andi oakes

Having only settled myself into the large sofa that I like to call home in my local Starbucks, and despatched some sort of healthy fruit and cereal bar, my morning musings were rudely interrupted by a very loud and intrusive claxon alarm followed by a rather stern, and disembodied automated voice informing us of some impending doom and demanding that we all exit the building immediately. So the staff in store along with myself and every other store in the mall that I could see from my current vantage point, did what any normal human being does in circumstances like these – we promptly ignored it.

It genuinely took several minutes for most of us to wake ourselves out of our comfort zones in order for us to even pop our heads outside the door of the store to see if it was a genuine emergency. Only then did we see that all the other stores were doing the same thing and that some had even gotten as far as pulling down their shutters and had began to make their way to the nearest exits. Looking at each other with varying degrees of bemused excitement and apprehension, we all decided that this was indeed something that perhaps demanded our attention and so we also began leaving the building in that most British of “orderly” manners. Walking towards the assembly point, I smugly congratulated myself on my foresight in ordering my tea in a take-away cup. Of course, I always order my chosen beverage in a take-away cup much to the bewilderment of the ever changing staff of my local coffee house; but this morning I was able to cheerfully parade beside them holding my little thermal cup victoriously high and declaring “See…now you know why I order this in a take-away cup.” Vindication at last! It can sometimes be a long time coming, but today was my day – my faith was rewarded and my take-away cup came with me all the way through our little adventure. Yes, our morning was interrupted by the harsh sound of a blaring emergency horn and yes, we were all subsequently herded out like some kind of…er…well, herd; but throughout it all…through every moment of this mildly terrifying, death defying flight for our very mortal lives…I was ready, and - I had my tea!

A theme that you will find in the Bible is the theme of the “sudden”. Suddenly things will change. Suddenly God can intervene. Suddenly God interupts. And Jesus said that we were to be watchful because He is promising to come back…suddenly. It would seem prudent to me then that we perhaps adopt some practices and habits that put us in good stead for one of those God type “Suddenly” moments. There’s nothing like being prepared, even if we forget occasionally the real reason for why we do certain things – because you never know when you’ll need to have your tea in a take-away cup.

Post script:

It turned out to be an emergency drill. I was at least hoping for an alien invasion or something. I could have been a useful help to humanity – the alien invaders might have quite liked tea, and preferred to sit down for a nice chat with biscuits. Ah well – next time perhaps.