tempered

It's summer, right?  Middle of June in Kentucky?  That's hot!  And since the beginning of May, we have had no air conditioning.  Lightning struck our unit and fried the compressor.  It was determined, due to its age,  that the enitre unit needed to be replaced.

After running around getting several estimates and filing an insurance claim, we finally have a new unit installed as of not quite a week ago.

We had pulled out and borrowed every fan we could find in the meantime, and honestly, it hadn't been too awful until a couple weeks ago.  It would get cool enough at night to need a light blanket and then keep the house cool enough to tolerate until midday.  We were loving the fact that we were saving a ton of money on electricity and were fine with having no a/c until it started getting up to 90 degrees during the day and staying up in the 70's during the night.  We were getting pretty miserable.

So when the unit was first turned on, the installers set it to 65 because the house had been so hot for so long, it was going to take awhile to cool the very elements of the house, like the walls, carpeting, cabinets...everything.   It wasn't long til the thermostat showed 79 and it felt like heaven to us!  Ha.  I was busy doing stuff and before long, I felt chilly!  I went to look at the thermostat again and it was 70.  Normally we would have set the a/c to about 68 in the past, but I was ready to put on a sweater, so I turned it up a couple degrees.  And then a couple more.  And.. well, finally, I got comfortable when it hit 75 and that's where we have it now.

I am normally a very hot-natured person. It's been a running joke that I am the one in short sleeves in the dead of winter and always freezing my husband out.  It was annoying how easily I would start sweating.  But now? Now I am a regular ice queen!  Ha ha!  I had been noticing that whenever we went out to other locations, a restaurant, church or a store, I would feel chilly.  Apparently, I'd become used to existing in much warmer temperatures than normal.

I had become tempered to living with the house much warmer than normal.

It got me to thinking, while my becoming accustomed to being warm was great in this context...less running of the a/c means lower electric bills, right?  But it struck me how easily we become used to things.  We, as humans, can become easily tempered to a lot of things.  Things that we should NOT get used to.

Dirty or messy surroundings when we slack on the housekeeping.  Suggestiveness in our tv programs.  Vulgarity in general society, on clothing and advertising.  Nudity in clothing styles and on television.
 
We can so easily become accustomed to things which ought to offend and alarm us. Not that we should be easily offened, but we should be concerned that sin in our lives isn't hurting our souls.  But we get used to it.  We say, "Everyone's doing it.  It's not really that bad, right?"  and we start rationalizing that at least we don't watch THAT show, we don't watch porn on the internet.  At least we don't wear ours THAT tight/short/see-through.  At least we don't do/say/watch/wear THAT thing.

See?  We are all too easily tempered to sin.  God knew that.  He knew we would be so easily swayed.  That's why He told us in   Philipians 4:8 KJV – “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”

And in Proverbs 4:23 NLT – “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.”

  

Take care to what you allow yourself to become tempered!