Rekindling the Fire
 Some
of us live on a farm in Vermont, and we heat our home with a woodstove.
Many a cold morning I’ve gone to the stove and opened it
up to find only a pile of ashes. Although it seems to be dead,
I stir up the heap and blow on those black and gray coals, bringing
to life a dull red glow in the burnt-out belly of that stove.
I rake the coals all together in a pile, and the more I gently
blow on the embers the brighter they glow until they’re hot
enough to ignite some tinder. I rekindle the fire.
A man’s heart is like an ember hidden beneath the ashes,
just waiting to be stirred up and inspired, hoping to apprehend
some bit of the truth to wake up what lies dormant. Some hearts
burn to know the truth. We believe that people can still hear
it, and that the truth stands on its own. Anyone who wants to
know the truth will hear and accept it. But what is it?
We want to be real about who we are. We don’t want you to
think we’re lofty and beyond everyone else. But there is
an amazing quality in our people. The word holy is like the word
wholly. Though most of us were living aimless lives, we all wholly
desired to know the truth, and were willing to give everything
to get it. When the gentle breath of the truth blew on the smoldering
embers in our hearts, it caught our whole life on fire. When we
heard it we just couldn’t go back to our same old jobs, our
same old routines, habits and hobbies, our same old lives. We
could never be the same again. We had to be wholly devoted to
our God. That’s what it means to be holy. Now our hearts
are glowing.
We are a people with prophetic vision, a people with a hope to
be a light to the world,[1] a city set on a hill,[2] a holy nation,[3]
one that will startle the rulers and kings of other nations and
leave them speechless.[4] We hope to become the “stone”
kingdom that will ultimately topple the intimidating “statue”
of this current world order, displacing it with a kingdom of love
that will fill the entire earth in the coming age.[5] Right now
we’re like that small pile of embers raked together in the
belly of my old woodstove. The breath of God is gently blowing
on us.
We are living to see this hope that burns in our hearts consume
the whole earth. However, our dreams, aspirations, and vision
of who we are as a people are nothing apart from our King, Yahshua
the Messiah, the Son of God. We are His own possession.[6] We
don’t want to be anything other than that; we don’t
want to be anywhere else but where He is, and we don’t want
to do anything other than what He’s doing. We’re in
love with Him, and He’s in love with us.
His love is making those embers hot. He has raked us all together,
breathed on us, and is getting a warm glow going. And He is sifting
through the ashes of this fallen world, looking for more embers
to rake into the pile until there’s enough to burst into
a flame.
Maybe you’re one of them.
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[1] Matthew 5:14; Isaiah 49:6
[2] Matthew 5:14
[3] 1 Peter 2:9
[4] Isaiah 52:15
[5] Daniel 2:44-45
[6] 1 Peter 2:9
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