Where's the Heat?

Occasionally my gas dryer malfunctions. I faithfully place items that need to dry in the dryer set the time and hit the start button. The dryer begins to turn and I think all is well. It looks and sounds like it is working. I go off to work on other projects. After a while, it dawns on me that I have not heard the buzzer warn me that the clothes are dry and that the dryer is still running. When I investigate, I discover that the heating element never turned on and that the sensor still knows the clothes are wet. The electricity has done its job to turn the drum, but the gas did not do its job to heat the drum. My reaction is not pretty, especially when I have a lot of clothes to wash and only a little time. “Where’s the heat?” (The repairman thinks it its fixed now, something was out of balance with the way the dryer was drawing air.)

You can guess where I am going with this – can’t you?

Catherine Booth spoke these words in her sermon about Christianity and the Real Warfare. “Soldiers of Christ must me abandoned to the ware. They must be thoroughly committed to God’s side; there can be no neutrals in this war. When a soldier enlists in the Queen’s army, he ceases to be his own property, becoming the property of his country. He goes where he is sent, standing at any post to which he is assigned, even if it be at the cannon’s mouth. He gives up the ways and comforts of civilians, and goes forth with his life in his hand, obedient to the will of his sovereign. If I understand it, that is what Jesus Christ demands of every one of His soldiers and nothing else.”

That would be and example of a red hot soldier.

So here is the part that really set my mind in whirl, “Someone may ask, ‘but we cannot all be ministers, or missionaries, or officers in The Salvation Army. Must we not attend to the avocations of this life, and work for the bread which perishes for our family and ourselves?’ Certainly, but the great end in all we do must be the promotion of the Kingdom. A man may work in order that he may eat, but he must eat to live, not to himself or for the promotion of his own purposes, but for his King…if his heart is really set on this, he will, when work is done gladly lay aside (his work tools) for the sword of the Spirit, and for the conflict with (sin.) Instead of spending his evenings in ease…will spend what would have been his leisure hours (for the cause of the Kingdom.)” I believe in balance of all things so when I read these words, I have to question if I have fallen into a 9 to 5 type of officership. (It is a hazard of not being on the frontlines.) Of course anytime the opportunity presents itself by way of encounter at the store, a phone call, or prompting to action by the Holy Spirit, I obey. I must confess that my “home body” temperament places me in the comfort of my home once I leave the office or finish shopping. Once again, I have great convictions about balance. There have been too many people, (officers, soldiers and employees of The Salvation Army), who have not allowed God to balance their time and the person and their loved ones have suffered for that omission no matter how much good they thought was accomplished. However the question begs to be asked, is the leisure time been balanced? Does the TV or the computer get more time than God’s work? Each of us has to work that out as we journey and fight for God.

Am I spinning the drum without heat? Am I using up resources without results because something is wrong with the spiritual heat element in my life?