Dear Trekker,
Fire! What a life word on which to reflect deeply. We have no right to shout it out in a crowded theatre… unless we have good reason to do so! Fire creates chaos, panic and excitement, changing everything in its path. It may good or bad… servant or master! But as in all of life, one cannot ignore it and is forced to deal with it, regardless of circumstances.
So, as flames leaped from the computer screen in Pennsylvania the evening of June 26 (a mere three weeks ago) I was in a quandary concerning my home town, a few hundred miles away, and the out-of-control fire known now around the world as the Waldo Canyon fire. (We received “check-up” calls from friends in the UK and Greece.) It has come and gone, leaving two lost lives, approximately 350 homes destroyed, hundreds more smoke damaged… and a city changed overnight.
Fire does that! It changes cities, landscape… but most importantly, people! As I write I think of the story of Elijah on Mount Carmel, standing alone for God against 450 prophets of Baal. (Trekker, read it in I Kings 18, one of the most poignant stories in all of Scripture!) God revealed His awesome power, using wind, rain and fire for His glory. Who can forget Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3)? Then I think of how God chose to demonstrate His authority at the birth of the Church in Acts 2…and the symbolism of fire to announce change and power given to His people. When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent, rushing wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that spiraled and came down to rest on each of them. “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit…”
How interesting… the writer of Scripture (Doctor Luke) chose to refer to the greatest power known to man (the Holy Spirit) in terms of fire metaphor. Likewise, do song writers. Why just today I sang in worship, “Shine Jesus shine, fill this land with the Father’s glory, blaze Spirit blaze, set our hearts on fire!” And even today, what a compliment to speak of another “as having fire in his belly”.
Fire truly can be a “good servant”. Without periodic fires to clean out overgrown underbrush, dry needles, diseased and dead trees, nature would lose a viable control mechanism. Regeneration would be limited beneath the forest umbrella. Yes, ecosystems are complex. Not only in raw nature, but fire is incredibly empowering to life. It allows us to cook our food, sterilize equipment, form iron, purify precious metals, heat homes, etc. The good uses of fire are endless.
Yet fire is also very coercing. When wild and out of control, fire destroys all within its path. Firefighters reported the temperatures were close to 2,000 degrees in the Waldo Canyon fire, hot enough to bend steel and reduce material possessions to ash and carbon. The Colorado Springs paper reported a wedding ring left behind in the hurried and harried evacuation, which was later found, diamond intact, though the setting was damaged. Shells of destroyed homes are filled with twisted metal, rock, and nails. Little is salvageable.
Fire creates an inferno. Locals, as they saw the fires leaping hundreds of feet into the sky, felt the heat, and shuddered in fear. Over 30,000 were evacuated. If the wind had not providentially changed on the night of June 26, hundreds more homes would have been lost. Colorado Springs residents have been changed; the city will not soon forget the fire.
Fire causes me to ponder and reflect. Now be certain trekker, Scriptures make it quite clear… eternal separation from God is labeled, quite graphically, as hell. There will be some type of perpetual blaze, with no escape, and no firefighters to control the burn and put out – eternal, burning separation from all that is good and life-giving.
Trekker, as you know, (if you have been walking with me through the pages of “passing the baton” over the years), I am compelled month after month to speak of God’s love, tenderness, long-suffering and patience with His people. God is love! And each day of history is salvation for all people. God in Jesus has come to mankind… He died, but was resurrected. We too are given this “new life” by the emboldenment and blazing power of God’s Spirit. We are called over and over to “love the Lord with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind…” and our neighbor (too) as one’s self. All of life issues hang on these two Truths.
After Saint Matthew reminds us of the centrality of love, he immediately outlines dire consequences if we do not choose to receive Christ and accept His call to love and good deeds. (Trekker, read now the Lord’s teaching recorded in Matthew 23, 24, and 25!) When the separation of “sheep” (the receivers) and “goats” (the rejecters) occurs, rejecters will be directed to depart from God’s presence, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Matthew 25:41) Trekker, you and I do not want to be in that number… we want to be in the number of the saints who go marching in to be with the King forever.
Trekker, fire is amoral, neither good nor bad. It is a part of life, a present and eternal reality. We can use it and control it for good and His glory, even as we put ourselves and all things under His loving sovereignty. Or we can let it run wild and then reap the whirlwind of a terrible, consuming master! Ever wonder why the little red, guy is depicted so despicably with horns and fiery darts… he is not an angel of light, but one of certain death, destruction and darkness.
Appreciating, yet not playing with fire,
Your friend,
Jim Meredith
