Coffee Creamer, Fire, and Life

Disclaimer: I do not advocate attempting the demonstration described herein. However, it is quite impressive.

Before the trip to the Dominican Republic, Jim asked me if I could come up with a catalysis demonstration to use in his message. I looked around a little on the Internet but could not come up with anything that was safe and/or used readily available chemicals. So after returning from the D.R., I get an email from Jim on Friday asking about the demonstration for Saturday night. [Bleep] I had completely forgotten about the demonstration and quite frankly didn't have much more left (time or energy) to come up with something. However, I pulled up one of the websites that I had bookmarked and there was the demonstration. (Catalysts are one way to affect the rate of reaction or change. However, there are other ways: temperature, surface area, and concentration. After talking with Jim, I realized that any one of these demonstrations of changes in rate of reaction would get the point across.) If you pour some coffee creamer into a bowl and put a flame against the creamer, it just turns brown. Not too exciting at all. However, if you take some of the creamer and sprinkle it into the flame, it is possible to get this amazing fire ball. (There are two reasons for this phenomenon. First, the surface area of the coffee creamer increases significantly. Consequently, the fire has more access to creamer area. Second, there is much more oxygen available to the surface of the creamer to make for a classic combustion reaction.) I was thinking about this some more today and it just really astounded me. This is so much like life. It is so easy to just sit in a cup, moping around, letting the excitement just tinge the surface but never really leading to any ignition. However, when we get out out of the cup and take a jump (re-position), crazy things can happen. So by now, I know your probably tempted, but don't do it (play with coffee creamer and lighters, that is). However, I'm wondering about my own life. Where is the Holy Spirit trying to get some fire burning? Am I being receptive or just sulking in the cup? After all, it does "only take a spark to get a fire going."

Until later,

Todd

(By the way, when I read this in the Message from Colossians 1:13, I thought about the creamer in a cup. "God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons.")