Saturday: Oven

My flat feels like an oven today, thanks to the heat. 

The curtains are shut, the fans are in full-swing - and yet, I can't wait for sunset. I am this close to donning my shades. A picture that keeps coming to mind is that of a trussed, marinated and golden-glazed chicken, baking aggressively in its basting juices. It is so warm that I almost cannot bring myself to move - to say nothing of going out for a drive. It is already so unbearably sunny... that I am having trouble figuring out how I might yet look on the sunnier side of things! Haha. Perhaps, soaking in a bathtub of ice-cream might help. 

Ach, my aching head.

Incidentally, I remember the "hot", "cold" and "lukewarm" in Revelation 3:16. A message of the Lord to Laodicea, with regard to the deeds, or rather the Laodiceans' attitudes toward life. We often read this passage as a warning against backsliding in our Christian faiths - or losing the hot. That is only half of the story, I think. In the spiritual sense, the Laodiceans were a picture of compromise, yes. Their hearts were not wholly after God; the oil in their lamps were no longer burning, burning, burning; their zeal was no longer sufficient to bring them to the altar of God as living sacrifices. Perhaps, self-sufficiency had cooled them down. However, they were also not so "cold" that their innate need for warmth could any more drive them to soul-searching and God-seeking. They were at a point where they were happily satisfied - where they had complacently fooled themselves into thinking that they had "arrived". Rev. 3:17 elaborates: '...You say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked..." Their loss of their sense of need had deceived them. Their pride was keeping them from understanding that they were in spiritual poverty. Aside from the backsliding issue, I think that this passage also addresses in the modern context our tendency to become easily satisfied with where we are in our relationship with God. Especially when we are actively involved in church ministries and missional work.... as well as seminary studies.

We've got to check ourselves often. May God grant us the insight.

Well, Saturdays are meant to be celebrated - even when the island feels volcanic. I spent part of my day reading one of J.I. Packer's books. In less than an hour, I will be having dinner with some people from our CG. (When the shepherd is away, the sheep come out to play...)