Rekindling The Flame...

It’s an early morning and the sun is not quite up yet as you slide out of your sleeping bag into the frosty, foggy morning air. You glance over at your fire pit only to see just a pile of whitish, grey ash and a few burnt ends of the sticks and logs that just a few hours earlier was a blazing miracle of warmth and light.

Now, as you stumble over to the remains of your fire, you take one of the sticks laying to the side and begin to stir the ashes. Splaying your fingers over the ashes, you feel a slight, lingering heat.  Then, deep down, underneath the ash, you find a small collection of coals that have been slumbering while you also slept.  However, you also realize that if you don’t get some fresh fuel on those exposed embers, they too, will soon be completely extinguished.

Digging around in your rucksack, your fingers finally clutch your goal; the shopping bag of dry tinder you wisely collected and protected from the sleet and snow that your camp endured for the night.  Starting with the dried grasses and bark, you begin to gently lay them upon those few, struggling coals. Then, you carefully pile the pencil sized sticks on top in a teepee fashion.

At first, nothing happens and you begin to run over the steps to making a fire in your mind.  “What does a fire need? What does this fire need? A fire needs heat, fuel and oxygen in the right proportion for a flame to arise. I have the heat, I have the dry fuel but this fire is not burning so it must need more oxygen….”  With that thought in mind, you bend way over until your face, turned sideways, is almost on the ground. Then, gently and tenderly, as if you were nurturing an infant, you begin to blow underneath the pile of grasses, bark and sticks, focusing the small stream of air directly on the embers beneath.

Slowly, the coals beneath begin to respond to your ministrations. At first a dull orange and then a bright red color emerges. A tiny tendril of smoke begins to curl up from the top of the fire lay. You now increase the force of air from your lungs, being careful not to breathe in the smoke or blow so hard as to scatter the materials you so carefully saved and placed.

Finally, a small flame leaps up and licks hungrily at the fuel above it. Just like you, your baby fire is eager for it’s breakfast and takes rapid advantage of its food.  Within minutes, a hot but small fire is burning once again but you know that it will rapidly burn through the small amount of fuel available to it. So, you hurriedly begin to pull together the burnt ends of the larger sticks that were laying around the remains of last night’s fire. Soon, the flames are taking hold of the more substantial, wrist sized material and you lean back on your heels, hands held out to the fire like two solar panels, warming and energizing your body as the heated blood courses through your veins.

Once more you have successfully endured the night and rekindled a dying fire.  You pull out your coffee pot and begin to make your morning brew. After a few minutes, with your favorite java finally and firmly in your hand, it’s time to sit back and contemplate the deeper things of life.  Breakfast can wait a few more minutes…

Spiritually speaking, we sometimes find ourselves in the same condition as the dying fire. It’s been a long time since we felt the hot flame of passionate love for others or the heat of the call of God to service or felt the warmth of the Spirit in our soul.  The storm of the night and the darkness of sin in our world has sapped us of strength and vitality. The fuel from the last revival, camp meeting or ministry outreach conference has all but burned away.  As God’s Spirit awakens us to our condition, we feel the coldness of our spiritual experience surrounding us. There’s no light and there’s no heat in our testimony.

So, we desperately begin to stir the ashes of our experience. Calling upon God for the fresh wind of the Spirit, we begin to read the Scriptures and long for a new flame upon our heart.  We begin to listen to music and messages from those who can minister to our heart and we begin to make plans for attending a service, a meeting, a gathering together of God’s people somewhere, anywhere. And, as we stir up our pure mind, remembering God’s blessings and as we put this fresh fuel upon the few, remaining embers in our hearts, once again, the flame leaps up with new life and new interest. With a renewed mind and vigor, we once more begin to look expectantly toward the future, anticipating with excitement the call of God upon our life, determined to keep the flame alive and not let it go out like that ever again, by God’s Grace and Help.

If you are struggling in your spiritual life, if you feel you have no life and that everything around you is hopeless, dead or dying; maybe you need to rekindle the flame!

“Wherefore He saith, “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead and Christ shall give thee light.”   Ephesians 5:14 KJV

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Thanks for reading!

James B