There’s nothing uncommon about me speaking at a conference, but once I did a crazy thing – I agreed to speak at a conference in Palm Springs, California. The crazy part was the meeting was in August. I can’t believe I did that. It registered 118 degrees in the shade!
Thankfully, all the workshops were inside this large hotel and nobody really had to go outside, but with certain parts of the hotel being inaccessible, there were times I had to wheel out into the heat – and it wasn’t under a portico. When the door opened, I’d get hit with a furnace blast of searing hot air that literally sucked the moisture right out of my mouth and off my skin. For me, a quadriplegic who doesn’t sweat like typical people, it was almost unbearable.
You see, I don’t know all the fancy medical terms for the condition I have, but my body lacks a working cooling mechanism -- the part that acts like a thermostat, you know? It got damaged when I broke my neck. That’s why I don’t sweat – I keep all my heat inside, which can make the sun a very uncomfortable thing. (It’s funny, though, because I’ve been in many an icy cold climate and spent the afternoon next to a heater just to get warm).
So back to Palm Springs. How did I combat the heat? I drank quarts and quarts of icy cold water. I supersaturate every cell in my body with cold water. That’s the only way I can regulate my temperature when I overheat, kind of like you would a car radiator. It’s the only option I have when it really gets hot.
And my body serves, I think, as a great example of the condition in which many of us find ourselves when we are faced with a different kind of heat – the heat of temptation. When we originally fell from grace, we suffered a terrible injury and we do not have the resources or the mechanism to deal with the almost unbearably hot demands that sin makes on us. We lack a working mechanism to deal with sin on our own, and every time we try to face temptation that way – on our own – it’s like opening a door to face a searing blast of devilish opposition. You and I just can’t survive the insistent demands that temptation makes on us…
And the only option we have is to supersaturate every spiritual cell in our body with the Living Water. Psalm 119 tells us to hide God's Word in our heart that we might not sin against the Lord. That’s what the psalmist did. When David felt the heat of temptation breathing down his neck, he wrote, “My soul thirsts for you, O God. My body longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” So, friend, if you feel the heat today, take a long, cool drink of God's Living Water and supersaturate yourself with His Word. It’s the best option you have in the heat of temptation.
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 93176
©Joni and Friends