S6 E4 - Breaking Through the Ice

We didn't get the snow we had hoped for, not as much at least. Instead, we got a lot of ice. Ice is so hard to treat, and unless you have some salt to soften it up, you're going to be hard on luck to break it apart and clear a pathway. 

We need to ensure two things for ourselves. First, we need to ensure that in humility we can soften our hearts so as to receive the truth. Second, we must ensure to we season our words with salt, so as to best communicate the truth to hard hearts in a way that they might be softened. 

#SetYourMindAbovePodcast

Transcript

What if I told you that God could be seen in the most ordinary things every day? 

What if I told you that every day, ordinary events could teach us extraordinary eternal truths? Would you believe me? 

 Welcome back to season 6 of the Set Your Mind Above Podcast! My name is BJ Sipe, and I am a Christian, a preacher, a husband, and a father. In our next few moments together, we hope to learn some of the most important lessons from some of the simplest things in life. Thank you for taking this journey with me. 

I think being a meteorologist is perhaps the career path with the most job security of any other field. Only as a weatherman can you predict the weather, consistently be incorrect, and still maintain your level of employment year after year. To be fair, this is of course because of the nature of that line of work – no one can with total accuracy predict what the weather is going to do aside from the Lord himself. But it’s still left us a little frumpy here in Danville – because that 15-20 inches of snow that they predicted…yeah that didn’t happen. Instead, we got hit with maybe 3 inches of snow and then a good amount of freezing rain and ice. Granted, we didn’t get hit as hard as Nashville and some other areas of the United States, but it still put everything on hold for the better portion of a week. After the snow fell, temperatures plummeted with the freezing rain and turned those measly three inches into a solid sheet of ice. Anything that was not scrapped and shoveled on Saturday evening turned to miniature ice rinks all over town: driveways, roads, parking lots, car rooftops, you get the idea. The temperatures were so cold, we even had pipes freeze Saturday morning at our house – which we were luckily able to get thawed out before anything burst. But you’re starting to get the idea – it’s very cold here in Kentucky, and not the fun kind. The bitter, hard, slick, and disrupting kind of cold. 

Since my folks were flying into town earlier this past week, I knew that I was going to need to get out there and do the best that I could to clear at least part of the driveway and the walkway up to our house. So I put on my warmest clothing and ventured outside. I grabbed my large plastic snow shovel thinking it would be as simple as scrape, shovel and toss…oh how foolish I was. It was at that moment, on my first scrape, that I realized this was no longer snow – but a solid 3-4 inch massive sheet of ice covering the entire driveway and walkway. So…I had to get creative. I went back into the garage and grabbed my garden hoe, thinking that would be able to break up the ice. And it did…for maybe 5 minutes. But the ice was so thick and so hard that it actually busted my garden hoe. Okay…now what? 
 
 Luckily, I had purchased 100 pounds of salt before the storm hit, and the kind I had purchased was advertised to deice anything down to even to the temperature of -20 degrees. So, I started working slowly on our steps, the walkway, and parts of the driveway to at least give us a walk path to the car. Before long I ran out of salt, but by the time I had finished, I could already see it working on the steps where I had started.  I let the salt do its thing for a little while, and meanwhile collected some other tools from the garage to see what I could use to break up the ice…a metal shovel, and ax, a cast steel tamper, etc. I then returned out to my personal little ice rink and started back in trying to clear the ice. It worked. The salt had sunk down into the ice enough that it started to slowly soften it, allowing me to finally break through and split it into movable pieces.  So after several hours, frozen fingers and toes, and about 2000 thousand calories burned, I returned inside with a somewhat cleared walkway in my front yard thanks to a couple of bags of salt. 

This big ice storm that we have experienced has reminded me of two very important lessons pertaining to our walk with Christ. The first of these lessons has to do with the hardness of our own hearts, and our willingness to receive the Word of God. We read in Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” There is no question as to the power of the truth that comes from God. It is able to penetrate even the hardest of hearts, to convict us of sin, and draw us to God as we come to understand who he is. However, it will not do so against our will. Jesus warns in the parable of the Sower of the seed that fell along the hard road. He would teach what this represents in Matthew 13:19, “When anyone hears the word about the kingdom and doesn’t understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the one sown along the path.” While the Word is powerful and can penetrate the heart, the hard heart must be willing to be softened in order to receive the implanted word. This is exactly what James teaches in the first chapter of his epistle and vv. 21, “Therefore, ridding yourselves of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, humbly receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” Humility is the prerequisite to submission. I am reminded of an old expression that my father always told me growing up. “We can at times be honestly mistaken. But when we came to face to face with the truth, one of two things will happen: we will either cease to be honest or cease to be mistaken.” The one that refuses to soften their heart, but doubles down and hardens it further, will reject the truth and remain lost. It is only the one that is willing to let the truth break them and penetrate their heart that will repent and turn towards God in alignment with the truth of his Word. 

The second of these lessons has to do with the way in which we communicate truth to others. There are times we need to speak hard truths, but we do not need to be unnecessarily harsh in the way we communicate those truths. We read in Colossians 4:6, “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person.” If you want to soften a hard heart, just like with ice, throw some salt on it. For our words to be “seasoned with salt” means to be kind, gracious, humble, and wise in the way that we speak the truth to others. If we are unnecessarily harsh, it is more than likely that the truth we speak will not be accepted by the one we are speaking to. As the old expression goes, “you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” This American proverb is not original, but rather a modern expression of old biblical truths. Consider the teachings of the Proverb writer in the following three passages. Proverbs 12:18 – “There is one who speaks rashly, like a piercing sword; but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” Proverbs 15:1 – “A gentle answer turns away anger, but a harsh word stirs up wrath.” Finally, Proverbs 16:24 – “Pleasant words are a honeycomb: sweet to the taste and health to the body.” The shared theme of each of these passages is simple: you will have far more success speaking to others with gentleness, kindness, and understanding than to speak to others with harshness, judgment, and anger. Don’t misunderstand the text – as we have already stated, sometimes we must state hard truths. However, it is our responsibility to share those truths to the best of our ability in a way that they would best be received. Our words can further harden others or soften others. Choose the right words. 

Let’s conclude with the words of 2 Timothy 2:24-25, “The Lord’s servant must not quarrel, but must be gentle to everyone, able to teach, and patient, instructing his opponents with gentleness. Perhaps God will grant them repentance leading them to the knowledge of the truth.”

This has been season 6 episode 4 of the Set Your Mind Above Podcast – and I’m so thankful that we had this time to grow together! A new episode is dropped each Friday of the week. If you’re able to, go ahead and like and subscribe to the podcast, give us a good rating, and tune in next week. Even more important, share the spiritual truths that we learned today with someone else. And more than anything my friends, always remember the following: know that I love you, that God loves you, and may we all each and every day set our minds above.