It’s funny. We know summer comes every year. But when it starts getting scorching hot, ya’ll, we act so shocked. Like,

“Lord have mercy, where in the WORLD did this come from?”  

The heat, the humidity is just atrocious.  Thank the Lord, I have lived in the south all my life & ya’ll, I will tell you, you never get used to the heat. You just survive it. Just today I talked to a man, that lives in Texas.  He said OUR heat was stifling. And he’s from Texas!  Is Texas not hot??  And we DID say after all of the cold this winter we would not say a WORD, a WORD, I tell you, when it got hot.  But, here we are.

I love the church sign I saw once, in the dead of summer, that simply stated

“You think it’s hot here…..”  

Well, that’s true. There is a place that’s going to be hotter than Northeast Mississippi (Yes, we are from the North.  And we are o.k. with that.) in June that’s why we do everything we can to avoid it.

Galatians 5 talks about the fruit of the spirit. Not fruits, plural but fruit singular as in meaning one. It means you have to be ALL of it. Not just a part.

²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. ²⁴ And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ²⁵ If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. ²⁶ Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. (NKJV)

Let’s back up a little & see what we can do to avoid an eternity of “hotter than a $2.00 pistol” surroundings:

Galatians 5:19-21

¹⁹ Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery,^[c] fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, ²⁰ idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, ²¹ envy, murders,^[d] drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God (NKJV)

When my all my kids were still at home, I had all of these listed & posted on the front of the refrigerator.  Since our most sensitive & highly classified topics came up in the kitchen, of all places, one of them would bring up a situation. It could be from what was being worn to school, to how someone was handling a certain situation, or maybe how someone was acting.    I would point to the refrigerator & say ,

“Do you see it on this list?”  

With that, they would know the rest of the story.  Lots of good conversations came from having that list out where we could see it all the time.

I am so glad you stopped by to visit with me today.  Don’t forget this weekend is Father’s Day.  If your daddy is still living, make sure to visit or call him.  It’s the right thing to do.  We will be having Sunday lunch at my house for our Daddys.  I will be sure to post some pictures later.  Also, see below for my pet peeve of the week. Until then, I have to be going because I should be washing clothes.

photo credits: Facebook, 123RF, junk gypsy