Last night I remembered a lab safety video that we watched in my ninth grade Biology class. What was so memorable about it was a safety goggle demonstration. A set of safety goggles was placed onto a dummy, then a controlled explosion was staged to demonstrate the necessity for the use of the goggles. When the explosion was played in slow motion, we could clearly see that the eyes of the dummy were protected from harm, but the rest of the head was incinerated. We all swallowed hard and looked nervously around to see if anyone else was having the same thoughts, namely: "Why don't they just make full masks out of the stuff that the goggles were made of?", "Are people really okay with their eyes being preserved while the rest of their heads are burned away?" and "Is it too late to go back to the eighth grade?" That memory reminded me of 1 Corinthians 3:15. The verse speaks about those who build their lives with the wrong materials. In our lives, there are some obvious wrong materials, such as dishonesty, greed, adultery, etc. But, we also have to be careful not to build with anything that may look good, but is not what God wants for us. I think of Lot, whom the Bible describes as "a righteous man" (2 Peter 2:7). Even though Lot was a man who trusted the Lord, he had apparently built his life with the wrong materials, as evidenced by his behavior in Sodom and Gomorrah, and his family's response to his pleas. Like 1 Corinthians 3:15 says, Lot suffered loss (most notably, his wife). Because he had not built his life with the right materials, there came a time when it was too late. He was saved, but "so as through fire."
Refuse to live your life being an embarrassment. Refuse to lose everyone else around you, including those you care about most, because you would not heed the voice of God. I thank the Lord that He doesn't intend for me to have my metaphorical face melted away, like those Nazis from Raiders of the Lost Ark, (who totally had it coming, by the way), while sparing whatever was behind the goggles. He intends for me to hide my whole life behind "the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one" (Ephesians 6:16).