***Heat Control***

*The girl in this story is me*

Tonight, it was unusually more freezing than at other nights. She was lying right there on the couch in the living room, a little bit noxious and a little bit drowzy. She had been doing her homework on the desktop, and too tired to go anywhere else to sleep she simply took the next best thing, the couch. Too tired to get up to adjust the temperature of the room, she moved her head to a softer part of the red fluffy pillow and drew the blanket higher up towards her chin. She tossed and she turned several times, until she finally got pulled into the sweet embrace of the unknown...sleep! Slowly, but surely...she was drowning in the luxury most workaholics don't seem to have.

When she's asleep, she gets into this mini-unconscious state where she can't feel any part of her five senses: she can't feel, smell, hear, or taste anything..but most importantly she can't see anything. The only thing she can see is the lover in her dreams, the fairy-tale mansion, and the dreams of a blessed, joyful, energetic, vibrant, peaceful, and blissful future. She usually smiles towards the end of the dream...or frowns, depending on the dream. Tonight though, she woke up to the sounds of footsteps drawing closer and closer to where she was lying. She opened her eyes and saw someone adjusting the honeywell thermostat in the living room. It was her older brother...and he said, "aren't you cold down here?" And she replied, "not really." He said he was freezing, adjusted the thermostat and walked back upstairs to his room.

No, this is not a thriller or a horror movie. Neither is it a poem or a prose. But my focus is on the word "thermostat." A thermostat is a device that regulates the temperature of a system so that the system's temperature is maintained near a desired "set-point" temperature. It's function is to control the existing temperature. On the other hand, a thermometer measures whatever temperature is available to be measured.

I read this scripture this morning, and it is what is responsible for my comparisons: Proverbs 18:14

"The spirit of a man will sustain him in sickness, but who can bear a broken spirit?"

After thinking I came to the rightful conclusion that as children of God we have thermostats inside of us. We have something that can always regulate our spiritual temperatures, and that thermostat inside us is called the "spirit." When your spirit is strong, then though storms, famines, and all sorts of things may throw themselves at you, yet you will still be willing to look over those things and realize that they can't take you out. Like the scripture said, in sickness a man's spirit can still sustain him. The only time you should have a broken spirit is unto repentance, for psalm 51:17 says, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart." Yes, your spirit needs to be broken so that you can buy a brand new spirit from God. But when you have your new spirit, it must remain strong, because proverbs 25: 28 also says, "For whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down without walls."

But if your spirit is broken, then your thermostat is damaged and you cannot control your temperature. Instead like a thermometer you begin to measure every adversity and focus on the present instead of the future..

As my "S" said to me this morning as I tried to describe this imagery, I will also say to every one who comes across this post, "make up your mind to train your spirit into becoming a thermostat and not a thermometer." When your spirit is strong, you can move mountains, you can control emotions, and you can focus on the prize and run your race well. Wouldn't you rather be a thermostat?