08/10/2011

Discerning Drinkers

Have you heard of “discerning drinkers”? It’s usually said of people who know their wine so well that they can tell every ingredient it has and even what year the grapes were harvested.

They develop a taste for very fine wine and a dislike for anything less. But then they realize that the pursuit of the “best” wine is just like chasing the wind. They learn that every wine has at least something good in it and even if it’s not what they like, someone else does. So they finally learn to just relax and enjoy a good drink with friends.

Early in my faith, I set out to be a “discerning drinker” of spiritual wine. I selected for myself spiritual “mentors”, people I looked up to, who never knew they were mentoring me as I kept it private. It helped — for a while. But as time went by, some of them either disappointed me, did not meet my high expectations of them, moved out of my life, or all of the above. And that threatened my faith. Thoughts would come to me like:

“How could he do that?”

“If he failed, what about me?”

“I’d prefer not to have heard that about him.”

“No one does it quite like him.”

Eventually, it dawned on me that men are men, and if there is one thing you can count on men to do is to fail you. They can’t help it.

So I decided from that point on I would always try to learn something from anything and anyone. I understood that God uses donkeys, ants, witchdoctors, unbelievers, even Satan himself to teach us lessons. He is the true Teacher. He uses who and what is around us as tools to teach us lessons, much like a teacher in a classroom uses different tools.

I learned to ask myself, “What can I learn from this person? What is God trying to teach me through him/her/this situation?”

Suddenly there were no more “preferred” people or unlikable people or situations — only lessons. Now I demand from myself to look for the lesson instead of expecting too much from people.

Believe me, it changes everything.

P.S. Now go and pour yourself a nice drink. Nothing too strong, hopefully! Fresh orange juice will do!