Put Your Glasses BackOn!

Who turned the heat off? Well, ‘old man winter’ has certainly made a grand entrance locally, something we’re not used to. The many media weather forecasts are good at warning the public about the super swings in temperature we have to deal with in this part of the country. We generally get a day or two to get ready and then sometimes those cold-fronts don’t even reach this far – happy days. Texas is big enough to see an eighty degree difference in air temperature from the northern panhandle to the southern gulf coast on a given winter day. Twenty-two degrees this morning is enough to make any hot blooded South Texan cry mercy when he rolls out of bed and his bare feet hit the floor. I grew up in up-state New York off the south shore of Lake Ontario where arctic air likes to blow for days and snowfall is measured by the foot. People laugh when I tell them some of my winter stories. I can still recall one winter when we were out of school so long, because of  several big snowstorms, it was June 21^st before we were dismissed for summer vacation. It makes me shiver just thinking about the hours spent in my youth shoveling snow. I’m not ashamed to say my happiest winter on earth was in my nineteenth year of life when I discovered there were places on this planet that didn’t have snow during the winter but about every twenty years, or so. That’s why I pitched my tent here and haven’t regretted one minute of it. And the best part about winter in South Texas – it only lasts about three days at a time. Yep, next week it will be in the seventies again and instead of shoveling snow, I’ll be mowing the grass. Snow is a no - Happy am I!

My face in the mirror isn’t wrinkled or drawn; My house isn’t dirty, the cobwebs are gone; My garden looks lovely, and so does my lawn; I think I might never put my glasses back on! A man was asked to describe his life in ten words or less. He replied, “Me, Me, Me!” There’s a lot of people in this world who really need to put there glasses back on.

[Hebrews 2:18] “Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” I live with my bride, Paula, and a cranky old man named My Self. I rise early to meet some friends for coffee every morning. Self tells me, “You shouldn’t go out so early this morning, it’s too cold.” - “Well, we’re going out anyway,” I reply. “Your feet are going to get freezing cold and you know that makes the rest of your body shiver and groan,” Self says. Self knows how I hate to be shivering cold. “Be that as it may,” says I, “we’re going.” Self doesn’t always like to get out early in the morning, though he always feels better for doing it, ‘cause lying in bed brings on a back ache. Self also likes to eat foods that are bad for us, and he would like to engage in conduct that is just plain wrong. So, we have a lot of arguments. Listing the fruit of the Spirit, the apostle Paul included self-control (Galatians 5:23). In the next verse he wrote, “Those who belong to Christ have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.” This relates to an earlier statement in the same book when Paul wrote, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). The problem most people have, including me, is that we are supposed to crucify Self and its desires and exercise self-control. Instead, we let Self talk us into things we shouldn’t do. So, when Self and I have discussions about what I should, or shouldn’t do, he usually loses. Under the control of a new owner, Jesus Christ, he now rules in my life. Does he rule in yours?