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Religion March 8, 2007
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Spiritual Reflections
Everything will be new, alive again
Pat Ozment, Jr.
Brown is my middle name, but it is not my favorite color. This is the dry season in Northern Ghana. It starts with November and last into April. That means temperatures 95 to 110, and no rain for 6 months. Along with the dry season comes the Hamartan, the great cloud of dust from the Sahara to the North.

It is hard for me to communicate what I mean by dust. The dry weather causes most of the vegetation to turn brown. The dust from the Hamartan, paints everything else the same color.

There are days when the airports close because of the dust. It penetrates every opening, no matter how small. At times it blocks out the light from the sun. Before you can use glasses or plates from the kitchen cabinet you have to rinse the dust from them. If you fill the bathtub without rinsing it first, the water will be brown.

When you lie down on your bed , dust rises from it. No matter how often you wipe everything down, ten minutes later you can write your name in the dust. This is the first place that I have lived where the air is brown.

I have not tried it, but I bet if I stopped washing my hair the gray would vanish in a few days. I remember seeing this message on a church sign back in the states. "Dusty Bibles mean dirty lives."

Peggy and I use our Bibles everyday, but every time we pick them up we find them coated with dust. Dirty lives aren't caused by dusty Bibles. Dirty lives are caused by sin. In many ways, sin is like the dust.

It is everywhere and it contaminates everything it touches. The only solution to the dust in Tamale is the rain that ends the dry season. Those rains will wash the dust away. Everything will be made new and alive again.

God has provided something to do the same thing with sin. 1 John 1:7 says, "But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. Say goodbye to the dust and I'll see you in church.
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