FIRE

I woke up to fire this morning...drove home from the movie (I saw the Avengers: Age of Ultron--congratulate me later) and still saw fire...

It's a strange thing to look out your window in the morning at a just before dawn sky and see billowing black clouds with a tinge of red beneath. Your initial thought is, "Is that real?" The next one is, "What do I need to do? How do I keep safe?"

Fire does something to people--makes them feel unsafe, throws them off kilter, makes them examine their lives and the workings therein in a little bit different light. It shows what we believe is essential and forces us to reexamine fear as it tries to rise up. It's a good way to jog you out of a deep sleep.

And it's what almost every church I have been present in in the last ten years is asking for.

And I can see why. I have learned this side of suffering and pain not to take the elements of life for granted the way I used to. The simple sensation of being happy and well accepted has become much more for me--I have known the other side of both and so somehow what used to be commonplace experiences have become much more, almost exultations. When your life is put under fire and all that is not worthy gets burned away--you find out really quickly what you believe and why you stand for it. There is a purifying that happens in going through the fire that no other experience on Earth can replicate. What survives the flames has been so radically altered from what entered the flames as to become almost unrecognizable.

It's so unruly. I think in college when we (at times) had nightly prayer meetings and let God do as He pleased and sought only to be used by Him--the fire was there...the unruly motion of His Spirit wreaking havoc on hearts in the best way possible, bringing healing and life back, leading us to pray. I had never prayed before for a nation or really in front of a crowd but one night I felt so compelled to pray for Israel, so they let me go up and share what was on my heart. Then I was all set to sit down (I'd done my spiel) and they said, "Pray." Simple word, transforming effect--that prayer felt like electricity coursing through my body, like nothing I could ever describe as God set me alight to cry out for one of the many nations He dearly loves.

Fire will change you--but always for the better. And it can't be contained. Perhaps this is why the Holy Spirits manifestation was seen as tongues of flame--what better way to represent the holy freedom of God?

Fire takes fuel--the reason the one across the street did so well (it started at 3:30 am this morning and is still running strong here at 11:00 pm) is that it had an excellent heat source: wooden power poles. PG&E stores them right over there and man, did they light up well together! Ahhh....

What is our fuel? What is the stuff in your heart that the Lord may have to burn and purge? Will you survive if He does come? Or even better yet, how will you react when He touches down? Will you try to get rid of Him or worse yet, contain Him? Or will you let Him burn through your life, even if you won't be able to recognize your life after His fire has had its way through your heart?

It's a painful experience, letting the fire fall. But the purity, stripping away of needless things, being in His Presence and power--these are all worth the price.

Will you join me in the fire today? It's a beautiful display...