Man Fails But God Restores – Liquid Nitrogen Lesson!
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Needed:
- Liquid Nitrogen (about 3 liters)
- Dewar Flask – you can likely rent one from your supplier or you can purchase one from Amazon.com – the one I purchased can be found using the link below
- Plastic kitchen mixing bowl
- Balloon (round is fine but if you can, make a “man” from twisting balloons)
Hopefully unnecessary warning:
You MUST be careful with Liquid Nitrogen. It is 320 DEGREES BELOW ZERO and as such needs to be respected. With that said however, it is AWESOME stuff that you don’t have to be afraid of, just respectful of. If it touches you briefly it won’t hurt you BUT it is recommended that you always wear gloves and safety glasses and that you don’t get it around the children.
Premise:
When a blown up balloon is put into liquid nitrogen it shrinks so completely that soon it looks like there is no air in it at all. When you pull it out, it will begin to re-inflate and will soon regain the exact same shape it had before. INCREDIBLE! Blowing on the balloons causes the reinflation to happen much more quickly.
Where to get liquid nitrogen:
I thought for a long time that liquid nitrogen was unattainable to the common man. I assumed you had to have a license, know a secret handshake or meet a creepy man in a dark alley to get it but once I decided that I was going to get some whatever the complications, I found to my incredible surprise that it is EASY TO GET! I looked up liquid nitrogen supply on Google and found that there are MANY places that sell it but mainly it was available from large welding supply companies.
The first place I called in fact, asked only two questions… first, how much of it did I want to purchase and second, did I have a Dewar flask to put it in? And therein lies the only tricky part. Most places will only sell you liquid nitrogen in a Dewar flask which is a flask designed specifically to retain this liquid. It is VERY insulated and therefore retains the nitrogen quite a long time (I had some for almost 2 weeks once) and it has a clever insulated top which doesn’t allow the container to explode as the gas releases (if you put it in an airtight container it will make for a rather exciting time because no matter how strong it is it will eventually rupture). I have heard of some places allowing you to bring an insulated thermos instead but that was not the case in our area.
Anyway, this particular place rented me a container but eventually I ended up purchasing one from Amazon which while expensive allows me to get more anytime I want. Incidentally, the liquid nitrogen here only cost $3.25 per liter although I know that price does vary across the country.
Lesson:
We all should have BIG PLANS, BIG DREAMS. We should want to go places! We should think wthat one day we are going to do something SO GREAT FOR GOD! WE SHOULD WANT TO GO AND CHANGE THE WORLD
But then something happens to change those high aspirations. Perhaps it is a decision that you make that changes everything for the worse. Maybe you make a big mistake and bring disaster on yourself. Maybe you quit going to church, stop reading your bible, praying and seeking God, start hanging around with the wrong friends, start talking the way the cool kids do or start doing things YOU KNOW GOD DOESN’T LIKE. And pretty soon your life begins to FALL APART
PUT THE BALLOON IN THE LIQUID NITROGEN – TO COMPLETELY SHRINK THE BALLOON YOU WILL LIKELY NEED TO USE SOME TO PUSH THE BALLOON UNDER THE LEVEL OF THE LIQUID. YOUR FINGERS ARE NOT THE BEST THING TO USE. FROSTBITE IS A REAL CONCERN IF YOU HAVE PROLONGED CONTACT WITH IT.
When we make mistakes sometimes we tell ourselves… I blew it! I had a chance and I completely messed up! How dumb could I be? How could I blow that chance? No one will respect me after that. I won’t get a second chance.
And suddenly your life is in ruins!
SHOW THE DEFLATED BALLOON TO YOUR AGAST AUDIENCE
Your big dreams are crushed. Your plans of being something GREAT FOR GOD are SMASHED IN A 1,000 pieces. No you are going nowhere! Instead of changing the world, now, I don’t even NOW HOW I AM GOING TO SURVIVE!
BUT GOD… Those 2 little words have the answer to EVERYTHING that ever happens to you… but God. No matter what has happened… GOD CAN RESTORE YOU!
PULL OUT THE BALLOON AND BLOW ON IT… LET IT INFLATE.
God is always there waiting for you… with open arms, He is just waiting for you to give Him a chance. God will restore you completely to the way you used to be if you just repent and tell God you are sorry for the things you have done, get full of the Holy Ghost and do your best to live for Him.
God loves you and He wants you to be restored.
