For me, the looking forward to waking up part isn’t so much the case. It’s more like I get the coffee to endure waking up so early. At least these days I wake up after the sun is already up. Trying to function when it’s still dark outside is rough. Putting on pants before 6 am is always hazardous to my health.

But then there’s coffee. Coffee makes everything better. Plus, I tend to do better work with my eyes open. Also, talking with other people works better if you’re not asleep. I think that at least 50% of my personality comes from coffee.

I’m thankful for the person who decided to take coffee beans, smash them and put them in hot water. Whoever it was deserves his or her own holiday. I mean we have a holiday for just about everything else under the sun. Why not a day for coffee?

I’d be infinitely more grateful if the coffee could make it self or at least be inserted into my veins intravenously. Seriously. Some day, you need the coffee to be able to make the coffee. For those of us who are not morning people, the struggle is real.

But coffee is one little thing I give thanks to God for. Without coffee, there’d be a little less joy in my life . . . and a lot less conversation. Just sayin’.

“You don’t have to be perfect to be useful… the rusty nail still holds the roof on” (Eunice Conley).

Perfection is a myth. There’s no such thing as perfect on this side of heaven. Everything we do has a little ulterior motive mixed in. Even our best efforts and most righteous attitudes apart from grace are filthy rags.

God isn’t looking for perfect. He’s looking for available. He’s looking for willing. What He’s looking to find is progress. That means you keep showing up every day surrendered and willing. That means you don’t ever give up.

God is mending your brokenness, but He can still use the broken you. God is healing your wounds, but He can still testify through your scars. God doesn’t pick those who feel they can contribute so much to the Kingdom. God picks the ones who know they have nothing to bring but can only cling to the cross (as the old hymn says).

You might be rusty as all get out. You might not look like much in the eyes of the world. Your value might not be much to most. But you can still hold the roof on. You can still crawl back on the altar and offer yourself as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. God can still use you. Yes, even you. Even me.

“If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to born both within ourselves and within the world; we would know that the Kingdom of God is what we all of us hunger for above all other things even when we don’t know its name or realize that it’s what we’re starving to death for. The Kingdom of God is where our best dreams come from and our truest prayers. We glimpse it at those moments when we find ourselves being better than we are and wiser than we know. We catch sight of it when at some moment of crisis a strength seems to come to us that is greater than our own strength. The Kingdom of God is where we belong. It is home, and whether we realize it or not, I think we are all of us homesick for it” (Frederick Buechner).

I think that just about says it all.

“The Shepherd laughed too. ‘I love doing preposterous things,’ he replied. ‘Why, I don’t know anything more exhilerating and delightful than turning weakness into strength, and fear into faith, and that which has been marred into perfection. . . .That is my special work” (Hannah Hurnard, Hinds Feet on High Places).

If it helps for a bit of context, remember that it took God six days to create the entirety of the universe and everything in it. Also remember that He’s been working on you since you were in your mother’s womb. Sometimes, the intricate work takes longer, but bear in mind that the end result will be glorious beyond compare.

God delights in taking those weaknesses and turning them into strengths. He delights in taking nobodies and turning them into world changers. He delights in taking your fear and turning it into faith that is afraid but obeys anyway.

God can take the scars from your worst moments and turn them into a testimony of God at His very best. Day after day, nothing seems to change but when you look back over a year or a decade, you understand better that you are not who you were.

I heard an illustration a long time ago that stuck with me. So many Christians are like those buildings where they put fences around the exterior during remodeling. You never see the messy under construction phase, only the polished and perfect final state. So many of us never want anyone to see us in any way that is less than perfect, but God wants people to see us in the middle of growing and becoming. That, not the so-called perfect picture, is a true reflection of someone who follows Jesus.

“When you remember me, it means you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. I means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart” (Frederick Buechner).

Does anyone else ever randomly remember people you haven’t thought about or seen in a long while, or is it just me? Sometimes, I’ll see someone who reminds me of a someone else that I knew back in the day, and that will open the floodgates of memories for me.

I’ve had lots of people that I’m blessed to be able to remember. Often, those memories come back in the most bizarre and unexpected ways. Then I can smile and look up at God and say, “Thanks! I knew that was you.”

I do think God brings people to mind as a way of spurring us to gratitude. So many have blessed me and taught me so much. Since I can’t necessarily thank them in person, the next best way is to pay it forward to someone else who can maybe in turn one day remember you and what you did for them.

All of these people who waited saw God’s hand while they waited and saw the fruits of their waiting. In every case, waiting on God is always worth it. Running ahead of God because you’re impatient and trying to help Him out never is.

Again, if God is making you wait, it’s usually because you’re not ready for it. Whatever it is is bigger than you can conceive or handle right now. Plus, He might have something for you right now that you’d miss if you weren’t waiting.

As the great theologian Tom Petty once said, the waiting is the hardest part. But in the end, it’s the wisest.

The grammar nerd in me has to point out that it should read “when you’re out of options.” I just had to throw that in there.

But when it comes to worship out of abandonment and brokenness, I thankfully can’t say that I’ve had much experience. I’ve known times when I feel my own sinfulness more keenly and when my weakness is staring me in the face. I’ve had those moments when I most deeply feel my need of God.

Those times are when the prayers flow out of me. That’s when my requests and petitions stop being polite and start being real, to borrow a phrase from the old MTV reality shows back in the 90s.

Some of you reading this know far more about praying from a broken heart and from a place of abandonment. You truly know what it’s like to be alone. You know what it’s like to have nothing but Jesus and nowhere to look but up.

But the Bible says “The Lord is near to the broken-hearted and saves the crushed in spirit “(Psalm 34:18, ESV).

That’s not a feel-good sentiment. That’s a promise.

God is faithful. God knows what it’s like to experience the very worst that humanity can do to you and knows the very depth of suffering like no one else. Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3, ESV).

Sometimes all we have are our tears and sighs. Those are just as acceptable in the eyes of God as the most eloquent prayers ever offered up by any preacher from any pulpit on any given Sunday. They are beautiful to God.