Burn Baby! Burn!

--
Firewood that won't burn just isn't worth a diddly!

The storm had been blustering all day as each of us went about our various activities--Hero Husband at work, me at my Bible study, Drummer-Boy taking college mid-terms and She-So-Sweet making 8th grade look easy.

At the store on the way home, the kids and I picked up a few things we needed. "Please Mom, can we have a fire?"

Hero Husband was doing a guest lecture at Drummer-Boy's college, so it would be up to me. Against my better judgment, and indulging my own love of fires in the fireplace on cool autumn evenings, I helped them get the fireplace ready. I tried all the tricks I knew for building fires correctly and effectively, but the dry-as-a-bone log WOULD. NOT. CATCH. FIRE. It would tease us and act like it just might, and then, nope! Just smoke and half-hearted little embers only on the very surface.

Smoke, smoke and more smoke, until we were choking on it, but no bright, happy flame, no warmth to chase away the chill, no satisfying and festive crackle to add to the fun. As firewood goes, this log was a real dud and this was decidedly NOT fun.

Hero Husband tried his hand at it when he got home, but to no avail. The log was just too dense, too hard, too stubborn to surrender to the flames. We finally gave up on having the cozy fire we had envisioned and I got busy helping She-So-Sweet with her algebra homework. The darn log wouldn't burn, but it was still smoldering and producing smoke. When we could stand it no longer, I took the offending log out to the BBQ to let it smolder where it couldn't bother us any more.

My annoyance has yet to subside--it will probably be with me as long as my entire house smells like the smoke from the log that refused to burn!

Refused to burn. Hmm. Too dense, too hard to surrender. Hmm.

"Do not put out the Spirit’s fire;"

1 Thessalonians 5:19 NIV

Do I ever refuse to burn? Do I ever resist the Spirit's fire in my life? Does He ever want to burn bright from my life, but I won't let Him light the flame?

Oh, I hope not! I hope I never miss out on the opportunity to burn for Him, giving light and warmth and comforting, crackling joy to those close by!! I always want to let His power glow in me, hot and effective, releasing His energy into the world around me. I want to Burn Baby! Burn! every minute of my life until He has been able to use every part of me for the glory of my Lord Jesus--I don't want big charred chunks of stubborn me left over like that blasted log, useless, discarded, annoying . . . wasted. I don't want to merely smolder and smoke and in so doing, choke people. I want to burn with vigor and passion and be a sweet aroma that makes everyone want to gather around the fire of the Spirit that uses me to spread His light.

Will you pray with me that Christians everywhere will catch a vision for letting Him burn us up for His glory??? People need us to be bright with His fire--the world is very dark for them, and some of them won't realize just how dark until they come close to our dancing light and sparkling flames!! Burn Baby! Burn!!