January 2nd Devotional
James 3:1-12
On this day in 1906 thirty-year-old, Willis Carrier was awarded the first ever patent for what we would now call Air Conditioning. Willis was born in Angola New York in 1876 and would go on to graduate with an Electrical Engineering degree from Cornell University. Right after college, he joined the Buffalo Forge Company, a company that specialized in blacksmithing, drilling equipment, steam engines, and pumps. It didn’t take Carrier very long to become the chief engineer of the company. One foggy day in 1902 Carrier was standing on a train platform in Pittsburgh when an idea came to him on how to control the relative humidity in the air. He busily started to sketch, plan, and build. His invention was a success and was quickly installed at the Buffalo Forge company along with countless other businesses. The Buffalo Forge Company allowed him to create another branch of their company specifically focused on manufacturing his air conditioning units but Carrier broke away in 1915 to create the Carrier Corporation. His business thrived until the great depression struck. Many residential homes simply could not afford the luxury of air conditioning but all of that changed in the 1950s. The installation of Air Conditioning units started to become the norm in the post-WW II era. It’s hard for many of us to imagine a world where there was no air conditioning. It’s hard to fathom not having the ability to hit the dial and lower the temperature during those hot summer days. Try to envision going shopping with no AC, working with no AC, having a car with no AC, going to school with no AC, to go to a movie theater with no AC. We might not be cranking the air conditioner on during most January days but in a few months we will be grateful for that cool air. I for one am grateful for the “Father of Air conditioning.”
Some of you can recall a time when your air conditioner wasn’t working. Your AC never quits on the coolest day of the year, but instead, it always seems to give out on the hottest day. The Bible talks about staying cool when times are hot too. James in 3:1-12 speaks a lot about the tongue. He makes it clear that our tongue is a small part of our body but it can get us into A LOT of trouble. It’s hard to control the tongue, especially when emotions flare up. When anxiety, stress, and anger strike us we typically lose our cool and our tongue becomes a burning fire. As a matter of fact, James 3:6 says “And the tongue is a fire.” How is the tongue like a fire? Like a fire, our tongues can burn and damage other people. We would hate to see how many people and how many times our tongue has done damage. We would be despondent to realize how many times we failed to encourage someone, love someone, or build someone up. How many times have we been overly critical of someone? How many times have we failed to compliment our spouse or lift up our child? Our tongues can burn and defile other people. We need to be resolved that when the heat rises around us that not just cooler heads but cooler tongues need to prevail.
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