Acts 17:34 - Chicago-flavored Icicles

See Dante, star of the show, in the video clip below...

When our kids were little, we had an Iowa snow-fall with at least a foot of snow, but little wind. Pure and white, snowflakes fell straight from the sky and rapidly piled around our house. To alleviate our cabin fever, I stepped outside the front door, scooped up a big bowlful of snow and brought it inside to make snow cones with grape juice. 

A good habit in the kitchen is to check the ingredients. So I tasted the snow. Or rather, I didn't taste it. It had no flavor. I was shocked.

Growing up as a kid in Chicago, snow and icicles had a particular flavor. Now as an adult, I finally realized that what I had tasted as a kid was Chicago air pollution!

We may have been absorbing the wrong ideas or actions into our lives for years. That's why Paul says,

"In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent." (Acts 17:30, New International Version, 1984) 

We may be totally oblivious to pollution...

"My conscience is clear, but that doesn’t prove I’m right. It is the Lord himself who will examine me and decide." (1 Corinthians 4:4, New Living Translation)

And that's why I often pray,

"Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; 24 And see if there be any way of pain in me, and lead me in the everlasting way." (Psalm 139:23–24, New American Standard 1995)