Shade Tree Wisdom 6/17/08

Not a breath of air moving this morning, but it wasn’t really unbearable at all. Just pleasant, quiet, conducive to thought, and rejoicing over God’s creation. Squirrels busy about their thing, a dog doing some morning throat-clearing, and suddenly the morning quiet is shattered when, in the distance, a car horn starts blatting. I suppose a warning set off somehow. And it goes on and on and, there, finally someone shut it off.

So quiet again, and warmish. And the summer is yet four days away. But already the days reach well into the 90’s, and people wonder how people lived here without air conditioning. But that’s a rite of summer here, isn’t it? To complain about the heat?

And that’s the subject of my thought this morning. That of complaining, or grousing, or carping, finding fault, whining, grumbling, squawking, belly-aching, criticizing. And that sort of attitude is very infectious. Recall that the hangers-on with the Israelites were the first to complain to Moses about conditions.

The Bible does have something to say about this. Look at Philippians. A letter written from jail. And in it St. Paul writes, “My imprisonment here has had the opposite of its intended effect. . .” for when soldiers and others “found out I’m in jail because of The message, that stirred their curiosity, and now they have learned all about Him:”. 1,12-14.

So St. Paul urges those Christians to show their faith in their living. He writes “14 Do everything readily and cheerfully—no bickering, no second-guessing allowed! 15 Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God. Carry the light-giving Message into the night 16 so I'll have good cause to be proud of you on the day that Christ returns. You'll be living proof that I didn't go to all this work for nothing. “ 2, 12-14.

And that, it seems to me, is a good word for us as well. To show by the lives we live that Christ is all in all, that He has forgiven us, died for or sins, rose again, and lives eternally for us. We are, in short, saved by Him. What better way to spend time in these warm summer days than to think of this, speak of it, and, always, live it to God’s glory.
GPD 6/17/08