"I realize God has treated me with undeserved grace, and so I tell each of you not to think you are better than you really are. Use good sense and measure yourself by the amount of faith that God has given you. " ~ Romans 12:3, (Contemporary English Version, CEV)

You can be sure of one thing. I'll let us all think that one over as we do our best with the day before us. This one happens to be Wednesday, April 25, 2018. These cool mornings have been so much of a blessing to me. I see folks posting their laments over the lack of warmer days. That's almost criminal for those who live in the Houston metro area. When I read those I immediately can see that egg frying on the sidewalk. My take? I can wait. As long as possible. I can wait. I know some people are cold natured and they enjoy the warmer temperatures. While that's understandable, my only thought is they should be very careful what they wish for. Especially, in and around these parts. We've got the combo of heat and humidity here that will take one's breath away, both literally and figuratively. I think they are predicting an average year for hurricanes with the potential of 13 named storms for the upcoming season. We've not been hit by structural damage at our place since Hurricane Ike back in 2008. (Has it actually been that long ago?) We've lost power for extended periods of time and we've been unable to leave our area due to flooding several times, but, we are so thankful for God's provision. Mr. Harvey, last August, was devastating to our entire geographic area. There are thousands upon thousands yet to recover from this monster that caused 107 confirmed deaths and did an estimated $125 billion in damages. We just never know. I don't know why but I often think about a verse that's probably not too well known, "Disaster will be inescapable, as if a man ran from a lion only to meet a bear, then escaped into a house, leaned his hand against the wall, and was bitten by a poisonous snake." (from Amos, Chapter 5, Verse 19 as rendered in the NET Bible) Always stay close to God. Always. Always. Always. Amen.

I sense the fellow leaning his hand against the wall thought everything was okay. He believed the danger was over and he was safe. I suppose that part of the verse is more meaningful to me because of an experience I had many years ago. I've told it before but it came up again, therefore, please bear with me. We had an epic hard freeze back in late 1980's here in our area. I'm talking about us laying in bed and listening to the pine trees drop their huge limbs that cracked under the weight of the ice. Those limbs sounded like explosives when they hit the ground. It was Christmas time. All around us, people were dealing with pipes bursting, lawn watering systems messed up, and the resulting flooding, even inside their homes. This went on for a couple of days. We were preparing for our big Christmas get together. We had, thus far, escaped those incidents and I was feeling some amount of uniqueness in how I had been blessed and spared. I'll never forget. I was standing by the fireplace with my hand leaning on the mantle thinking how blessed I was. Me. Blessed. Others. Not so much. Suddenly, I heard this noise. It was loud. It sounded like it was something that happened outside. It was the sound of a pipe exploding. It was our pipe. One behind the fireplace wall. Suddenly, I went from being spared to wading water. My point? Never presume upon the blessings of God and never, ever, exalt yourself. We made it through. It wasn't easy. We went forward with our Christmas gathering. Maybe that's why that verse has special meaning to me. Now you know.

Some might say it's not appropriate for me to see God's teaching in that circumstance. Maybe it isn't, however, I saw it that way and I believe it helped me to grow. God didn't save us to make life easy for us. Having been saved, He wants us to bring honor and glory to Him, and to serve others. We serve others best when we ourselves have a humble spirit. You know. That was the mind of our Savior. The Apostle Paul made it clear what our pursuit as believers should be, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross." (Philippians 2:5-8, New King James Version, NKJV) One might easily respond, that's humanly impossible. Bingo! We have a winner! The good news is that if we are a believer then we have Holy Spirit God abiding in us. He can help us to go about our daily living in a way that demonstrates the mind of our Savior. Now that is something! Wouldn't you agree? Amen! See you next time and may God help us all to allow Him to work through our lives. Amen. .....More later.