You're Probably Not Cool*

You're Probably Not Cool*

*but you can be.

I'm writing this in June, so I can only guess; but I'm guessing that as you read this in the weeks of July, it's hot outside. It might be hot inside, too, depending on your level of air conditioning.  You may be cool, but if you are, it's a temporary cool. You're on an island of cool, surrounded by that which is not cool.

I admire people who appear as islands of cool, regardless of the weather. They seem peaceful and still, no matter what troubles or changes blow their way.  They're sanctuaries of safe harbor from the heat and pressures of the world. They care. They care deeply. They care so deeply that other people flock to them like an oasis.

Who is your island of cool? Who calms you and helps you chill when the atmosphere is stifling? Jesus was that kind of person, even though he was known to occasionally lose his cool around people who pretended to be cooler than they were. But to people who were sweating life, Jesus was divine relief.

The Heideberg Catechism, one of the Presbyterian confessions of faith, has a lovely answer to the heatwaves of life: "We can be patient when things go against us, thankful when things go well, and for the future we can have good confidence in our faithful God and Father that nothing in creation will separate us from his love. For all creatures are so completely in God's hand that without his will they can neither move nor be moved."

That's such a re-conditioning hope, the fresh air of enlightenment, the knowledge that even the most oppressive seasons are just that, seasons; they will change, but God's love and providence will not. You may not feel cool; but you can be.

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