fire [1.4.12]

I can’t stop thinking about fire. Not in like a pyromaniac sort of way, but in what exactly fire symbolizes in my life. I don’t think there is fire in Hell. I really don’t. I think Hell is probably cold. It is void of the Presence of God, so I imagine it is cold and dark and has an empty echo to it, because it is truly eternity alone. No, I don’t imagine there is fire in Hell.

I say this because I think our lives are full of fire already… I know there are different types of fire but I don’t see fire as negatively at the moment. Sure there are the fires of peril. . .

“When you pass through the waters I will be with you, and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” Isaiah 43:2

That passage has been one of my absolute favorite promises from God in the past few years. I was always telling Him that He promised to bring me through the fires without being harmed. But still I felt like I was always in the midst of something that felt awfully like fire. . .

Then Sunday in church I realized we were singing a song praying “Fire fall down”.  . . Calling for the fire of God to fall down…. I saw visions of flannel graph Sunday school stories . . . Elijah and the false prophets on Mount Carmel, building altars for offering and calling on Heaven to send fire down.  Then I’m 15 again, actually sitting there in Israel on this very same mountain… I remember writing to God, “Consume me, for I will know the true God, because He will answer with fire…” All of those memories went through my head in a flash and I wondered when I forgot about Fire.

I guess that in the midst of my millions of thoughts I heard that still small voice telling me what kind of fire I had been enduring.

 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.  Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,  for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls (1 Peter 1:6-9).

God can protect us from fire, he can destroy with fire, but he can also allow it in our lives to refine us.  I love the assumed statement in this passage is that we are looked at as GOLD. The Message translates that verse to say, “Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine.”

When I look at the past few difficult years, I still ask the big WHY. Why did my Father allow me to go through the pain of an assault and then allow me to struggle with my existence and the inability to cope with a trauma that shouldn’t have ever happened? I couldn’t find answers or peace for my heart and made countless self destructive decisions in my quest to control my own world. When I was able to leave West Virginia and move here to Yuma I knew that God was saving my life and giving me a chance to start over. It hasn’t been easy or even a smooth transition in this past year, and I have gone through a spectrum of emotions and thoughts about myself since relocating.

But, finally I feel like I have a tiny glimpse of an answer. I am gold in the eyes of my Creator, my worth is beyond measure and by His grace I have gone through the fire, and come out different. Pure gold becomes proved gold, genuine faith put through suffering comes out proved genuine.

I believe that He is establishing in me a faith that won’t be moved, shaken or destroyed. I believe that He allowed me to be weak so that I could find that apart from Him I couldn’t be strong. I know that when I tried to live my life without Him, I was empty, and it took that time of emptiness to make me hungry again.

 I know that people say that if God was truly good He wouldn’t allow us to experience pain. But I know that that’s bullshit. We live in a broken world and God was gracious enough to give us all freewill. And unfortunately there are some sick and depraved people out there exercising their freewill on others and leaving destruction and pain behind. It is by His grace that this world has a chance of Redemption and this New Year I am choosing to look at my past in a different light. I won’t say I’m thankful for the things that I endured, but I will say I am thankful that God is true to His promises.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

This is a year to see and seek His goodness. We know without darkness we wouldn’t understand the concept of light. We have seen the dark, been through the night, and this year we want to be in the Light. I believe that I am just beginning to see the results of His work in me, and am anticipating more, expecting and believing for more in this New Year.

Love,

Emma