Firewood

Since it’s been colder out, I’ve spent a lot of time in front of my fireplace. In fact, I’m sitting by the fire right now. Watching the flames consume the wood Brian and I cut ourselves, I’ve noticed some things. Although the fire itself never changes, there are different kinds of wood.
One kind of wood is thin and easy to carry. I like to use those pieces of wood to get the fire going. They catch pretty quickly, so I can use them to light the bigger logs stacked on top of them. But the thin logs also don’t last very long, and they don’t leave behind many coals, so they don’t create much heat. They just sort of flame up and die.
Then there are the humongous logs that I can barely pick up. They look nice in the fireplace, and they certainly have a lot of substance to them, but actually getting them to catch fire is a chore. You either have to put in more firestarters to get them going, or you have to put them on a bed of coals you’ve been working on all day. Even then, they’re going to smother your best coals before they’re done. If they ever blaze at all they’ll leave behind some good coals when they’re gone, but who has time to wait that long?
The best kind of logs for a fire that burns all day and creates a lot of heat are those middle sized ones. They are easily carried, and they usually have some good bark on them that catches relatively quickly. They are small enough that the fire can cut into them and create coals that make some serious heat, but they’re big enough that their flames don’t die out before the coals can be made. Sometimes I get a medium sized log that’s been soaked by the rain, and I know it’s gonna fill the house with smoke, but once it’s been on those coals for a while, I know it will blaze to life.

If we, as Christians, are going to spread the flame of the Gospel to the ends of the earth, or just to our neighbor’s house, we have a choice to make. We have to choose which kind of wood we’re gonna be.

Some of us are the thin logs. We’ve decided we want to miss Hell, and we may even burn with passion for a little while, but because we haven’t invested in personal study, desperate prayer, or intentional fellowship with other believers, we’ve stayed small. We may encourage others to passion in our heated moments, but we really aren’t going to last long. Soon enough, something will come along that will turn our heads (or our hearts), and all that will be left of us will be a warm memory.
Others of us have become the humongous logs. We’ve spent time in study. We’ve been in every church service and Bible study known to man. We’ve read every book written by Piper and Warren, and we can say the books of the Bible in order. We know the songs. We know the language. We know the dress code. But, frankly, we’re too big for our britches. We’re too proud to be broken and too respected to kneel. We’re too right to forgive and too righteous to empathize. Yeah, we look good, but mostly we’re just smothering the passion around us. Sure, if we ever really catch fire we’ll create some real heat, but who has time to wait for that?
What we really need to be, what will turn the church in Greenville into an infectious fire that will spread and endure, are those middle sized logs. We need to be beefy enough from our time in the study of the word and face time with God that we have substance. No more changing with the times. No more bailing when things get hard. No more bowing to the desires of our selfish hearts. We need to have an openness to God’s voice and those around us that opens our eyes and ears and feeds our passions — that layer of bark that surrounds us. But we also need to make sure we aren’t so big that the flames can’t cut into us. We have to be willing to let ourselves be cut to pieces so we can become the true power behind the blaze of passion — those white-hot coals that feed everything else. Yeah, sometimes life may dampen our spirits, but when the smoke clears, the flames won’t be far behind.

–amm

Advertisement