This spoke to me in my devotion time today, so I thought I'd share it with you:

By way of encouragement, God tell us in scripture: "I will remove the stony heart from their bodies, and replace it with a natural heart..." (Ezek. 11:10). But I'm still waiting, asking myself when and how this will happen.

In our community the other day there wasn't much coffee.

Coffee does me good down here in the desert...it helps me...I am old.

I was worried about not having any, about spending a few hours feeling dull and weak, and so--without perceiving the evil I was doing--I went into the kitchen before the others and drank up all that was left.

Afterwards, having suffered all day and made my confession, I thought in shame of my selfishness, of the ease with which I had excluded my two brothers from those black, bitter remains.

It seems a tiny thing, yet in that cup of coffee, taken and not shared with my brothers, is the root of all the evil which disturbs us, the poison of all the arrogance which selfishness, riches, and power create.

The difference between me and Jesus is right here, and an affair that seems simple but isn't at all; after a whole life time it is still there to make you think. Jesus would have left the coffee for his brothers; I excluded my brothers. No, it isn't easy to live with hearts like ours; let us confess it.

--From The God Who Comes by Carlo Carretto