Hot Nor Cold

For most of my life, I've been more of a winter person than a summer one; I always would have much preferred to be cold than hot. My theory was always that I could layer my clothing to warm up in the winter, but I could only remove a certain amount of clothing to cool off in the summer (at least if I didn't want to get arrested anyway). I'm sure that part of my cold weather temperatures preference had more than a little to do with the fact that I had ... well ... plenty of "insulation" with all the extra weight I was carrying around.

This last winter in Kansas City was cold, really cold, and we had a lot of snow. And it was my first winter with over 100 pounds less of me on my 50-something-year-old bones. I knew early on in the frigid season that I was in trouble ... by late October, I was freezing cold all the time. I wore cold compression long underwear under my clothes; I cranked up the heat in my house; I took hot baths in the evenings; I sat in front of the fireplace at work; I put extra blankets on my bed. And I was still cold ... I just could not get warm no matter what I did. It didn't take long at all for me to decide that I was no longer a winter person ... I found myself wishing every day for hot weather to arrive so that I could be warm again. And now that summer is here, I've found that my internal temperature gauge has definitely changed with my weight loss and drop in blood sugar levels. I never seem to get hot anymore; I'm warm, but never really hot. And I've decided that I would much rather be warm than cold.

For the last few days ... OK, weeks ... OK, months ... I've been alternating heat and ice packs on my aching shoulder in an attempt to relieve the pain. Which it turns out, by the way, is caused by a torn rotator cuff and an impinged nerve. I suppose I'm glad to know that I'm not crazy, at least when it comes to my shoulder pain anyway. I'm not, however, at all glad that I have to go see an orthopedic surgeon next week, not glad at all. At any rate, in all the months I've been trying to nurse my shoulder along with heat and ice, I noticed something ... I couldn't tell if the heat or the ice helped the pain. I wanted to believe that one of them would ease my pain, so much so that I kept up the regimen even though neither seemed to help much.

Today as I sat at my desk at work with the hot pack from the microwave perched on top of my shoulder, I began to think about what God's Word says about being neither hot nor cold. Actually, the Bible uses the word lukewarm in the context of discussing people who aren't hot or cold, and what God says in the verse from Revelation leaves no room for misunderstanding how He feels about those folks. "So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of My mouth." Whoa, dude ... that's intense ... getting spit out of God's mouth ... really intense.

As so often happens when my mind heads in a certain direction, I thought about being neither hot nor cold in God's eyes all the way home tonight. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized how easy it is for me to be lukewarm when it comes to my faith. Instead of bravely sharing my faith with people I meet, I tuck my head down and move along. Instead of speaking up when people use inappropriate language in my presence, I sit feeling uncomfortable but saying nothing. Instead of sacrificing my time and my heart for others in need, I live in my own world focusing on my own life.

My prayer tonight is a simple one to say but super hard to live ... keep me from being lukewarm, Lord, in my love for You, in my commitment to Your Word, in my service to Your children. Keep me from being lukewarm, Lord, keep me from being lukewarm.