The Hot Pot

With the start of various schools and colleges at this time of the year, I think back to one of my high school graduation gifts. It was a "College Survival Kit", made up by a friend and mentor who had been there before. She put together some of the "essentials" for dorm living. There were towels, etc., Tang mix, those International Coffee instant mixes, a host of other goodies, and an item that I thought was rather strange-- an orange Hot Pot. It was like a metal pitcher with a heating coil in the bottom. You could heat water in it. I did not drink coffee (my friend assured me that by the end of the first semester I would), and hot tea (ugh) was not an option either. Hot Tang, however, did sound pretty good, so I dutifully carried the Hot Pot along to the dorm with me.

Did you know that the college room and board packages come in different types? Some of them leave out meals...like entire days... in particular the weekends. Lunchmeat and peanut and butter sandwiches got old fast, and although Charlie’s Pizza joint was right across the highway, who could go there very often on a college student’s budget? Enter my very astute friend’s gift of the Hot Pot.

Eight Oscar Meyer hot dogs can be cooked in a Hot Pot of that size if you stand them on end. Boiled eggs take quite a while longer, especially if your dorm mates are partial to hard yolks.You can heat the cans of La Choy Chinese dinner sauces in a Hot Pot. The Lipton Noodles Alfredo (as well as other flavors) is also possible in the Hot Pot, although you do have to have a really good scrubby to clean it up afterward. All this (and more than I want to bore you with the details of right now) from an item that I didn’t even know I needed!! It kept me from starving as well as being broke! I am glad my friend knew the trials of dorm living.

That kind of makes me think of the Holy Spirit in our Christian lives. The disciples came to a group of new converts. They asked if the Christians had received the Holy Spirit. The new Christians responded, "Holy Spirit? We didn’t even know there was one, much less that we needed Him. Tell us more." (See Acts 19:1-3)

Many times we go bee-bopping along in our Christian lives, thinking we have it all and know it all, (much like high school seniors and college freshmen- no offense intended, really) but we are not really living in all of the fullness and power that God intended for us. Jesus said that He came to give us life, and that more abundantly. (John 10:10). He said that He came to make our joy full (John 15:11). He told His disciples (and us) to wait for power from on high (Luke 24:49).

We can not live the abundant life in full joy and power without the Holy Spirit totally operational and welcome in our lives and beings. Sometimes we don’t even realize that we need it (like my little hot pot episode). But Jesus knew. He said that He would be returning to the Father, so the Father could send the Comforter- the Holy Spirit. If we did not so desperately need the Holy Spirit, Jesus and the Father would not have bothered with sending Him. Check out John 16:5-15 and John 14:16-31.