Self-Portrait in. . . Fire?

No..this isn't about what the man shouts at a firing squad, or what an officer says on the battle line. Nor is it about the case settled by the Supreme Court about yelling that word in a crowded space. It's about Fire. That thing you put in a fireplace, or you'll have burning at a campfire. What follows might have been conceived by someonelse before me, but I will attest that I have never heard it before I penned these words the saturday night before Martin Luther King, Jr. day - 1/13/2007.

I think it's really cool how God has given us so many representations of himself. So many images of Himself - his power, love, grace, mercy - everything that is God, the creator of heaven and earth. No wonder Paul wrote in Romans 1 that we are without excuse because God's qualities are proclaimed throughout nature, or the Psalmist penned Psalm 19 "The Heavens declare the glory of God. . ." I am particularly taken by His self-portrait through water, but that's not what caught my eye this evening. I think God put a little bit of pyro in me, and the fact that He's painted another self-portrait in Fire is just another amazing thing He's done. A lot of people have talked about God, and His spirit as a purifying, or refining fire. He's also been referred to as a consuming fire. Watching a fire, like a house fire or a forest fire, you can get the picture of a consuming fire no problem, but watching a fire in a fireplace or fire pit..that's something else. It's a consuming, growing, and sustaining fire.

I was looking at one of these fires tonight, while we were having a time of prayer at our young adult retreat, and someone put a new log on the fire we had going, and I started to watch it as I was praying about a lot different things. The log was new fuel to the fire that had been going for a few hours got brighter and higher as it began to consume the new log. As it did this, I saw the whole fire - the new log being consumed, the logs that had been consumed and were no longer giving fuel, and the embers, still hot and glowing.

In all this I see God. God is fire, and when He is introdruced to something, or rather when someone is introduced to Him the outside things are easily burned away. Like fire begins on the outside of a log, the bark and debris, are quickly burned and taken away and you see that bright flame from the easily combustible material. After that initial burst of flame, often times, it seems like the wood will do no more but serve as a support for everything else going on in the fire. Often times, that is the case, and nothing does happen with those logs. Then there are times when there's a crack in the wood, the fire makes its way into inside of the log - the deeper part where there is much more fuel to be burned. Sometimes, someone comes along and stirs up the fire, breaking the logs that aren't being burned as fuel to be opened up to let the fire into where the unconsumed part is. Sometimes you just need to break the log to get it going again.

When that wood is finally consumed, and is burning within because of the heat, it's an ember - softly, slowly continuing to burn. It doesn't need to flare up, but there are times when it will. Sometimes it's caused by air blowing on it, or fuel coming in contact with it. What the most important thing the ember does is carry within it it the searing heat and combustion of the fire. When that red hot ember touches some wood, it ignites the wood to spread the fire further, and to keep it burning. Eventually turning that wood into an ember again.

I pray that someday I will be an ember, fully consumed and spreading the Fire.