When our family takes a road trip they sometimes stretch into the late hours or start in the wee hours. Last summer we drove from Katy to Washington DC for our denomination’s General Assembly. With such a long drive ahead of us, I wanted to get an early start so we packed up our luggage, carried the kids from their beds to the car, and left at 2AM in the morning. We had planned to leave later than that but I had a “power nap” from about 10pm to midnight and was feeling a wide awake. Everything was great for the first couple of hours but then the weariness hit me hard and I was doing everything I could to stay awake. I was pinching myself, pulling my own hair, eating peanuts, listening to music. This worked for a time, but what I really needed was not in the car. I really needed some coffee! About 5:30 I finally pulled over at a McDonalds that was just opening its doors. I proceeded to the counter and ordered a coffee with cream. Very rarely do I get the coffee with enough cream (or room for enough cream) so I’ve started to explain, “I don’t want a little cream with my coffee, I want a little coffee with my cream.” While I got what I wanted, I didn’t get much of what I needed. I needed the caffeine, not the cream. Oh, but the cream is what tastes so good!

In many religions today we’re aware of our need for something. (Most religions offer an answer to the struggles we face in life.)  We even know what we need – help! But when we start looking for help (as I stopped to look for caffeine), we often get sidetracked and turn our attention to the cream instead. Sadly, there are many in our country that teach what some might call a “prosperity gospel.” The prosperity gospel is like getting a cup of cream with a hint of coffee when you really need the coffee. Instead of adding a hint of prosperity to the gospel, it seeks to add a hint of gospel to prosperity. In the process it loses the gospel altogether.