The Fires of Life

Daniel 3:8-27 God spoke to me while reading this passage. I have certainly experienced my fair share of life’s fires. Some were like an evening flame in a fire place. Concentrated and short lived. Others were like a wildfire. Spreading and bringing destruction to nearly every part of my life. I believe the fires of life can be ignited by two sources. However, no matter the source, God is in the fire with us. And the level of heat we feel depends on whether we recognize and take advantage of His presence or not. Life’s fires can be started by us. They can start small and contained. And maybe they are right on the cusp of dying down, but we add another log. Or the wind of life blows something else in and the fire spreads. God is more than willing to extinguish it for us. However, we have to seek Him. Calling Him like we would the fire department. When we refuse Him access we are fanning the flames. Just think about what happens when you fan an actual fire. It grows and the heat intensifies. Now relate that to the things of life. If you only focus on negativity it grows until all you see is the negative in everything. If you focus on the offenses you believe others have inflicted on you, you can’t wait to in turn offend others. If you constantly compare your life to those around you, you eventually start to believe God has gypped you. How easy it is for us to take a single match and turn it into an inferno. And the flames will continue to rage on until we realize that when we avoid God we are choosing to live in nothing short of a drought. Life’s fires can also be divinely orchestrated. These are the fires that are vital when it comes to our faith and endurance. This is what God will use to bring us restoration and refinement. Restoration is "the action of returning something to a former owner, place or condition." Ever lost your way? Perhaps you’ve lost your identity in Christ, your ability to trust Him, or your peace. 1 Peter 5:10 ESV, and after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself RESTORE, confirm, strengthen and establish you. Refinement is "the process of removing impurities." We can easily present ourselves to others as polished. However, we cannot fool God. He knows everything we’ve been, are, and will be. And we need His continuous refinement. Without it we are never going to experience true freedom in Him. In life’s fires God takes that which we have fallen captive to. He takes the havoc we have wreaked in our lives. The bad habits we allow to rule us. Our shame, distrust, fear, insecurity and anything else He does not intend us to have. Those things are the ashes. At one point or another we have indeed mourned what has been taken away from us because of the decisions we have made. What we have missed out on, or destroyed. What we feel has been done to us. And aren’t ashes the remnants left from a fire. The God we serve gives us beauty from ashes. Isaiah 61:3 NLT, to all who mourn in Israel, He will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair. In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for his own glory. The fires of life are inevitable. But, make no mistake about it; God does not bring us out of our fires the same way we entered them. He takes our ashes and replaces them with beauty. He restores what has been lost. And refines us so there is less of us and more of Him.