Richer Flames

Let me be honest with you for a moment, I’ve been walking through a challenging month. Unexpected, surprising circumstances arose and there has been wrestling, doubting, questioning, uncertainty, and yet there has been beauty, brokenness, depth, intimacy, refinement, grace, and hope. 

When circumstances arise in our lives that we weren’t expecting, there becomes a question I believe in our minds of “why is this happening, did I do something wrong?” And yet, it’s something that the Lord is allowing to happen. Yes, allowing. He allows situations, events, challenges to all happen in our lives. Why? Great question. The reason I think that He does allow them to happen is because He is desiring for us to draw closer to Him. Yet, isn’t it funny how we feel like we are going through the fire in the midst of it all? What a kind, caring, and loving God we have right? Truth is, He is, let me explain. 

Fire when looked at for what it is and what it does brings destruction. Forest fires, a house burning down, third degree burns on your skin…none of them showing things of life. Yet as the heat of the flame can bring death, it can bring powerful life and beauty. As the ashes fall, they allow nutrients to spread into the ground, enabling plants to thrive. Even though fire seems bad, it can ultimately bring good. Every test, challenge, circumstance, every difficult, painful, fearful, and heavy burden, strengthens, develops, refines, and redefines who we are in Christ. 

Sometimes, God allows the flame to come so that we can get uncomfortable, to have us redefine our need for Him, and to polish what is coming. Yes, the coming. Just as the soil becomes richer after the flame has died, that new plant can spring up from the depths of the heat and something more beautiful arises from the ashes…hope.

I’ve been struggling to understand the depth of hope, how to define it, how to think of it, and where to place it. For I desire something that I may never gain, yet the Lord is calling me to hope. “Hope in the things to come” He tells me. “Have confident expectation in me.” I struggle, I weep, I burst out in fits of frustration. Because why hope, when I’ve walked through something like this before? What is the point, if I already know the outcome?

But, I don’t. I don’t know the outcome. We never truly do. We like to project what we think and believe will be the outcome, however the One who has allowed this situation to arise knows what is to come. He is simply asking for obedience and faithfulness in the fire. “Will you drown out the rest of the voices around you and listen to mine?” “Will you trust me, and believe that I am going through the fire with you?” It’s hard to believe that when we are in the midst of everything. To feel like He is really there. 

The beautiful thing is that the Gospel goes deeper than feelings. Love is not always overwhelming. Devotion is not always fiery. Passion doesn’t always make your heart race. Our love for Him is not a feeling; it’s a promise of faithfulness.

A promise of faithfulness is something that seems too lofty to attain and yet also something we don’t deserve. For why would I deserve the full affection, love, passion, and devotion that He gives when I’ve rejected, yelled at, been angry with, and have turned away from over and over?

I don’t. You don’t. However, He still says that you and I are a pearl of prized possession. And even more, He says that we deserve to have that treasure too. Unimaginable right? Except, to Him its the very thing He wants to give. He wants to give us His most prized possession, His full unconditional love. It’s so hard to accept. To know that we are worthy of receiving. It makes no sense, just as allowing the fire to come, yet to Him it’s His way to get our eyes back on Him, to draw closer, and build deeper intimacy so that we may begin to understand the magnitude of just how worthy we are to receive love.