Conditions Are Ripe

Now, I can see that the thermometer says 63°, but why did I get so hot so quickly this morning? The temperature is obviously only one measure of the conditions around us. We talk about the relative humidity a lot, but we fail to see that little measurement called the dew point. If the air temp and the dew point are close together, a body cannot sweat to cool down. Combine that with zero breeze and the sprinklers pumping water into the air and ground all around, and that same body might as well try to work in a sauna. The dew point thing does not happen often around these parts, not like the eastern lower elevations where it can stay high all day long. Mornings and evenings can see a high dew point though, and that is of course when I am outside trying to dig a deep hole. The bugs also like to gather in a crowd and tease me when there is no breeze in the air. That pretty much sums up life in this world: When you need to do a lot of hard work to get out of a hole, you cannot catch a break. And once you are down in the hole, there is always a crowd ready to tease you about it. Conditions become ripe in a hurry when sweating in a hole for a cry out to God for help. Conditions in the hole also become pretty ripe when the sweat doesn't evaporate away, but that is another subject.

We may find it difficult to sing a song of praise and joy when conditions are so bad that we are overheating rapidly and attracting bugs. These things do not populate our dreams of comfort. A little heat and sun when combined with an onshore breeze and a nice sandy beach is more to our liking. Skip the bugs entirely, please. We have some idea of what conditions in heaven should be, or at least what might make the earth a bit more like our idea of heaven, but we seldom achieve these conditions here in this life. A person might work for two years to purchase a vacation at a nice beach resort. Two years of labor for a two week vacation, how fair is that? The vacation quickly fades in memory as a good time gone by, and we are back to the grinding toil of the world. Well, ya can't say we weren't warned. The Bible very early on tells of Adam and his sin. Adam gained the knowledge of good and evil, and a whole lot of toil and thorns to go with it. We inherited all of this, and each day to our toil we will go.

The change in us becomes apparent when we cease complaining about the toil, and start praising God for the relief and rest...and the toil. Do we have to praise God for the toil too? Well, the world could praise God for a nice vacation. No one needs a changed heart to be grateful for a good time of nice weather and no work. Revelation prophecies a time when God will be given glory, but the sinners doing it still refuse to repent of their sin. To see the changed life of the Christ-one, the world must know that we praise God for the tribulation times just as much as we praise Him for the easy times. Yes, I agree, we don't yet praise with the same enthusiasm and good cheer that we do the good times. Jesus never claimed that life from our rebirth would be a long stay on Vacation Road. One day though, we will stand with Jesus and see how the long periods of toil did so much more for our own good than the short times of rest and relaxation ever did. By the way, Jesus will also cleanse us from the stink and stain of sin on that day. The ripeness of hard work is easily remedied, but we need Christ to get rid of that stench of sin.

Have a better toil this day!
Bucky