Inches And Degrees

Inches and Degrees

Just three or four inches can make all the difference in the world. During a drive home from San Antonio to Houston in the season’s coldest snap, my back car window refused to stay up. I started the trip warm and toasty, but as the window slid lower and lower, the night air crept in and the temperature drifted down. Still 150 miles from home and driving in the dark, I turned the heat up higher and aimed it at the center of my chest, then alternated its direction between chest, face, and shins every few miles in an inefficient attempt to warm myself.

It didn’t seem possible that a scant few inches of space could mean the difference between cozy and uncomfortable. But it did. Already cold when I placed the key in my front door, I felt no less chilled when I stepped inside. I’d turned the heat off when I left home, and my hallway thermostat now read a disheartening forty-nine degrees! All the way home I was just three inches from fine. Finally at home, I was a good twenty degrees from the same.

I parked my suitcase, turned on the heat, and as planned, hopped back in the car to sit at the bedside of a dear and dying friend. He barely fluttered open one eye, and although our faces were hardly a foot apart, I wasn’t sure he recognized mine. Just the slightest bit of pressure from his weak fingers made me hope that maybe, just maybe, he did. Every labored breath he took made me sharply aware of how close we are to eternity. We’re only inches . . . small degrees . . . from glory in every ordinary moment, and we hardly even realize it.

Inches and degrees. Such tiny measures span so much vast real estate. Back home I bundled up in layers, climbed into bed, and waited for the temperature to rise. I breathed in deep, curled up tight, and fell into the arms of the one whose comfort is closer than my skin, believing in nothing more than morning, and a God whose lovely Kingdom comes by inches and degrees.

Bethlehem of Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel.

Micah 5:2, KJV