Published on 07/7/2010

Stress reveals character. To learn what's in a tea bag, dump it in hot water. To see what's inside a bottle, shake it up. We give what we have, since we obviously can't give what we don't.

I've never written these words before today: "You should move to Texas to escape the heat in July." Since most of you don't live in Saudi Arabia, such a suggestion didn't seem relevant. But now that Boston is the new Sahara, things have changed.

Today's Boston Globe reports, "Boston reaches 100 degrees as heat boils Mass." It's the first time they've been this hot in Beantown since 2002. On Tuesday they just missed their all-time record of 101. Counselors working at a children's camp have a simple motto: "Keep kids in the water and water in the kids." (Just for the record: our high in Dallas today will be 89. Sorry—I seldom get to gloat over cool temperatures.)

Of course, we in the southern states are to blame. Meteorologists say a large high-pressure system is drawing hot, muggy air from the south and dumping it on ungrateful New Englanders.

I'm reminded of the Cold War story: some sympathetic West Germans threw food and clothes over the Berlin Wall to their starving, shivering neighbors in the East. The Communist government was outraged, and threw mounds of trash across the Wall to the West. The West Germans then put a sign on the trash which read, "Each gives what he has."

There's a spiritual lesson in all of this: stress reveals character. To learn what's in a tea bag, dump it in hot water. To see what's inside a bottle, shake it up. We give what we have, since we obviously can't give what we don't.

Where do you find yourself in a heat wave this morning? Walt Disney liked to say, "Some men make difficulties, and difficulties make some men." How do we choose the latter?

Paul had a "thorn in my flesh," as he called it (2 Corinthians 12:7). We don't really know its identity—options include migraines, malaria, and eye disease. Some think his "thorn" was the Judaizers who followed him around and tried to convince his Gentile converts that they needed to become Jews before they could become Christians.

Whatever caused his "thorn," the Apostle knew what to do with it. First, he asked God to remove it: "Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me" (v. 8). When God did not, he listened to the Spirit for the explanation: "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness'" (v. 9a). Finally, he trusted God to redeem his suffering for greater good: "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me" (v. 9b).

What thorn is pricking your soul this morning?