Burned up or burning?

This post is actually from a few weeks ago, but I wanted to share it anyways.

This past weekend was a little harder on the emotional level.  It just happens sometimes.  You experience it everyone does.  We just have short seasons or not so short seasons when the fire seems a little hotter and it feels like we won’t move through it.  

Saturday while spending time with Jesus I started thinking about what fire really is.  Like a real fire that you put in your fire place, a match, a bonfire.  There are many different forms of fire.  There are short ones that go out fast, there are large ones that in the end become very destructive, and then there are those fires that burn hot for a long time.  You know how I’ve been mourning the loss of fall, and those are the kinds of fires I imagine.  The fire in your fire place that is hot and it lasts a long time.  You stoke it, and you continually add more elements to it so that it will burn and keep many people warm and comfortable.  When you get right up next to the fire place it’s so hot your sweater becomes hot to the touch, but it can warm an entire room.  I also think about the bonfire we had here last week.  We had to burn some cut down mango leaves so in an attempt to recreate fall we burned them, roasted marshmallows, drank homemade hot chocolate, and sweat like it was nobody’s business.  The mango leaves weren’t dry so we would have a huge flame and 12 seconds later embers. 

I looked up definitions for fire;

Fire; a state, process, or instance of combustion in which fuel or other material is ignited and combined 

with oxygen, giving off light, heat, and flame.  Dictionary.com

Webster’s- the phenomenon of combustion manifested in light, flame, and heat 

Fire isn’t tame, it is violent, and burns.

I’ve listened to lots of worship songs, participated in many prayer times where the invitation of fire is often delivered.  Lord let your fire fall, fill me with the fire of God, let me burn with your fire, we ask for the fire of heaven, but I think sometimes we don’t actually know what we are asking for or inviting.  Are you sure you really want the fire from heaven?  Lord fill me with, “the state, process, or instance of combustion in which fuel or other material is ignited and combined with oxygen, so that I may give off light, heat, and flame.”  “Lord, please manifest the phenomenon of combustion in and through our church.” If you told people what would happen when the fire actually came they might stop asking.  Fire burns.  It looks awesome, but it burns; meaning to the physical touch it’s very hot, maybe even so hot it’s painful.

In the two fires I mentioned above both burn, but one sustains.  The mango leaves really were too wet, to sappy, and not substantive enough to sustain a long fire.  Our hopes of a bonfire evening really turned out to be spurts of huge flames which lasted for a moment and then all that was left were the embers of what used to be a really big flame.  It didn’t last.  It was flashy, but not long-lasting.  The slow fire in the fire place is not flashy.  No one comes in and says, “woah, look at that fire in the fire place,” it’s just there, and after a few hours you kind of forget it’s there.  It is slow burning, but it’s un-noticed.  This burning keeps a home warm.

This weekend I was meditating on what fire really is.   What fire do I want to invite into my life, and honestly do I really want to invite,, “ the phenomenon of combustion,” into my life.  Do you want to invite the phenomenon of combustion into your life?  I don’t know many people that would jump for joy over that.  However we pray for it often and many times are really only wanting the bonfire that looks really pretty that we can share as a story about it for a few weeks, not the kind that slowly and continually burns.  As painful as it is, I do think I want to the slow burning.  The nice thing about fire in the kingdom is that it won’t consume me.  It is a never-ending ravenous fire, but just like Shadrac, Meshach, and Abednego, I won’t get burned.  I’ll be hot, I’ll be uncomfortable, but what I’ll manifest will be, “light, flame, and heat,”; light in the darkness, flame to spark others/myself on, and heart to warm the coldness of the world.

I like bonfires; I love the miracles in the kingdom that display the Glory of God in a moment, yet I want to last.  I want to live a miraculous life.  I don’t want to look down one day and see the embers of my life with Jesus that once was a brilliant bonfire flame.  I want to slowly burn, with the hottest bluest flame that produces gold in me and manifests light, flame, and heat to the world and the church.   I want to burn, not burn up. 

Do you really want to invite fire today?  Are you sure you know what you’re getting yourself into?  I don’t know, but I want to be a woman who says thank you for sending the fire when it comes, because if you invite it, it will come, but it will burn.