Log

“After this the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them on ahead of Him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to come.” (Luke 10:1).

Acts (Bible Art)

My husband and his brother like lighting fires.  This is not to say that they are arsons, but rather, that they find a lot of enjoyment in lighting a fireplace and sitting beside the fire quietly watching it burn.

This means that my husband and his brother find many opportunities to light fires.  They light fires for barbeques, they light fires to keep warm in winter, they light fires when they go camping.  And sometimes, they light fires on a cold winter’s night so that they can sit outside and roast chestnuts and have a glass of wine and some warm snacks.

When you light a lot of fires, you get very used to getting a fire started.  There is a sort of art about it.  After all, it is not as simple as throw some logs into the fire and then toss in a match.  The fire cannot burn like that.  Instead, to get the fire started, one must first burn tinder and build the flame.  Over time, the fire becomes bigger and as the fire grows, so too does the heat.  And if a person wishes to cook on the fire, they cannot start cooking when the fire is at its peak.  Instead, they need to wait until the fire dies down so that they can deal with a manageable amount of heat.

And I have been thinking of that today.

You see, Christ clearly understood how to start a fire.  And He made use of tinder to fuel the flame.  And that tinder was the disciples, who He sent out to all the places where He would go, to spread the Good News in His Name…

“After this the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them on ahead of Him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to come. And He said to them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.’” (Luke 10:1-9).

And it occurs to me today that everything that we try to do must be humble.  You see, if the disciples thought to themselves, I will be able to do this and I have been entrusted to do this by the Master, why should I remain small and humble of heart, if instead of realising that they were tinder for the flame, they believed that they were the log in the flame, instead of being useful to the fire, they would have been able completely useless and there would have been no flame at all.

And so, today, as I consider the log in the fire and I consider the process of making fire, I consider also, my own purpose in God’s plan.  And it occurs to me that God has a purpose for me – and my only role is to remain humble and to be available for God to make use of me as He sees fit.

And today, that seems as though that will take a very big amount of Grace.  A very very big amount of Grace…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.