"Witness.................................."

Afternoon recess, today, was another heat-soaked experience, a few trees providing some shade, but not much of a breeze helping to cool things off. The kids were making good use of the swing set and a few were even peddling their tricycles around in the enclosed area; but just as many or more did their best to avoid the sun, finding shelter beneath the slide, inside a small open-air structure which allows them to sit as a table with a roof over their head. In truth, we weren’t out there long. While we were there, however, I asked my co-worker about the phone-call she had received yesterday and learned that, not only was it her pastor’s home that had burned down, but also this had been the third house for him to see destroyed there in such manner. If that bit of revelation gave me reason to pause, though, it didn’t come close to shaking me as much as the counsel she supposedly offered him. In her usual way of just “telling it the way she sees it”, my friend told the preacher that “Maybe God is trying to warn you to not plant your feet here!”… I do have faith in the lady. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t meaning to imply that the Creator would stoop to arson just to get a message across; but, in truth, I am of the opinion that she might have better impressed him had she suggested his ministry was so anointed that perhaps the devil was trying to get him to leave. Regardless, my own theology believes things just “happen”. As far as who they happen “to” is also pretty much a matter of serendipity. Someone wise once said that “The rain falls upon both the just and the unjust; but mostly on the just, because the unjust has probably stolen the just’s umbrella”; but, even if there’s anything to their logic, what’s important is simply having Him as our promise in the middle of whatever comes our way. Heat, fire, or no more than people with good intentions: He is our best source of refuge……