of ego inflation.
If I’m honest, I’ll tell you that I wanted to go really bad. However, my reasons for wanting to go were not good reasons. I wanted the notch in my belt. I wanted it on my résumé just to have it there for me to look at and point to when it served my purposes. This mindset is not that of a servant, which is ultimately what I get paid to be when I take on new clients. The truth is that while I don’t know all the coffee growing regions in Nicaragua, I probably could have gotten certified. But to what end? For me to make an addition to my proverbial my me-wall? Not good enough. Not fair to the competitors.
Instead of pursuing things that were not profitable, I spent yesterday putting finishing touches on a sermon that covered 1 Kings ch. 17 and last evening I delivered that message to a group of 20 or so inmates in St. Joseph, MO through the Keys are at the Cross Prison Ministry. My thesis was that God, in His sovereignty, can and will (sometimes drastically) set you apart for a time to prepare you according to His word for His work before He can use you. Driving home, I felt an enormous amount of satisfaction in knowing that I knew I was where I was supposed to be and that I was doing His work according to His word. 1 Kings ch. 17 deals with the training up of the prophet Elijah who is taken out of the limelight and is set apart to live next to a brook for some extended down time with just him and God before being sent out for other “adventures”. Charles Swindoll refers to the event as a kind of boot camp and I totally agree. While I can’t pretend to know what he went through, I can certainly identify with Elijah being taken out of the limelight to focus on God. Maintaining that focus is far more important than traipsing around a certification workshop that conflicts with the ordering of my real priorities.
In the past year, I have certainly been set apart as God has refocused my attention to be on HIS priority list, not my own. Ultimately, there was a less than average chance that obtaining WBC certification would have had any sort of meaningful or relevant ministry application before the opportunity presented itself again in US soil in another 4 years. For that reason, I withdrew my intention to pursue it. I know that God called me home to learn to be a servant to more than just my own desires. It is said in Christian circles that your first mission field is inside your own house, and that is exactly where I was sent. God custom made a course in servant leadership just for me and I’d much rather complete that workshop so that I can be used later. While crowning a new barista champion of the world is exciting and does have it’s own rewards, crowning Jesus Lord of my life is far more exciting and infinitely more rewarding.
Delayed gratification, baby.
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