Baby It’s Hot!

I live in a city of over five million folks from every country in the world.  It isn’t quite summer yet and the heat is almost oppressive.  Baby, it’s hot, humid, hazy and polluted out there.  The sun is scorching even though covered with a film of clouds mixed with the yellow polluted air of the metropolis.  I just came in from sitting outside, to get away from the heat and thought I’d write, but about what?

The first thing that came to mind was the three words forming the title of this article.  Baby it’s hot, and in order to get away from the heat, all I had to do, as it were, was step over the threshold; remove myself from the glaring heat to the cooling shade.

But what do you do when your live is unbearably hot?  I am talking about finding yourself in those situations where it seems you will be consumed by the heat, and there is no way out?  Examples could be finding yourself unemployed and under the glaring radar of the bill collectors or mortgage company.  You stand frozen in the heat of the situation; mind racked trying to find a way out.  What do you do, where do you go?  You could avoid them; i.e. don’t answer the phone or the door.  But the heat isn’t going away and it has already permeated the very fibre of your being, because your racing mind keeps playing out all kinds of past and future scenarios.  The past scenarios consist of, “If only I hadn’t….” or “What if….” and the future might sound like, “Well, I could….” or “I’ll move away….” or possibly something worse, that you might live to regret.

So where do you go baby, when it’s so hot?

Do you remember, and then do you fall as a last resort to your knees, looking up to the heavens crying out, “God help me?”  If this is the first time there’s likely very little thought behind those words, they are just that, words and you have no history of there ever having been a real meaning and real results to their utterance.  Nothing changes.  You continue to ignore the bill collectors, you’re not sleeping at night; if you have an addiction like an eating disorder or the like that you resort to when under stress, you pick it up again.  You’re adding more heat to the already unbearable heat.

Yahshua told us to go to him if we are “heavy laden”; that is so burdened, under such pressure or heat, and he would help us.  Do you believe those words, or are they just words?  Chances are if you’ve never been in Daniel’s fire before, they are just words, but you are desperate, and I believe in a God who will take whatever he can get from us, just a simple word even though there’s no heart or soul in it; he won’t ignore it and I will be heard, you will be heard.

But, the heat still consumes you.  You have to go about your daily routine; for your sake, perhaps a family if you have one, a job that you can’t afford not to have.  Having uttered the simple words, you go about your business of the day.  Ultimately there will be a solution to the situation; it may not be what you wanted – like a million dollars to drop out of the sky and miraculously pay the bills.  There will be a solution, and you will come out of it, a stronger person and a person who knows that though you have many wonderful friends, they too have their challenges in life, and ultimately are as weak and fallible as you are, and ever shall be.  For you see, we are all human, and baby when it gets so unbearably hot, you need to be able to say, like Daniel did to King Nebuchadnezzar  When taunted as he was being thrown into the fire, “My God is able.  If I perish, I perish.”  Daniel prayed three times a day, without fail.  He was being threatened thus by the good old King because he failed to bow down and worship; under the pressurs of life, Daniel was on his knees seeking YHWH.  But, Daniel had acquired this habit long before going into captive.  YHWH was and had strengthened him in advance of the challenges he knew Daniel would face.

Daniel 3:17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king.

What amazing faith to have and more so I see love.  Daniel had an extraordinary love that surpassed any desire he had for the things of the world, including his own life.

In these times of challenges in our lives, we need to hold on to the faith and belief that these times will pass, and we will become a better person for them; strengthened in character and qualities that we would never have acquired in a life lived without challenges.

There are reasons for all of these things; these seasons of life, just like the seasons of nature.  Nature simply endures the heat of the sun, full well knowing that soon evening will be upon her to cool her scorching carpets and drying up leaves and flowers.  Nature remembers the terrible coldness of winter and with that thought open her arms up even wider to absorb more of the healing warmth of the sun.

Can you, can I, stretch my arms out wide, when we remember those times when it was cold because we weren’t alive, weren’t aware that there is a wonderful purpose for our lives; when we simply robotically inhabited earth without any thought for something even greater and more magnificent than this human existence we trod upon Mother Earth?  Can you, can I, stretch out my arms wide and allow the scorching heat of the challenges I am engulfed in burn away all dross and refine me into that perfect diamond to reflect the perfect light of love?

What an amazing legacy it would be for our families, friends, loved ones; even those who don’t know us but cross our paths. We would be light, love and we, having endured, would be of great comfort and encouragement to our brothers and sisters only now entering the fires of refinement, when they cry out, “God help me.”