For me, heat is linked with sin—not in the sense of steamy illicit liaisons or medieval images of the flaming pits of hell, but the fire of anger. Heat liquefies reason. Provoke me on a hot night and risk being splashed with molten rage. Last night was such a time. The thermometer topped 103, and I could feel my inner coals banking.
I won’t go into the details of my harsh words. They were ugly, and I am ashamed. However, it did make me wonder why God didn’t and doesn’t intervene. He let me melt down just as he allows others go after their fellows with guns, knives, and fists. He regularly lets horrible violence occur, both within families and over large geopolitical territories.
Yes, I know about “free will.” God created humankind and lets us govern ourselves, for good or ill. Yet, he could so easily step in and save us from our worst selves. Why couldn’t he have made humans more like a fuse box? Plug in too many power drains and the whole system shorts out to prevent fire. Or, he could have designed us like a nuclear power plant with a safety system that stops the reaction and floods the overheated core with cooling water. At the very least, he could send a guardian angel to wag a finger and say “Stop that!” Why does he allow us to lose our tempers and lash out at one another, knowing that many of us have so little self-control?
Walking on the mountain today, I ran into an acquaintance of mine who worked for decades as a public health nurse. When I complained about the heat’s horrible affect on my character, she remembered a time that she had been called upon to disarm a mentally unstable eighty-six year old woman who had lost it on a sweltering summer day. The woman had been on weekend leave from Damish State Mental Hospital and was visiting her sister. Something had gone awry. My friend had been called after the woman had smashed a light bulb and begun running through her sister’s house naked, brandishing the jagged base. My friend reported how she finally leaped on this frail berserker, knocking her backwards onto a bed. She wrested away her makeshift weapon; whereupon this poor overwhelmed soul began to sob. My friend even managed to dress her before the state police arrived to return her to Damish.
This is what I wish God would do—see our distress and send in some determined, matter-of-fact rescuer to prevent damage. That old woman didn’t really want to slice her sister to ribbons just as last night I didn’t really want to yell unforgivable things at someone I love. God knows the intentions of our hearts, so why does He allow us to betray them? I can’t believe it’s just to keep us dependent on Him. Do we really need such regular doses of shame and remorse to keep seeking God’s guidance?
The heat, then, makes me cringe. I know I’m susceptible to its trigger and that despite awareness of my tendencies, I will not be at my best. When the mercury climbs, I should take myself off to a cool and solitary cave or at least to the basement with my Bible. However, enmeshed as I am in the demands of work and motherhood, I am not free to escape from myself. At the very least, I should be able to pause in the fire of the moment and cry out for God’s help, yet I usually do not. This repentance after the fact is small consolation. I wish I could sign something like a living will giving God permission to intervene. “Take extreme measures, Lord! Make haste and save me from my awful heat!”
