I get pretty sleepy around this time in the afternoon. Mostly I just suffer through it and do something akin to sleep-working for the rest of the day. Sometimes I can’t even remember what I did between the hours of 1:30-3:30 PM (not really). It’s why I splurged on some Starbucks VIA Ready Brew at Costco a couple of weeks ago.
I don’t have any guilt about relying on caffeine to keep me awake. Is that wrong?
I love coffee. Drink it black. Two or three cups a day. But it is a drug. How is it any different than other stimulants that Christians would never touch like those energy pills you see in gas stations?
Jon Acuff wrote about all this yesterday on his blog Stuff Christians Like. From his post titled #768. Caffeine.
And so on that sleepy day I thought about getting some caffeine. Not just a coke or coffee. Not even a Diet Rockstar or a Monster energy beverage. I had my eyes set on something much darker, something more industrial strength. I’m talking about 5 hour energy drink.
Have you ever seen that? It’s sold in little vials on the counters of gas stations. (Usually next to that beef jerky that looks like it is spooning an ashamed stick of unholy orange cheese.) A few weeks ago I had my first 5 hour energy and unexpectedly I felt a small twinge of Christian guilt. (I receive Christian guilt signals like Spiderman receives warnings of danger.) I honestly thought, “Wait a second, should a Christian be ingesting this much caffeine?”
Like I said, my Spidey sense doesn’t go off when I want (or even need) a cup of Starbucks. Should it? Does yours?
