Time to Steep: What Jesus and Tea Have in Common

While closing out the day in prayer last night, the Lord brought a particular word to my mind. That word is "steep." As in, Jesus, let my life be steeped in you.

I'm not a hard-core tea drinker by any stretch. At best, tea is tolerably flavoured hot water that makes me feel more studious and, for lack of a better word, vibey when paired with a writing session. I appreciate it as an accessory, a way of building an atmosphere, but I don't give much thought to taste. And I'm rarely patient enough to let the teabag steep for the right time before I start chugging.

An apt metaphor, as it turns out.

I've recently sensed that my life is much too chaotic. Even when I commit to keeping my morning appointments with the Lord, I often find that as soon as my Amen is written, I launch into a full day of headless-chicken-productivity and forget about God until it's time for our evening appointment at my bedside. Now, I know we're only human: our minds simply cannot do everything at once, but over time, that kind of frantic productivity wears on me. It's made me realize how little time I dedicate to being still and letting Jesus steep in my heart.

Let's go back to the tea for a second. If you're like me (impatient and uncultured), you know there's a way to accelerate the steeping process. It's called sticking a spoon in the mug and squeezing the living daylight out of the teabag, and if the guts spill out, well, then CHEW it. It's effective only insofar as it accelerates the process, but I'm sure any tea connoisseur would tell me that the best tea is a product of patience. There's a reason steeping is a thing—and it's not just to practice delayed gratification.

For my part, I'm thinking more critically about how I spend my time with the Lord. Am I cruising through it, trying to squeeze all the Jesus I need into a fifteen-minute block? Or am I sitting in the stillness, unshaken and unstirred, allowing Jesus to seep into every part of my heart? Allowing him to speak in the silence, move in the stillness, and transform me into something bursting with the sweet taste of his goodness and grace?

To be sure, every day is different. Life is hectic, we have responsibilities, and that steeping time may look completely different for everyone. Morning is best for me because if I miss it, I tend to push off my Jesus time until I'm half-asleep. For some, though, evenings are prime Jesus time. Maybe for you, it's a lunch break or a commute to work, or that precious hour of naptime when the house is actually (*gasp*) quiet.

I'm not here to tell you how to make tea. But I am here to stress what God has been stressing to me: that there are no shortcuts to sanctification. Poking Jesus with a spoon won't accelerate his work in you. If we want more Jesus, if we want to be more like Jesus, it means carving out time for stillness in the Word, stillness in prayer, stillness in meditation. It means being patient and disciplined enough to set aside our to-do lists and give Jesus the first fruits of every day until we are wholly steeped in him.