It Ain't the Heat...

Record heat is gripping out nation, driving power grids to their absolute limits, forcing overheated people into the shelter of air-conditioned spaces, and making some of us ponder the blessing of mid-winter snowstorms. Perhaps those last words are a bit of a stretch, though someone told me today that they would much rather have a foot of snow than 114 degree heat indexes. Of course, in the midst of a heat wave, distant memories of blizzards seem a welcome diversion, but in the middle of January...well, that's another story. I suppose we are often wishing for what we don't have...or in comparison, to choose what seems to be the lesser of two evils when caught in the middle of life's extremes.

That great baseball philosopher, Yogi Berra, once said of playing baseball in the worst of the summer heat, "It ain't the heat, it's the humility." Yogi's fractured English aside, meteorologists, in assigning a heat index number, remind us that humidity plays a big part in the extremes of summer. Air temperature may be 100 degrees today, but the humidity will make it feel like 114!!! Yogi's words, however, got me thinking. In the trials and challenges of life, we often use heat as a metaphor for the pressure we find ourselves under. Often, such pressure pushes us to demand personal rights or to try and deflect responsibility away from ourselves to others who may or may not have a role in the difficulty we face. Perhaps Yogi's right...maybe it ain't the heat...maybe it is the humility.

The apostle Paul, a man who had his own struggles with humility, wrote in Philippians 2:3, "When you do things, do not let selfishness or pride be your guide. Instead, be humble and give more honor to others than yourselves." This Christ-like perspective in the midst of the pressures and challenges of life, is good advice for anyone that desires to honor Christ. When the heat is on, a good lesson of life to remember is, "it ain't the heat...it's the humility.

I leave you with one more Yogiism. Yogi was once told by an admiring fan that he looked cool, to which Yogi responded, "Thanks, you don't look so hot yourself." I hope that you don't look or feel "so hot yourself" over the next few days.

Jim Abernathy