Your Potential Energy

Today I was reading through my chemistry lesson. The title of the new chapter is "Energy, Heat, and Temperature." I don't know about you, but I'm not too big on chemistry class, and the faster I can get to writing blog posts and books, the better.

But as I was reading through the lesson, some things stood out to my all-too-analytical mind. I began reading about how a log supposedly has a ton of energy inside it, just waiting to be let out to boil up some water or blacken a marshmallow or grant some heat to cold, soaked toes or scorch some fingers.

And I think that's when analogies started to open 500 more tabs in my mind. Just like that log has that energy inside it that can be used for good or bad, we have "potential" in us that can be used for good or bad. We have a passion inside of us that can be used to excite a sister's heart or dampen her spirit. We have the opportunities to comfort a brother or add insult to injury, whatever we choose.

A log, though, does not just magically produce fire. It has to be ignited by other energy to let all the log's energy out.

In the same way, something ignites our hearts' passion. That something could be God's Word or an insulting person's word. It could be friction in our lives, or it could be a sister's fiery heart. You could flip that around and say that your fiery heart can ignite another's passion, or your insulting words could ignite a friend's anger. 

Obviously, how we each respond to an attempted ignition is up to us. If we are drenched in the world, then the fire of God's Word may not affect us as much. 

The point is, we each have the potential to affect other people in good ways or bad ways, and most likely we will each be affected by other people's fires. How we use this "potential energy" and how we respond to other's "energy" is totally up to us.

"Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another."

~Romans 14:19