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Heat then Chill

7/31/2021

If you read my two prior blogs, you know that it was hot when I was out West. I arrived in Henderson, NV, on Thursday, July 10. We loaded everything my niece Kenzie’s was taking in a U-Haul truck on Friday and drove to Arizona and moved her in on Saturday. The Las Vegas, NV, weather news reported a temperature of 117 degrees on moving day. Chris, my sister-in-law, saw it was 118 in Henderson on Friday!

Every time we stepped out from air conditioning into the sun meant getting hit by the heat. The joke (and truth) is that it is a dry heat. An oven is still hot even if it is dry heat! Does 52 degrees seem different than 25? That’s how much hotter 117 degrees is than 90. 90 degrees is already hot!

Don’t feel sorry for me, though! We got finished packing early and my brother had a nice pool in which to cool off. They even took me to the Las Vegas Strip that night. The temperatures had come down closer to 100!

It was record-setting hot on my road trip, and I had lots of time to think about the heat. Heat in the Bible can be destructive, but it is more often a means of transformation. Heat is a means to test things. Heat purifies. Heat transforms substances by melting and allowing them to be molded. Heat is used to temper metals and make them much more useful. The thought came to me that the tempering process applies to our spiritual lives as well.

I thought tempering hardened metals. I believed a sword, for example, would be harder if you tempered it. I was wrong. Tempering doesn’t make a sword harder; tempering makes it stronger. Hardened metals break more easily.

The heat in life that hits us can also make our hearts stronger or harder.

Tempering’s usefulness isn’t realized in the heat, though. It is the process of cooling the metal that makes the metal stronger. The heat just prepares it to become stronger.

My trip to the desert Southwest was hot, but it was wonderful. The biggest benefit is the impact it’s had on me since I’ve gotten back and recovered from it.

This is the current sign in front of my church.

If you feel like you been going through the fires the trials of this life bring, maybe it is time to take a moment and chill. With a little rest you may very well come through even stronger than before. And when it comes to strengthening rather than hardening our hearts, there is no better person to chill than with Jesus.

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Tumbleweeds

7/28/2021

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Last week I wrote about “going walkabout” and taking a road trip to the desert Southwest of the US. It was a time to decompress and spend some time alone with God. It was a wonderful trip that included seeing some family I love. I’m convinced many of us could use a break from the cares of this world. A change of scenery, a change of pace, even for a little while, was just what I needed.

After a beautiful trip through the mountains one day, I got a motel room in Holcomb, AZ for a night. Here is what the view from my motel looked like the next morning. It looked bleak. And it was hot, very hot!

But, loving the desert, I went for a little hike anyway. Within a few steps I scared up a jackrabbit. I didn’t see any rattlesnakes, but I ran across some bugs. I even saw a few flowers.

But the best part of the hike were the tumbleweeds! Tumbleweeds have been the focus of several Western songs and set the scene in Western movies and shows. Tumbleweeds are used for decorations in bars and restaurants, and more recently even at events like weddings.

I decided I wanted to take this tumbleweed home as a souvenir from my trip to the desert.

I sent this picture to Cathy, my wife, and my brother, Joe, who also likes the Southwest. They each sent back the same response. “Tumbleweeds are an invasive species.”

Tumbleweeds are the remains of several different kinds of plants that break off from their stems after they die and dry up. The plant reproduces by dropping seeds as the tumbleweed blows about the desert. These plants are now invading areas other than the desert and native plants are being threatened.

Reluctantly, I took my tumbleweed out of my trunk and released it back to the desert. As I drove back home to Indiana, I missed my tumbleweed. But Cathy and Joe were right for me to let it go. I don’t really need a tumbleweed in my office when I have boxes of mementos from the past I still haven’t unpacked. My goal now is to simplify my life.

Taking the road trip to decompress was wonderful. But on the trip back, God was telling me there were things beside the tumbleweed I could let go now, especially if I wanted to lead a simpler life. There were some past burdens, hurts, and even past successes that it was time to give to Him. These are harder to lay down than a tumbleweed, but even more freeing.

Are there things in your life, even good things, that it might be time to let go of to make your life simpler and freer? Maybe some time alone with God might help you decide what they are. Maybe it’s time, with His help, to let go of them.

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Go Walkabout

7/22/2021

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AUSTRALIA (PHOTO BY CASSIE SMART UNSPLASH)

ARIZONA (PHOTO BY ROBERT MURRAY UNSPLASH)

Walkabout: a short period of wandering bush life engaged in by an Australian aborigine as an occasional interruption of regular work —often used in the phrase “go walkabout” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

Last fall I saw turning 60 coming. The prior four years included a combination of full and part-time positions as pastor and professor. It also involved both Cathy and I dealing with health issues. While I loved the people I worked with, I knew it was time to “go walkabout.”

Not just the Australian aborigines, but indigenous people of many cultures have rituals like the walkabout. In contemporary US we call them “road trips.” Just as the desert calls the indigenous people of Australian and the US Southwest, the desert beckons me. I love the open skies, sun, mountains, and spaciousness of the Southwest.

My brother has lived in Henderson, Nevada, for years and I had never gotten away to visit him. It gave me the perfect destination to go walkabout. His daughter was moving to Chandler, AZ the second weekend after I “semi-retired” from full time work. The chance to help her move made the trip even better!

My walkabout in the desert Southwest was just what I needed to recharge my soul and prepare for this next stage of life.

How can being out in the desert heat recharge a soul? Interestingly, that is exactly where the Holy Spirit led Jesus to prepare for His public ministry. Jesus spent 40 days in desert facing the heat of the trials of fasting and the Devil. How can the desert fill our soul? The starkness, the heat, the barrenness can open our souls to being filled with God instead of the busyness and physical comforts we usually fill our souls with.

I thank God for the opportunity to “go walkabout” and be with Him in the desert. There are always reasons for not being able to get away. However, if I would have found ways to “go walkabout” earlier, I wouldn’t have needed such a dramatic one now.

The goal of a walkabout is to free up our soul to be filled with God’s presence. I know there are reasons it is hard to get away, but you probably don’t need a 4200-mile road trip to the desert. Your soul might benefit from even a little walkabout from work, busyness, people, or technology. Is your soul calling you to “go walkabout”?

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Looking back/looking forward

7/5/2021

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After four years of traditional church pastoring, I have decided to take a self-imposed sabbatical. Hitting a milestone birthday (60) and reaching a point of financial “semi-retirement” also influenced the decision. My goal is to recharge and focus on how to be as fruitful as possible as a disciple of Jesus.

My life so far has been blessed beyond measure! I have great family and friends, including so many in my extended church family. I’ve been fortunate to have had plenty of interesting, wonderful, and challenging life experiences. I have much to reflect on and be grateful during my time off this summer.

One of those recent life experiences was losing my mother to a particularly cruel form of cancer. It was a difficult time for my family, but it was a great blessing to hear story after story of how my mom and dad made a difference in people’s lives.

Some of the stories I heard involved my parents’ impact on friends of mine when I was growing up. My high school days are now well over 40 years old. And yet my parents’ hospitality and kindness are still remembered. Several friends mentioned little things I could barely recall. One of my friends, who has had a career based on his writing talents, recalled my mom commenting on an article he had written for the high school newspaper. She complimented him on not just his story but his writing style. Not only encouraged, he was also impressed she had even read the article of a young high school student. Another friend remembered my mom’s ability to ask questions that went deep but were also non-threatening. She wanted to really understand people and care for them.

A third high school friend remembered a story of a day with my dad. My friend lost his father when he was a young child, so he appreciated my dad taking him fishing with us. My friend was new to fishing and only caught three fish that day. What he remembered was my dad saying he had caught the best crappie, and that was a great fish to catch.

When I told my dad my friend remembered that day, he lit up. My dad vividly remembered and reminded me what happened at the end of the day. When we let my friend off, his front door was locked. Dad said he could come home with us. “No need,” my friend replied. He put down his stuff by the front door, went over to the side of the house, scaled it to the second floor, slid open a window, and climbed in. Soon the front door was open and with a wave my friend grabbed his stuff and disappeared inside. My dad was impressed!

Later my dad asked my friend’s older sister about that. She said because they had a large family, they didn’t have enough keys to give to everyone. They didn’t trust the younger siblings with keys anyway. If they left on their own, they had to find their own way in!

It is a joy remembering that story and others with my dad. The blessing of our little acts of kindness is not just in the impact make on others. My parents have been blessed by all the great memories they have of the many people they cared about.

My parents weren’t kind to my friends so they would have great memories 40 to 50 years later. That’s just who my parents were: kind, hospitable, caring people. They had no clue the impact they were making 40 or 50 years ago. It is an important lesson worth learning from them.

In God’s hands, the little seeds of love and kindness we plant now may grow to bless others and even ourselves in ways we can’t know now in the years to come.

One of the goals I take into this next phase of life is to learn how to live a little more wisely and boldly. I want to encourage us all, especially fellow disciples, to take advantage of the opportunities God gives us in the time He has given us to bless others.

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Heat then Chill

Tumbleweeds

Go Walkabout

Looking back/looking forward

Jeff Stueve

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