Saturday, August 12, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
A few games of Uno on a very hot Texas night
Here, O Israel, The Lord is our God, the Lord alone!
Outside the window, as the wind picked up at the end of our 35th consecutive 100 degree day, beautiful purple flowers blew in the breeze. How could they still be alive, still look so Good, in the midst of Austin’s Stage 2 drought with no end in sight?
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.
God’s touch. We spent the evening with our friends and had a picnic dinner (inside) before we played Uno for awhile. Conversation and perfect hamburgers off the grill, a bright broccoli salad, key lime cheesecake, ice cold water and Shiner beer, it was a fine way to get out of our apartment and into the lives of our friends.
God’s touch. I brought along a Fearless Flyer from Trader Joe’s, and everyone found something really good to imagining eating in that infamous quarterly newspaper. The Flyer was anointed, I think:  as I read it yesterday afternoon someone knocked loudly on our door. A smiling guy with tools in his hands said, “I’m here to make your day!” It was Martin, who knows a lot about air conditioners.
We had four fans blowing, and the temperature was about 85 degrees. “What’s the A/C doing?” he asked.
I turned on the hall light, and flipped on the thermostat. A dull buzz. “I know what that is,” and he flipped down the ceiling panel that held our A/C and furnace blower. “Either the capacitor or the motor.”
It was the capacitor, he thought, until he replaced that and flipped the breaker back on. A loud pop and scorching smoke, the sick smell of a burned up motor. Martin shouted, surprised, but not close enough to be burned.
The Lord, your God, shall you fear; him shall you serve, and by his name shall you swear.
God’s touch. “Well, it’s the motor too,” he said. “But we have some of these. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” And there he was, carrying a double blower with a brand new motor and capacitor, which he promptly installed. Suddenly everything worked. He shined his laser thermometer up at the outlet. “That air is coming out at 72 degrees. Now it’s 69!”
The Lord liveth! And blessed by the Rock. Blessed be the rock of my salvation. I love you, Lord, my strength.
Martin had hoped to bring the second maintenance guy with him to do the work, because Martin knew how and the other guy did not. But he was cleaning the swimming pool. Martin is leaving next week to take a job much closer to home. Our apartment manager said there were fifteen other air conditioners not working right now (out of 166). That seemed like a lot to me. And Martin is leaving. I hope our other guy is a fast learner.
“God loves you,” Martin said as he walked out the door.
“God loves you too! God loves us all!”
Getting home last night from our friends’ house we were knocked back a little by the cold air as we opened the door. Wow!
God’s touch.
If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move.”
(Deuteronomy 6, 2 Timothy 1, Matthew 17)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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