Are you burning? Are you on fire?
Both of those phrases can be positive or negative, depending on where your head and heart are.
If your skin is charred and peeling off, that’s not too good. But if if you’re on fire or passionate or have an appropriate burning desire for the good, this is a virtue.
There’s another possibility – you’re burning because you’re passing through the fire.
I’m sharing this with Christians, but there are some principles anyone can apply.
Ancient script talks about this. Here’s a sampler, from the English Standard Version:
Isaiah 48:10 – Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver;
I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.
1 Peter 1:7 – so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Proverbs 17:3 – The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the Lord tests hearts.
1 Peter 4:12 – Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.
There is an obvious theme here, right? It’s all about a refining fire.
Look. I don’t have any first-hand experience with refining fire. I’ve seen a foundry where iron was melted down. But my understanding is that in the area of precious metals, you have to heat silver and gold ore to extraordinary temperatures to separate the bad stuff from the good. But you knew that already.
You’re probably way ahead of me, but that’s okay.
The sticky question is – in these challenging days, what’s God up to? Are you burning?
I’m not gonna get into a theological treatise here. There are all sorts away to approach the providence of God, and that’s not my point. Point is – we are here, and how we got here isn’t relevant to my discussion. If it was late at night and we were sitting around a dorm room (six feet apart, but truth is, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere with anyone outside my household.)
The only thing I’ll say is that nothing happens by accident. There is always a Cause. Coincidence? Ain’t no such thing.
As a part of that truth, I’ll say this to you, Fellow Believer: God has specific ways of preparing us for Kingdom work. He wants to pass us through a fire (the fire?) in order for us to be what we need to be in these days, and in days to come.
But being a disciple of His doesn’t come without some hard, hard things. The only way a refiner’s fire can do what it’s supposed to do is when the heat is on. Are you on fire? Are you being broken down and all the impurities in your life being burned away?
I’m trying to avoid cliches and platitudes here. I don’t want to sound like a fortune cookie.
Here’s this, then: Until God completes that work in you, burning out the bad things, you won’t be able to fully accomplish His work through you. Sure, you’ll be able to do good things. But to be burning means that God is purging all the unrighteousness out of your life. Yikes.
Don’t waste these days. Are you burning?
I know this sounds almost perverse, but I can’t get away from it: These are days of encouragement. God’s overriding commitment is to take you, grossness and all, and to burn, purge, totally remove everything from your life that keeps you from showing anything that is not of Him.
He wants to bring you to the end of yourself.
Your job is to not put out the fire.