It’s hot. Even on a good day I’m a fairly hot body temperature natured person. When I step outside into the summer Texas air, my body screams at me, “What are you thinking?” My tendency is to crank down the thermostat another notch or two, pull out an old unused room fan to go with the ceiling fan and the Vornado I bought last year, to see if I can get the cold air to move quicker around the room. I’m still not sure I’ve been cool since the first of June.
It’s hot politically these days too. Nuclear deal with Iran? Health care reform? Social Security? Veteran’s administration snafus? And to top all that—it’s almost time to pick another president. Take any one of these or one of a thousand other topics that are a concern for every individual American today, and you will have a “hot” debate on the subject. We are all over the place politically, with no end in sight to the rising heat wave of partisan rhetoric.
It’s hot financially. Gold hovered around $1,099 this week. In 1972 the New York market price per ounce of Gold was $58.60. But things heated up over the next 43 years, wouldn’t you say? In 2000 an ounce of gold would cost you $280.10, and by 2007 you would pay $699.00. The stock market is all over the place too. We still haven’t recovered fully, and now those in the “know” are watching carefully as the issues in Greece continue putting the whole world on notice.
It’s hot socially, environmentally, politically and economically. The crazy thing is that it seems like some unknown hand is turning the thermostat “up” instead of “down.” Any one of these problems would be enough to destroy us, exploding with far reaching effects and causing us to implode as a nation. Considering the enormity of how each, and how these individual hotbeds of fury are inter-related, affecting each other in a synergistically potential for complete destruction, it’s not just hot, it is a refining fire.
What will happen next in our nation? You may be part of the solution—if you are a praying person. A person who believes God alone can deliver us from ourselves. There is a promise well known to those who believe in prayer and little known to those who don’t. It goes like this.
“If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
You can find this verse in 2 Chronicles 7:13-14. It is time for us to pray. Humble ourselves and pray, seek God’s face, turn from our wicked ways and seek God’s forgiveness for our mess. It is time to pray for the healing rain of God’s grace to fall on us again.
It’s hot and getting hotter. It’s time to pray.
Jim Wilkins is the Pastor of Fellowship at the Ranch. We meet each Sunday morning at 10:30 a.m. in the clubhouse.