Making Adjustments

How come, now that fall is here, 70° seems just a bit chilly? I remember some afternoons months ago when we remarked how warm and wonderful the 70° day was! How could the same temperature feel so different?

It's a matter of relativity, our comparing one thing with something else. When we have had many days of 90 or 100°, 70 feels lusciously cool! But after enduring wintry blasts of 20 or 30°, 70 feels quite toasty! We become somewhat adjusted to seasonal weather, and the change in temperature strikes us as something remarkable.

There are many things in life that require our just accepting them. Some irritants are beyond our ability to change. How often we have to pray the Serenity Prayer!

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

As important as "adjusting" is, there are some dangers. Do you remember the often-told myth (and it is just a myth) about putting a frog in a pot of boiling water? If suddenly plunged into the heated water, he will quickly jump out. However, if you place the frog into cool water and gradually increase the temperature, say two degrees a minute, he will sit there placidly, finally dozing off and never awakening while he is boiled to death.

I thought of this adjusting business when I recently re-read Romans 12:2. "Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you]." It's possible for us to be lulled into a stupor by over-adjusting to the moral climate around us. There are some things that are dangerous simply to accept; they are not just irritants but are wrong when measured against the Word of God. These we must guard against. Or be boiled to death.

MaryMartha

The Serenity Prayer is commonly attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, an American theologian, c.1934.

Scripture quotation taken from the Amplified® Bible, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org