Chile - The Return!

Please read the following newsletter to find out about the upcoming trip I'm taking with friend(s) back to Chile, where we worked after the earthquake hit in February 2010!

Fire: Dare I Say, 'Let the Flame Burn'?

Fire. I write this as wildfires have come raging across Texas, seemingly unquenchable. And we prayed and still pray for rain to come, for the winds to calm down...and yet, no seeming answer. Yet today for the first time I had to ask myself, perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from this when we look at it from a different angle?

You see, a couple of weeks ago I was reading about seeds planted in soil that are in danger of wilting, being scorched by the sun and having no root (see Mark 4). A week later I read about how the Lord can "[r]estore our fortunes, as streams renew the desert" (Ps.126:5).  I thought, well that's well and good, and just kind of left those texts on the back burner, so to speak. However, today my eyes fell on an unusual text wherein Jesus says a quite unusual and radical thing: "I have come to set the world on fire, and I wish it were already burning!" (Luke 12). Well needless to say I had to rethink a few things, including all these references to deserts, heat, sun, fire and so on. And yet, what kind of fire is Jesus talking about, and what on earth does that have to do with wildfires?

That's the question I'm grappling with, but I do feel there is something to this. You see, a couple of verses after Jesus says he has come to set the world on fire, he talks to the crowd saying, “When you see clouds beginning to form in the west, you say, ‘Here comes a shower.’ And you are right. When the south wind blows, you say, ‘Today will be a scorcher.’ And it is. You fools! You know how to interpret the weather signs of the earth and sky, but you don’t know how to interpret the present times." I believe that is what is at the heart of this. Let us take a moment to ponder how what is happening in the physical reflects upon and touches the spiritual. (For that is what man is after all, flesh in this world, but also spirit, now and for eternity). 

Let me lead you down a rabbit trail for a moment. In God's Word, fire was used as a symbol for refining, judgment, but also interestingly, was a symbol of God's presence and of worship. In particular, fire was used on the altars where various offerings were made to the LORD. The fire was always started by the hands of man, save in a few instances where the Bible talks of God lighting the fire on the altar and also of His presence coming like a consuming fire, literally burning and consuming the offerings given to Him. Other religions of the time also had altars with fire and offerings, namely to the god Molech to whose firey altar they fed their own children. The point? Fire can be man made, but there is also such a things as God's Holy and All-Consuming Fire. Oh I could go on. How Jesus is described as having eyes that blaze like fire, how believer's go through the refiner's fire, how the Word talks of a baptism by the Holy Spirit and by fire...and lastly, how there is an eternal lake of fire. But note here the difference between God's pure, powerful and ultimately good fire, and the rather weak and at times nefarious use of fire by the hands of man.

So - lest I drag this on longer than it already will - what struck me the most in all of this, is that these wildfires are certainly not something caused by God. Rather, they are an example of fires that have been brought about by man, in that they are a reflection of a quite broken world. The earth is groaning, and it is not functioning as God created it to be because of man's sin. 
Yet what also became clear to me is that, God does desire to bring fire, but it is primarily a spiritual fire. It is His holy fire, a refining and purifying, lasting flame, upon the hearts and spirits of mankind that He desire, but we are simply not letting Him. 

You see, His fire is not always free of pain. It brings about a choice in us to live more consecrated lives to His will and ways, it requires us to lay down all of our ugly selves, to  let Him 'burn all that is within us that He desires to be silent' (Jason Upton: Silence) so that we might truly know who He is and what He's all about. And that's a fire that we as the Church, have not allowed to burn. Remember the parable of the virgins that need to keep the flame burning? My question becomes: have we kept the flame burning? And what consequences has that had on this earth? Have we now let the unholy fire of man rage on unquenchably? And is that not a spiritual state that we are seeing happening in the physical? And yet we are indeed still as blind as Jesus accused His crowd of being, where they could easily read the signs and patterns of the weather, but truly could not read the signs of the age and time they were in.

Oh but my prayer in this is not only that we as the Church would invite His holy fire to burn once again, but also that we would have the courage and strength to let Him do so, to stand in the midst of the fire that can be oh so painful to us that have built up so much dross. Truly, Ps. 126 is prophetic in this, because it is their hope and joy in God that becomes their strength, where even when they go through trials and pain, they ultimately come rejoicing as they bring in the fruits of their labor.

  ⁵ Those who plant in tears
      will harvest with shouts of joy.
 ⁶ They weep as they go to plant their seed,
      but they sing as they return with the harvest.