Some Like It HOT!!!!

Having lived in Texas I grew to like TexMex food.  It is different than regular Mexican food, which tends to be on the bland side.  TexMex has a kick to it.  Leave it to Texans to take something perfectly good and make it OUTSTANDING!  But saying that you like hot food is a matter of relative taste.  Some like it less hot and some like it really hot.  I think I find myself in the middle – Mild Hot.

The weather in Texas is hot as well.  In Houston the summers were unbearable, reaching with regularity 100 degrees.  Occasionally a cool breeze would waft across your face and lull you into believing that maybe, just maybe, it’s not too bad.  Stepping out of the shade and losing the breeze brought you back to reality. No wonder the Mexicans came up with the idea of an afternoon siesta.  Finding a cooler place in the afternoon and sleeping the heat away is the only way to go.

Of course heat and living in hot places aren’t the sole venue of Texans.  Rebecca and I just returned from a visit with Josh, Alison, Eva, and Gabe.  They live in the country of Bahrain.  For some reason Josh and Alison didn’t plan the birth of their new baby boy, Gabe, during a more pleasant time of the year.  In Bahrain the summer temperatures can reach into the 120’s.  Fortunately for us there was a cold spell and the highs hovered around 108 degrees.  Hot is hot, but there is something about being in a country where there is very little grass and cool breezes were none existent.  There were breezes, but they were just has hot has the glaring sun.  It was like being in a blast oven.  Of course silly us we ventured out to see the sights, water bottles in hand, air-conditioned cars, and often an anxiousness to get back home in the cold climate of the house. It amazed me how my grandchildren took the heat with a grain of sand (salt, but we were in the desert).

It was good to come back home to the cool weather (100 yesterday).  Today I read that the heat index was going to be around 128 degrees.  I might as well go back to Bahrain.  But some like it hot.  I talked to a young man in Bahrain who was from South Africa.  He liked the hot weather and would often go jogging during the day.  He said he couldn’t stand the cold.  Now, I am not a big cold weather fan when the temperature drops below zero, but going jogging in the middle of 100+ degree weather is suicide.

All I know is that the phrase “Hot as Hell” means something. When Jesus talks about the weeping and gnashing of teeth, the torment and suffering of those who are in hell, I think of my summer in Bahrain and realize “I don’t want to be there.”  People who say, “I’ll meet you in hell,” or “Hell can’t be any worse than what I experience now,” or even “we make our own Hell” don’t have a real good concept of the nature of Hell.  Hell is God’s wrath.  It is the absence of His love, His fellowship, His mercy, and His forgiveness.  The writer Dante tried to capture the torments of hell in his book Inferno, but even his descriptions were inadequate.  I have experienced love and know that the love of God is beyond my comprehension.  The love I have tasted now is but a faint fragrance of the love I will experience when I stand in the presence of God.  The opposite is true as well.  The pain of this life is a faint stench of Hells eternal torment.  This should be a reminder to rejoice in our salvation and motivation to share the gospel with others. 

There is a tall glass of cool deliciousness in the refrigerator.  I think I will go get some.  I’m just saying……..