Trials Of Heat & Life

This past Monday was the first morning in many months that the air was cool. I shivered and actually gave brief thought to running back inside for a light jacket. But I was brave and took out the recycling without benefit of the jacket. For the un-initiated, cool to us desert rats is anything below 70 (for some 80). And it was a mere 62. And I stopped for a moment to just thank the Lord for the blessing of fall weather.

The thrill of goosebumps in moderation is why we live in Arizona. We live in something akin to the fiery furnace for at least 5 months out of the year, but in exchange, we get 7 months of moderate bliss. Sometimes it’s more like a 50/50 split if late spring is excessively hot, but still worth the trade off. Besides, if the weather was blissful every day of the year, I would forget to be grateful to God.

That’s a lot like our daily lives. None of us like to endure trials and suffering, but when we come out on the other side, we realize how much God was looking out for us and can be thankful it was He, not we ourselves who brought us through it. Untested and untried, our egos achieve maximum inflation and we figure we’re just too good to need God.

And it’s a lesson we tend to have to learn over and over again. But God is patient and kind. And as I stand outside on a cool fall morning with the wonderful feel of goosebumps rising and the joyful anticipation of breaking out my ‘long-handles’ as my Aunt Granny always says, I realize not only that He loves me but He also made beautiful Arizona just for me.

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. – Romans 5:3 (NLT)