A World on Fire

Today I looked up the curfew laws for Phoenix.  It's too hot to leave the house earlier than 8 pm.  It is so hot, in fact, that today as I was returning two precious little girls back to their parents, as I stood in the driveway, my better brand flip flops' sole melted off the shoe.  They are beyond repair.  I have many pairs of shoes so it was not a problem to dig another pair out of my closet. The problem is not the shoes.  There is a curfew order in a city so hot that we could bake food on the sidewalk.  We walk for our sanity, my daughter and me.  Am I to tell her that we will not be walking today?  Is is safe for us to walk around our block and our home?  What are my alternatives to not walking?  The world is on fire.  

Did you know that we continue to be in the midst of a pandemic?  Do you know that it is summer and nothing is like it was?  I walk around and it is a maelstrom of emotions, tensions, beliefs, with temperatures and fears creating a fire storm.  When the heat hits, just like my shoe, no matter the brand or how well it is made, things fall apart.  How are things worse?  How?  A curfew? Now?  Isn't anger like a flame?  It has ignited.  It is spreading like the wildfire that it is.  We are all affected now.  Maybe it is more than a virus that infects us.  I went to get some food for the kids.  Their favorite restaurant is not open.  We went someplace else and it is only open for take out... still.  It has not gotten better.  It has gotten worse somehow, so much worse.  

I can't talk about anger.  I can't talk about how it burns.  I understand anger well.  In fact, I have had some anger issues.  Anger comes about when we don't trust God to handle things in His perfect timing  We want the satisfaction of revenge by our own hands.  We want to see justice served.  Justice takes its time and we are impatient.  There is fear and out of fear has only come anger.  I have never seen a demon or the devil but I can see his handy work in this.  There are squeals of glee that can be heard in the midst of the storm that we mistake for pain.  Does hell really have fire?  Is there brimstone?  Hell's fire has reached this world.

James 4:7 says, 
"Submit yourselves therefore to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."  

Isaiah 25:4

"For you have been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his (her) distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat; for the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall,"

I will wrap myself in God's fireproof blanket.  I will listen to God when he says to wait on Him.  It's not easy.  But God isn't a genie that we wish upon, is He?  I tell my soul, "Be still, Soul.  Be still that God is on His throne and He reigns."  Elle!!!  Elle, aren't you angry?!  Elle, don't you want to do something?  ELLE!!!  Dear Friend, you really do think much of me!  I am but a small woman, a widow... really.  I have in my care but two children.  But I can whisper into the ear of a Big God and I know, I KNOW that He hears me.  There is a plan.  Who am I to mess with it?  Who are you to fix this broken world?  I would advocate for you to meet with the Creator, the Maker of the Universe and whisper in His ear too.  Maybe then, instead of anger and fear from the pits of hell, there you will find peace.  Try it.  Let me know how it works for you  Maybe I'm wrong.  I'm often wrong.  I don't have any other solutions to offer you.  May God bless you, Reader and Friend.  May the God (El-Roi) who sees, grant you peace to you and of your household.  Praise the Lord!