Can I throw a little sweetness your way? I'm going to start with a little bitterness first. But it’s something how bitter things, used and tweaked the right way, can actually turn out to be a delicious treat. Here's a little something you may not know, but understanding the process, and how it relates to life, can be much more than just a rich and welcomed aroma from morning to morning.

Roasted coffee beans, not just coffee beans, but ROASTED beans have been TRANSFORMED with every intent to be a TRANSFORMER! But BEFORE they can be a transformer... the bean itself must go through a process of transformation.

Coffee beans, BEFORE they transform the TASTE and SMELL of the environment they're immersed in, must go through a FEW things. They will be drawn from it’s safe environment, stripped and exposed from within, left out in the hot sun to ferment and dry, then shipped around the world to a skilled roster, who will expose them to a specific amount of heat, for a specific amount of time, that they may crack open and release its sweetness, to make them ready for a grinder and steaming hot water.

When the coffee beans are harvested they look like a cherry. And within that cherry there's usually two green pits/beans that are hard, bitter and have more of an earthy aroma and nothing like Folders or Maxwell House sell in their commercials. Before they make it to a roaster they actually will become a tad bit foul after they go through a brief process of drying or fermentation to remove it’s pulp and a thin layer that surrounds the bean itself.

When coffee cherries are intentionally harvested they are all handpicked. Because each cherry comes in at different times. I snapped this picture while in Hawaii. And, as you can see on this tree, the cherries are at various stages on the same tree. This makes mechanical harvesting impossible. So no coffee cherry is ever harvested mechanically... they are all personally selected and handpicked at the peak ripeness of each individual cherry.

The planting and growing time and the harvesting of a ripe cherry are all part of the process that starts the transformation of what we know as roasted coffee. The beens within there ripe cherries are green, hard, bitter. Yet, after being subjected to several steps to get them ready, they’ll be exposed certain temperatures and it's harsh bitterness gives way to its natural sugars that alters its taste, smell and transforming quality. But they’re not done... they will still need to be ground and immersed in boiling hot water before they can change the way water taste and smells. And because of the intentional process of natural growth, being hand picked, subjected to the fire and specific flavoring, then the grinder and finally placed in an environment—to transform—it's able to change the taste and smell of all it touches.

So we can say, coffee, like us, BEFORE it can transform the TASTE and SMELL of the environment it is immersed in, it had to go through a FEW things like fermentation, the fire and even a grinder.

Throughout God's word we find that He uses trouble... in the process of His transformation. He uses trials and suffering like a professor that uses his OWN textbook to reinforce what He’s been teaching us. The storms that the Lord has designed are like a syllabus... they have been well thought out and orchestrated to teach us valuable lessons on how He sees things and also to prepare us for the fire that will test our faith and for sweet future of His presence and glory.

The ordained sufferings we experience, as a child of God, are part of the curriculum of a disciple of the Lord Jesus. It's all been established to mold us and manifest the life of Christ through our lives. And in the process the Lord builds a hope in us... a hope that will NEVER disappoint. He uses us, and our experience, through the storm to bring comfort, strength and salvation to others. It's all part of His wonder-filled plan. 2 Corinthians 1 and 4 are great chapters that unveil these principles and how God's designed affliction and how He NOTHING is wasted in His kingdom. Romans 5:1-5 unveils His process of building hope in His servants. 1 Peter 1 - 5 gives us a glimpse of His refining process. See, a faith that can't be tested...is a type of faith that can't be trusted! And a faith that cannot be trusted is a faith you don't want any part of.

Embrace the flames, my friends, it's through the fires of His furnace that we are refined for His service. He better than anyone knows how to consistently change how we smell and taste (Jeremiah 48:11). Have a great night and day loving Him, His wondrous ways and keep thanking Him for the flames of transformation.