Just a little something to collect my thoughts. Just a little place to be real. Life is sweet. Life is hard. And life is everywhere in between. This is where i share pieces (sometimes very raw) of this journey that is my life . . .

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Tending the Fire

As a result of a number of things that I will call “bad luck.” I found myself on a Friday night, specifically Good Friday night, creating a make shift fire pit out of destructed shed materials and using that to burn some debris from the tree that fell on that shed. I found myself with a lot of free time and no money. Looking back, I proudly say that I made a lot of lemonade that week. The next night was when it really hit. I was looking at no work and no income as possibilities due to a shoulder injury. It was my last day of work and that reality hit hard as I came home knowing that despite being scheduled to work on Easter I would not set my alarm and I would not go to work. Sounds nice to have a holiday off unexpectedly but it was not so welcome to me. I need to work. I need to financially and emotionally.

It was a nice cool, spring night and it wasn’t supposed to start raining until late Saturday night so I came home and went straight to the fire pit. Somehow the fire dancing in front of me helped to relax the weight I was feeling on my shoulders. Little did I know that this fire would be a way that God spoke to me as I struggled to believe he was real but knew I had to trust him in this time where poverty fears were jumping up and down on my heart.

After about 30 minutes of sitting by the fire I noticed a cool wet drip on my face. And NO I was not crying! Every minute or two there was a cool rain drop hitting me. It wasn’t enough to phase the fire initially but over time the drops increased with frequency and size but I wasn’t ready to let go of the fire. I added fuel and stirred the fire. I paid special attention to tend the fire and was no longer sitting beside it but standing over it. Partially to poke at the embers but also because the temperature was dropping and I was wet. The warmth of the fire was nice and was worth standing by even after a 12 hour shift at the hospital where I had racked up about 7 miles of walking up and down the hallways. But what I saw was that despite the rain falling down more and more steadily, it continued to burn strong and bright as long as I continued to add fuel and carefully tended to it.

But as I said, I was tired. And I was mulling over the rain that had been falling in my life most recently. So I sat back down as the rain pounded on the roof of what was left of my metal shed and soaked through my clothes. But I love rain and I sat there trying to let it wash away the weight and fears I was feeling. I was in another world when I looked up and the fire had diminished to a small flame that was soon to burn out. My focus on the problems of my world took my focus away from the fire and it was no longer keeping me warm. I stood to gather more fuel and work to revive the fire but with my back turned the flame was extinguished with only a few embers continuing to glow red as the rain continued to come down.

I was surrendering to the circumstances. I stood next to the fire as the embers glowed knowing that the fire was done and it was time to go inside. As I stood there for a few minutes, I suddenly gasped. The fire that had been squelched by the wind and rain, and by my lack of tending suddenly shot up three flames and began to burn again. It was nothing I did. It was not because of the ideal environment. That infact was working hard against the burning process. But it came back on its own and there was a thrill and joy in my heart over something so small and silly. So I added more fuel and tended to the fire. It then grew into a large fire that was pleasantly warm.  It was much life the fire I enjoyed as I worked the fire initially with diligence.

After a few hours, the rain continued and had soaked me through and through. My fire was still burning bright but I was wearing out. I had a night with very little sleep and had been up since 2 am that morning.  So I dispersed the fuel that was maintaining my fire and poured water over the hot embers. I intentionally ended the fire and walked away with a few red, hot spots that I knew the rain would take care of as I watched from inside the house to make sure the fire was completely quenched before I headed to bed. I walked away. The rain continued to increase and pour over the hot coals. And hours later I look out to see several glowing red spots still burning.  But eventually they were soaked completely and the red glow was replaced with black ash.

As I considered this on Easter Sunday, I thought about how much my experience with this fire had mirrored my experience with God. The fire pit, itself came into my life from a place of not knowing what else to do with the results of my ongoing “bad luck.” That is also how I began to seek out God. I was at the end of my rope, my hope and even my life. So I reached out to this God that others said made their lives so much better.

Initially I tended that relationship closely with my life depending on it but over time I allowed the wind and rain to draw my attention away from him. I found myself with enough distance from God that I saw him as a reality diminishing quickly. I know that God doesn’t actually go anywhere or change in his character but my ability to see these things does dissipate if I am not actively tending to fuel my world with the truth. Sometimes I feel like that is different from others. That my faith, such as it is, it too much of a battle and that somehow that is a reflection more of a lack of faith than a walk in faith. But we are not called to just sit by the fire and watch it but to daily tend to it.

Then there are the times when I allow the defeat to define who God is. I take my eyes off of him and look to the circumstances of my world that I have to, in my head, figure out and address. My chasing of those things and my focus on them draw me further and further away from God and into self reliance. Then I get a glimpse of the fire far in the distance just as it seems to burn out.  I then walk through life without the warmth of the fire and God in my life and struggle to make him my reality. Somehow I just cant make it happen though. I throw my hands up and sit back to shiver in my wet clothes. I sit in the dark and accept that as my reality. The thing about God though is that he pursues me. He fights just as hard for me if not harder than I fight for independence.  And sometimes when we are not even looking or trying, he lights a little flame in us when it seems impossible to survive. It is then that we have to choose to fan that flame and fuel it or just ride it out until it dies again.

But sometimes its not just happenstance that our fire for God burns out. Sometimes we do everything we can to squelch it. I have been there on more than one occasion. Sometimes because I don’t want to be seen as “that person.” Sometimes because it is “too painful” to try. Sometimes because my “old life” feels a lot easier. And frankly sometimes because it seems like trying to trust God has left me with more questions than answers and my worlds reality seems to contradict who God says he is and what he wants from me.  But even spreading the embers, pouring water on them and allowing the steady rain to drench them, there are still embers that glow red hot, deep inside of us just dying to be fanned and brought back to life.


So I don’t know what the pastor said as I braved church on Easter Morning. But the good news is the walls still stood with me inside. But I heard what God said to me about the fire that burns in our lives. I can expect that I will still have times where I am not so good at tending the fire and when I turn my back on it to focus on the unpleasant things but I pray that my heart will continue to turn back to the one who pursues me and I thank God for the spontaneous flames when I most need them!



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