Thought for Today
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,
Jeremiah 4:11 At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem: A hot wind comes from me . . .
Matthew 5:45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.
James 5:7 Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.
Much of the news today from the mid-continent to the far northeast of North America is the unusually high temperatures. Record or near-record high temperatures are expected for much of the region today and tomorrow. Yesterday was also very hot. Here, the news media are talking about a Heat Emergency (in Texas, we called this summer). The 911 emergency network for our entire state crashed yesterday and it is being blamed on the temperatures. Of course, almost anything that goes wrong now is being blamed on global warming and the increasing heat. The national newscast we watch each evening had an entire segment last night about the extra efforts being made in Paris to accommodate the expected temperatures for the upcoming Olympics this summer.
Two things come to the forefront of my mind as I try to work outdoors in this heat. First and maybe foremost is the hymn running through my thoughts, This Is My Father’s World. That hymn acknowledges the origin of all Creation. Summer or winter, when I go outside, I am reminded, “And to my listening ears. All nature sings, and round me rings The music of the spheres.” The hymn sings of rocks and trees, of skies and seas, of birds singing, of morning light, lilies, of rustling grass. I am reminded in the words of the hymn, “That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.”
In college, I studied thermodynamics; and, I still tend to view weather as God’s HVAC system for temperature control on our planet. I learned about the interplay of temperature and pressure, about psychrometric charts (Psychrometrics . . . is the field of engineering concerned with the physical and thermodynamic properties of gas-vapor mixtures. [Wikipedia]), about the inverse relationship between pressure and temperature in gases, about dew points and relative humidity. The hymn sums that all up in its title, This Is My Father’s World. I do not pretend to fully understand the need for extreme heat events or for sub-zero cold ‘snaps,’ but I do know this is my Father’s world. I trust God’s design and God’s specifications, and, especially, I trust God’s love for God’s Creation.
The other thing that comes to my mind is the incredible range of conditions in which humans successfully live on our globe. Does being made in the image of God mean that God’s basic human design allows us great flexibility in how and where we live. The temperature range from near-polar climes to the equator is broad. Yet, humans have lived in the western hemisphere from the northern most shores of Canada to Tierra del Fuego in the south.
“The Dallol Region of northern Ethiopia is the hottest inhabited place on the planet with an average annual temperature of 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35°C). May, June, July, and August are the hottest months with temperatures averaging 100 degrees Fahrenheit.” (worldatlas.com) “Oymyakon [Siberia] is the coldest permanently inhabited human settlement on Earth, with an average winter temperature of around −50 °C (−58 °F)” (Wikipedia)
We humans have spanned a range of 153°F! Of course, at either extreme of that range, special accommodations are required to assist our bodies to maintain themselves at 98.6°F. With appropriate clothing and assistance, we can even tolerate higher or lower temperatures for short periods of time. The same God who made our earth and created us in God’s image even gave us the intellect to determine and design the clothing and implements to allow us to live and work at the extremes of weather. We sometimes read or hear God’s being referred to as the Supreme Architect of the Universe. I like to think of God as the Ultimate Design Engineer of Creation.
It is hot outside today. I spent most of my life in climates that are regularly very hot in the summer. The average high in August is 95°F; the average low in January is 44°F. Where we now live, the average high in July is 82°F; the average low in January is 23°F. Irrespective of the extremes, God is with us all, all the time.
Stay safe, stay cool today, trust God,
Pastor Ray