It appears that we have come to at least a temporary end to a four year drought here in western central Florida. Most folks assume that in our subtropical climate, we must have oodles of water. Well, sadly not the case. When we moved here more than 26 years ago, nearly every afternoon we’d have thunder, lightning, and rain during our rainy season. Not so for the past few years.

Just 60 miles north of us, Tampa has been getting rain at the rate of three inches per hour. Homes and roads have flooded. Yep, lots and lots of rain.

This resumption of rain for us has been quite a blessing. With a net of 9,000 people PER DAY moving to Florida, all our resources are pretty strained. Water is one of those essentials that has disappeared at an alarming rate both in our ponds and lakes and in our underground limestone natural storage units.

Now I’m going to share a problem with you that’s not at all peculiar to Florida. Anywhere there’s rain, folks have a problem with umbrellas. I’m sure the man who invented these rather awkward devices thought he’d solved a major problem for man and womankind. Wrong!

Oh, sure, once you get past the tricky opening procedure (often while getting wet) and avoid opening them in the house (just in case you’re a tad superstitious), you’re still faced with the fact that most often, the umbrella is NOT where you need it. If you’re away from home, the umbrella is at home. If you’re in your house, the umbrella is in the car. OR, your um brella is at the doctor’s office, at church, at a friend’s home, etc.

I carry a huge umbrella in Tonka 02. It’s practically useless because for short excursions from my truck, I get wetter getting the thing out and trying to “inflate” it than if I just go ahead and dodge the raindrops.

When these thoughts congealed in my brain, I immediately thought about how many of us face these same issues in our spiritual lives. Some of us view God as a benevolent entity whom we’ve never seen and accept by faith. We often see His provisions for us (the fruit and gifts of the Spirit) as kinda off at a distance and sometimes not readily available.

The scriptures picture God’s ideal for us: He tells us to “put on the whole armor of God” (Eph 6). God wants us to WEAR the whole armor of God as if God’s helps are an inseparable part of us. He doesn’t want us leaving pieces of the armor “in the car or at the store”. Everywhere we go, we can and should go with God and His provisions. It’s not like a cloak we pick up when it happens to be handy or when we’re a bit panicky about getting through some difficult situation.

I’m sure you will see many more applications to this truth. Please let me hear from you. Just use the “Leave a Reply” box below!  I’ll get back to you.

“GRADUALLY”…

– Neat stuff you got there. (a young man in NM)

– My prayers are going out for your Mama. They are also going out for your ministry. I don’t respond much, but your messages are a blessing, and “right on”.

– Just read your article about the frog and the discussion on our acceptance of the horrific things that go on today. Yes, years ago we became very vocal about these things. We made it known that so much of this is unacceptable. However, today is another story. One is almost reticent about speaking out because one never knows if there is someone behind you waiting to “blow you away.” It is such a frightening world today.

     Oh, how I wish my grandchildren could have experienced life in the years that I was growing up. As children, we had many more chores. We had much more family time. We could play out on the street without our parents being worried about us. Yes, this is a very different world we live in and a lot more is presented to us visually. We feel we cannot do anything about it other than change the channel if it is on TV or walk away from it if it is live. But it is difficult to be vocal

– I just now finished reading your last Inside Out piece. Your piece hits home in so many arenas. We have become so desensitized to the ways of society that not much bothers people any more. Our language, music, voyeurism, etc. The list goes on and on. Movies, personal behavior.

– I had heard the frog story a long time ago, but it still hits home. Without a lot of details, several years ago, I made some major mistakes all because of a slow process of slacking up on Bible reading, prayer and missed a couple of weeks of church due to work. I am so thankful for a forgiving GOD, family and pastor.

     We all need to stop every once in awhile and check the temperature of our own “life pot”. Sometimes we need a change of temperature to keep ourselves out of the boiling pit of HELL.

– What a thought stimulating article this week!! There are so many applications that one doesn’t know what to say, other than yes, we do get desensitized in many walks of our life. My diagnosis of hypoglycemia comes to mind right away. I noticed I’d get headaches when I hadn’t eaten in a long time, but once I ate something, I no longer thought about it. This had been going on for a few years. (Yeah it takes some of us longer than others.) Unfortunately, it became a real problem when I started feeling like passing out, throwing up and sleeping all the time. That’s when I realized that I needed help! Now that I know what’s wrong, I do recognize that I’d started “packing” energy bars in my purse more frequently, and eating a bit more – so underneath it all, yes, I must have known that something was wrong, but I did a very good job of ignoring it from the outside. Maybe we’ve been told to adapt so often, that we just don’t always see that’s there’s good and bad adapting. I’m sure we do the same in our walk with God. We go along, think we’re adapting to our paths twists and turns and actually feel good about some of the changes we’ve made, but by the time we’re totally lost, we have to yell for help. Once it arrives, we can’t believe we missed those oh, so obvious turns! Seems we forget that we don’t know it all and can’t do it all . I guess we need these kinds of reminders to help us ponder through our walks and seek the guidance we so need. Thanks for that reminder.

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