As a black-coffee kind of guy, I usually say no to sweetener and cream.

Lately, though, there’s been something else I wish I could add to my “please hold” list.

If you’ve been in a Starbucks, you’ve probably noticed it: As part of the company’s new marketing deal with Oprah Winfrey, those inspirational, ostensibly profound slogans for which the former talk-show queen is well known are everywhere, and by design, hard to miss.

Just this Friday, for example, on the sleeve of my venti Veranda, this greets me:

“You are here not to shrink down to less, but to blossom into more of who you really are. — Oprah Winfrey”

OK, it’s not a bad thought to start off a day with. And on the face of it, I wouldn’t disagree with it.

The problem comes, as with most of Winfrey’s purported wisdom, when you dig a little deeper.

Mainly, I think, the question is: What exactly would Winfrey say is the engine of this “blossoming,” this becoming, this transforming?

I believe she would hold that it’s you, the individual. Or to be more specific, your own will.

Which, if you’ve really listened to what she’s been saying for much of the last 30 years, is what her philosophy boils down to.

She uses Christian language sometimes, but look past the words. The point, always, is what you, putting your mind and heart to it, drawing from that power within us all, can make of yourself. For anything holding you back — such as those old-fashioned notions of “sin” and “guilt” and duty to something bigger than self — throw that yoke off.

That’s not just the gospel of Oprah, it’s the gospel of our age, and the underlying message of everything from popular music to Disney movies.

As a Christian, though, I must take issue: I know that anything I become through the engine of my own will, apart from God, is corrupted from its very beginning and doomed to ultimate destruction.

Make no mistake, it is true that we are “here to blossom into more of who (we) really are.”

But who I really am is a child of God, created in his image. With my sin problem, it is only by his intervention that I can ever truly become that.

Understanding this is the starting point of all true wisdom.

Just don’t look to our culture — or your coffee, apparently — to find it.