We’ve been back from our Europe trip for a few days now and I’m adjusting to the weather inside just fine.

At the present time, it’s -6 Celsius outside, but in our home right now it’s a cozy 22 degrees.

Sometimes you have to go away to appreciate what you have. 

I know there have been times when I’ve had discussions with Lily about what the thermostat should be set at in winter, but now any temperature she suggests is just fine with me. I’m just happy I don’t need to wear a coat indoors.

At times on our trip I did have to wear a coat indoors! 

When we were packing to go to Spain, Greece and Italy, we looked at the forecasted highs and lows and planned accordingly what we would take.

In hindsight we should have taken some warmer clothes. After all, it’s winter over there too.

On the other hand, some of the highs were 15 degrees and, while that is not hot weather, I shouldn’t need to wear a coat in temperatures like that (check out this post). 

But what we didn’t factor in as much were the lows. The temperatures got down as low as 5, 4, or 3 degrees … that’s jacket weather for sure! But then again, I figured I would mostly be indoors at night when the temps got down that low.

What I didn’t realize was that over there the outside temperature has a greater impact on the inside temperature than it does in Canada.

For just over a week when we were in Spain, we stayed in people’s homes. We quickly found out that they don’t heat their homes like we do in Canada … nor are their homes insulated like ours are in Canada.  

So when the thermometer dipped down to 4 degrees, it was not much warmer than that inside.

I found that I needed to wear my coat all the time. A few seconds before I jumped into bed, I would whip my coat off … and even then I thought maybe I should have kept it on. 

Inside I was cold all the time. Outside I was better because the sun would warm me up. Inside I couldn’t put on enough T-shirts under my coat to stay warm. 

The crazy thing was, people would ask us how cold it was in Canada. At the time Ontario was experiencing a real cold snap: -25 C. 

The people would shiver at just the thought of that. But they didn’t understand that was only the outdoor temperature. Inside it’s a constant 20-22 degrees – that’s shorts and T-shirt weather in my books.

Now that I’m back in Canada, I’m okay with having to adjust to the weather I’ll be facing when I go outside. 

What makes it okay is that I don’t have to also adjust to the weather when I’m sitting in my living room.

Here’s the thing: One thing I’ve found in my spiritual life is that when I feel comfortable with my relationship with Christ that is when I stop growing. I find I get lazy with my prayer life and my devotions, and am not as disciplined as I should be. But when the spiritual temperature in my life is not to my liking, that is when I am spiritually on my toes, looking to add something to grow my relationship with God. Maybe being comfortable with the weather is good, but spiritually we should always be looking for something else to put on. 

That’s Life! 

Paul

Question: What are you too comfortable with right now? Leave you comments below.