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Posts Tagged ‘fire of God’

Waiting for the Fire

Posted in Lent, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 17, 2016| Leave a Comment »

flame of loveListen, God! Please, pay attention!
Can you make sense of these ramblings,
my groans and cries?
    King-God, I need your help.
Every morning
    you’ll hear me at it again.
Every morning
    I lay out the pieces of my life
    on your altar
    and watch for fire to descend. [Psalm 5:1-3, The Message]

Have you ever just prayed and prayed for something in particular? And prayed. And still the heavens are silent. We’re waiting for the fire to descend, the fire of the Holy Spirit to step into the situation, to alter it, to heal it, to divide it, to just manifest! Darn it!

I believe in the fire of heaven. I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in the God of the Universe, sweet Spirit, in all and through. But the longer I keep my God alive within, the more sure I am that no desire on my part will bring the fire. I don’t have the timetable.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t pray, even fervently, but the prayer has to be without that one eye open – the eye that is looking for results. The more we look for the fire, the less likely we will see anything. Besides, it’s more likely that the miracle, the answer, the fire of God, will come in an unlikely form. In the same way that the Israelites looked for a warrior Messiah and a conqueror; instead, they got a mild-mannered carpenter who carried no obvious weapon, hired no bodyguards, and enlisted no troops. And yet, that Jesus and that ragtag dozen turned the world upside down.

Paul writes, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” [Philippians 4:12, NIV] And yet, he was also a mighty prayer warrior. He believed he was living out, each and every day, eachHoly spirit dove and every trial, answers to his prayers.

After all, there is still the simplicity of Psalm 118:24, “This is the day the Lord has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it.” The fire is in every day, every hour, every minute. You don’t have to “see” the fire to trust. Holy Spirit, flame of love.

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Mutual Nearness

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 10, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Chicken or the egg: I come near to God first or God comes near to me? It’s a circle for a reason, there is no beginning or end to God-nearness.

James 4:8
Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Brian McLaren, in his latest book, Naked Spirituality: a life with God in 12 simple words, uses the word “here” to begin his journey with God: “I am here, God is here, I am here with God.” This is how I imagine mutual nearness, like a dance or a mirror exercise in which no one can tell who is leading, who is following. It’s a unity.

And when I have awareness of God-nearness, I am also quickened. I see myself more clearly, I see places within me that are not connecting, like sunspots, they are of a different heat but the wrong kind of intense activity. They are my inner Adam and Eve hiding in the garden [Genesis 3:8-10].

It is only when I am near that I can understand and see what needs to be purified, what needs to be cleansed. There is cleansing by water, this removes the surface problems, the obvious issues, this is relatively easy and although it may take time, it is not particularly painful.

But the second, the purification of the heart, this is the inner cleansing and there is no quick fix to sins of the heart. The deeper they are stored, the more intense the process.

As I prayed over this passage, the old song came immediately to mind, Refiner’s Fire, my heart’s one desire is to be holy. Like purifying gold, there must be fire. This is not some fiery hell at all, it’s white fire, it’s holy, it’s laser specific, it’s the power of God released into the heart of the matter.

They say mothers no longer remember the pain of childbirth once the child is born: the wonder of the living outshines the suffering. So it is with the cleansing fire of God.

If I want to be close, then I have to be willing to be transparent and clear.

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Fan the Flame

Posted in Lent, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 26, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Photo by J P Shuler

First, Paul chastised Timothy for “neglecting the gift” he was given through the laying on of hands and now, with the second letter, he goes one step further and charges him to be more active, to “fan the flame.”

II Timothy 1:6
For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

Apparently, it’s possible to kindle and even ignite the gift that is within us. Paul adds three words that must be part of this combustible process: power (that would be the Holy Spirit), love (that would be the Holy Spirit), and self-discipline (uh, in my case, the only way that would happen would be through the Holy Spirit as well).

Sometimes the Holy Spirit is spoken of as a wind [John 3:8, Acts 2:2], and sometimes fire [Luke 3:16, Acts 2:3], and anyone who has a fireplace or is building a campfire knows that you need air and an initial spark to get a fire going.

I am convinced, once again, that it’s the Holy Spirit who is critical to an authentic, passionate, and propagating faith in God and commitment to the Christ, that great mystery of all mysteries.

Come, Spirit, breathe on me. Light the fire again.

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Spirit Quenching

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , on February 13, 2011| 2 Comments »

If we are told to NOT quench the Spirit, then it must be possible. We must lean toward quenching on occasion or maybe more often than that. Apparently, it’s a concern. It requires adjustment. It’s a call for change. Or simply: stop doing it!

I Thessalonians 5:19
Do not quench the Spirit. [NIV]
Do not quench (suppress or subdue) the [Holy] Spirit; [Amplified]

When I finished my most recent fast in November, I became aware of my ongoing struggle with “grieving the Holy Spirit” and how my behaviors and my choices were interfering with the free flow of that Spirit within.

Quenching that same Spirit, is just another way of saying the same thing. It’s putting out the fire. It’s extinguishing, choking off, and dampening the passion. It’s pulling back.

Here’s one problem I can see happening with this directive. Some people don’t recognize the Holy Spirit in their lives and therefore, don’t even realize they’re in the quenching business. It’s hard to “stop” doing something if one doesn’t realize what that might look like. Have I? Have I, in my haste to move on to the next thing, to go for the feeling, or whatever, have I actually drowned the still small voice?

A friend told me of a small group of women who meet regularly for “the wait.” They don’t plan what happens, they wait. They don’t necessarily sing or shout or pray out loud, they don’t seek a miracle or a sign, they respond. They listen first. They wait and then they share what they have heard with one another. They are putting a firebrand to the embers. They are kindling the fire.

“Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of us your faithful and kindle in us the fire of Your love. . . ”

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Living in the Light

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 11, 2010| 2 Comments »

God's Light by Max Ash

God is light [I John 1:5]; God is love [I John 4:8]. And I am offered a chance to live my life in the circle of both: light and love. I ask for God’s indwelling and both are available to me. So, why do I continue to shutter the light and edit the love? Why do I “kick against the goads?”

Ephesians 5:8-10
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.

This is the prayer that Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity would recite each day (by John Henry Cardinal Newman)

Dear Jesus,
Help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go.
Flood my soul with Your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly,
that my life may only be a radiance of Yours.
Shine through me, and be so in me
that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul.
Let them look up and see no longer me,
but only Jesus!
Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as you shine,
so to shine as to be a light to others;
the light, O Jesus will be all from You;
none of it will be mine;
it will be you, shining on others through me.
Let me thus praise You the way You love best,
by shining on those around me.
Let me preach You without preaching,
not by words but by my example,
by the catching force of the sympathetic influence of what I do,
the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You.
Amen.

It’s a process, that’s why. It’s a daily prayer, a daily unveiling, an awareness, a practice.

I’m thinking this is more difficult alone than in a group. The whole point of fellowship with other light-minded people is to help keep the light shining, to fan the flame, to encourage the embers, to light the darkness.

“Kindle in me the fire of your love . . . ”

(FD5)

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Deposit of the Holy Spirit

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on July 26, 2010| 1 Comment »

when I set up one of those new Paypal accounts, before I could use it, I had to allow them to make a very small deposit into my bank account. Then, I had to keep checking my account and once I recognized it, let them know. This verified the connection. That’s how the Holy Spirit starts too.

II Corinthians 5:5
Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

I think people expect the Holy Spirit to drop into their lives like a flood or a whirlwind. But truly, I think it’s just a mini-deposit. That is, until we get better at letting the Spirit have access and place in our hearts.

A true taste of the Holy Spirit is like a single bite of the most extraordinary dessert in the world. It’s sweet and multi-faceted. It’s has a taste that lasts. And most of all, it gives us a desire for more.

The mini-deposit of the Holy Spirit is a promise of what is possible, what is available, what is real.

Like the story of the mustard seed [Matthew 17:20], the things of God are so powerful that it only takes a little bit to have to great effect.

This is why one person can indeed make a difference in the world. One person among billions is no bigger than a mustard seed or a grain of sand.

I think I’ve been looking for the mega deposit, the swoosh of wind and the tongues of fire, when all along, the little mini-deposit has been sitting there, inside my heart, waiting to be acknowledged for all that it can do.

Burn brightly, sweet ember of the Lord.

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God Fire

Posted in Time Up to Pentecost, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 20, 2010| Leave a Comment »

One of my favorite worship songs is “Refiner’s Fire” by Brian Doerksen. It’s an invitation. Funny, so many people get hung up on “hell fire,” forgetting about “God-fire.”

I Corinthians 3:13
” . . . [the] work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work.”

There are several scriptures that refer to the cleansing power of fire. I know it and I understand it and yet, when the fire comes, the testing, the trials, I’m crying bitter tears.

It’s simple really. As a Christian, I profess building my world on the foundation of the Messiah, the redeeming Christ. Anything that is built on anything else will not last. Sometimes that “anything else” is wrong motives or secret desires or lies or even denial.

When the things (ministries, churches, missions, schools, productions) humankind builds in the name of God fail, be assured, the foundation was compromised.

Some people claim it was the power of evil that broke through their plans and perhaps that’s true. But, I maintain that God is sovereign. And no power can stand against God. No, it is not God that is the problem nor Satan, that great enemy. It’s just us. We build too quickly or too soon. We are impatient beings. We are impatient believers.

I trust the fire of God. I must. I will. I do.

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