White Coats

My youngest son decided this year instead of a birthday party, he wanted to go camping. So on a bit of a whim, we packed up for a quick trip to Maynor Creek Lake in Waynesboro, Mississippi. It was a little cool when we left Mobile, but nothing significant, in fact I didn’t even wear a jacket out of town.
I grilled hot dogs on the outdoor grill, and we ate. It was a very pleasant evening. More for the effect than anything, I built a fire in the fireplace. The temperature dropped a little bit, and it started raining, ruining any thoughts of outdoor activity the next day. Curiously, when I awakened around six, it was still raining, but by six thirty it started snowing. Not merely flurries, but real snow. An hour or so later, it was accumulating on the ground.

The kids shot out the door and started playing in the snow.
I watched from the cabin, appreciating the central heating, but got some firewood and restarted the fire that I had let die out the previous night.
I learned a few things about the cold. . . Lessons that those of you who may live in the cold climates already know, but I became familiar with pretty quickly.

The first thing was that dry wood burns rapidly, and seemingly took a lot more of it to overcome the cold. Fires had to be built much larger. Fuel was consumed much more quickly than I anticipated. It took a lot more fuel the colder the temperature was to sufficiently overcome the utter cold. I wondered how applicable this was in the spiritual world, it dawned on me that it was a pretty good analogy. The colder it is, the more fuel we must put back to ward off the cold.
I am quite sure that sixty three words of fuel weren’t the only bits of fuel that preceded the absolute spiritual cold that permeated the area around his sacrifice. In these days of spiritual chilliness, there is a need of greater fuel in our lives. It is amazing how the natural world can induce you to spiritual truth.

Secondly, I discovered that building a snowman without proper gear on is a exercise in futility. I did not have gloves, or headgear. I quickly came back inside to warm myself by the fire.

In building something in the cold days in which we live, we

must first be prepared for the cold. It is imperative to step into the cold to preserve and to build. The cold has no friends, and it is always the enemy. It will destroy those trying to build as much as it does those tearing down. The snowman we built was very stunted compared to the ones I have seen in pictures, but my bare hands were hurting at the limited time I was actually building.

The monuments that we build in our lives, those churches, those youth groups, those relationships with those outside of the welcoming arms of God are built largely in the cold. Be prepared for the winter you will face in the outside in building the monument God has chosen for you. If you aren’t, it will be a stunted snowman, a stunted church, a stunted convert that will result.

Our saving grace was the fire I had stoked up in the cabin earlier, which leads me to the final point I learned. . . .You have to keep a fire burning. The fire will be stoked by you. I can’t build your fire, and neither can mine be built by you.
So when the world puts on its white coat, build a fire.