Light Fire With Fire

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May 15, 2008 | No comments yet

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By:  Staci Stallings

 

I’d never really thought about this until the other night.  Do you know what the only way to start a fire is?  You cannot start a fire by stacking logs or even by wishing really hard that something will happen.  The only way you can start a fire is with a fire that’s already started.

 

To start a fire, it takes making some kind of spark, lighting a match, or a zap of electricity—something that’s already fire when it touches the thing you want to light.  Now this lesson, as often happens, is not just true in the physical world but in the spiritual as well.  If you want to light your fire, you’ve got to find a spark. 

 

Maybe that spark is God’s Word or a devotional.  Maybe it’s prayer or joining with others or maybe even just being in nature.  But a fire does not just spontaneously happen.  In your soul, you get lit by being close to another fire.

 

The cool thing is, once you are on fire, it’s pretty hard not to light a few others on fire as well.  For years I have said that I don’t consciously evangelize.  I live.  If my life is not a witness for what God has done in my life, then any words I put together or acts that I do are ultimately empty and meaningless.

 

BUT when I let the love God has for me become so real in my life and my consciousness, I cannot help but light others on fire for Him as well.  It’s funny to me now to read motivational or psychology books that don’t talk about God.  It’s like they see the surface and believe that’s all there is.

 

Can you imagine going to the ocean and looking out over that vast expanse of waves and think, “That’s the ocean.  That’s all there is.  Just a vast expanse of nothing.”  Of course that would be silly for now because of people who love the water, we know that the surface is nowhere near the whole story. 

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That’s the way I feel about my faith.  The surface is nice, but if that’s as deep as it goes, I’ve missed the point.  When someone meets me for the first time, they might not realize at first how deeply intricate to me my beliefs are, but hang around more than a couple hours, and something about God is going to come up.  Not because I’m showing off or trying to talk them into something, but because I talk regularly about all my best friends including my best-best friend God.

 

So I hope that my fire which I am so blessed that God chose to light in me goes out and lights others on fire, who then go out and light others….

Is God’s fire burning in you?  If so, let it show and go light some fire.

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