We sat down after dinner on New Year’s Eve and talked about what we would like to do to celebrate the New Year. My daughter said she would love a fire, and we soon had one blazing in the fire pit in the back yard on a mild South Texas evening. We sat around the fire, talking about the past year and our dreams and ideas for the future. It was a beautiful way to end one year and prepare for the next.
Every once in a while, the fire would begin to die, and one of us would run over to the woodpile and pull out some new pieces of wood to place on the fire. We’d had a wet fall and a recent drizzly day, so the newly added wood smoked for a while until the heat from the coals dried it and caused it to burst into flame.
That simple process made me think about how God keeps moving in our lives, making changes, adding new things, and stirring us up so that the flame of His Spirit can keep burning brightly. If we refuse the changes or don’t want anything new entering our lives, our flame would quickly die out. We might burn brightly for a while, but then our flame would begin to smolder. We might resent the stirring of our coals and we might not appreciate the new wood being heaped on us, making us smoke and struggle to ignite, but all that is needed to keep our flame burning brightly.
So, as I observed the flames, I wanted to toss away my reluctance to change. I prayed to be open to the things God chooses to bring into my life. I want to keep the flame of God’s Holy Spirit burning brightly this year, both to stay warm myself and to draw others to the beauty of His warm love.