Are You Hot, Cold or Lukewarm?

Okay, I'm feeling a little guilty as I sit here in the cafeteria of the University Hospital in Augusta, having finished a "substantial" breakfast compared to what my mother is eating. She was to be given one egg (I wonder if they will bill Medicare for the egg?) which they will track to see how quickly her stomach empties. She's been having recurring nausea and has been scoped, prodded, scanned, and had a couple of gallstones removed over the past year or so, and they haven't found the cause, so we're not expecting big surprises. Still, I decided while they were testing how well her stomach emptied, I'd fill mine.

Breaskfast was good, but might not have been so as the food was on the cool to lukewarm side. Grits and scrambled eggs are not to be eaten in a cooled state. Thank goodness someone had the foresight to put a microwave in the dining room. What a difference 30 seconds of molecular agitation can make. That's how microwaves work, they agitate the molecules in food (esp. water) causing friction which causes heat. Sort of like life...God uses all kinds of circumstances to, as I once shared in a children's sermon, to "giggle our innards" to produce growth.

Peter was a great deal more articulate when he wrote (from experience mind you!) in 1 Peter 1:6,7: "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."

Life is full of challenging circumstances...they ARE going to happen, so why not trust God to do His work in the midst of all your agitation. Maybe He can generate some heat that can warm someone else's life as your faith in Him grows and becomes more visible to others!

Many people maybe facing a "cool" Christmas this year will our economic down turn. They may need someone to bring them some hope, some love, some peace and some warmth! I pray for all of you Christ followers out there that the Holy Spirit will renew your wonder and gratitude for the amazing gift of Christ's incarnation we are about to celebrate, so much so that others will notice!