Fire Escape

"When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned". Isaiah 43:2.

"And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them like silver, and test them like gold,  - they will call, and I will answer. I will say of them, 'they are my people', for they will have made me their God". Zechariah 13:9.

If I were to ask you what was the most trying moment of your life, what would you say? Some of us might pick what we might call a 'mid-range' crisis - a trying time in marriage or business, but we're even more likely to select, if applicable, a particular close shave that could have been disastrous. If we've encountered a truly hazardous moment through potential tragedy or seriously precarious health, it stays with us.

If you had been present at the Montana Mann Gulch above the Missouri River around 5pm on a particular day in 1949, you would have most certainly found yourself in such a dire situation*.

A team of young men termed smokejumpers had been working hard all day to quell a serious forest fire, but despite all their best efforts, the blaze now had them retreating. The turning point arrived around 5.30, when the bulk of the men made a choice based on what they'd seen the fire do around ten minutes before. Running uphill with heavy packs, the fire had already reached ahead of them, causing their breath to become filled with choking smoke. It was in this decisive moment that their foreman made a make or break decision, and lit the grass in front of him, igniting his one remaining path. The ignition burned the nearby grass, creating a burned area safe from the surrounding flames. He then called for his team to join him - only two did. The other twelve perished in the smoke and then the flames.

In my last entry, I sought to show that amidst the 'wood and the fire' of the place of sacrifice, what allowed Abraham and Issac to travel through such travail was that "God Himself' would provide a Lamb - a means of deliverance - far better than is given by our hand. God extinguishes the fire of human transgression by bringing down a far more pure fire in the propitiation exacted and approved in the dying of His unique, perfect sacrifice for our transgressions. That offering is the means ignited amidst the inferno of iniquity that is our world that creates our safe space amidst the fury of the age in which we escape the flames which devour forever.

The image of the present, then, is of us remaining in the place where God has set us, amidst the rage around us, and there, allowing something very particular to take place.

The prophets (above) speak of how the Lord refines us as we journey through fire. We cannot escape the work required by the testing of our faith (2 Timothy 3:12), and if we try to do so, then like those mistaken men on that Montana ridge, we will quickly find ourselves chocking and dying by succumbing to fear or sin rather than standing fast in our true freedom.

God's fire burns up what we would naturally cling to as necessary, just as surely as it called Abraham to offer his beloved son. It is only when we receive life back, as it were, from death, that it can become something refined and truly meaningful - that is where we are meant to be.

The events evidenced as a result of the pandemic have left us in disarray. The world is truly ablaze in its actions because of what has occurred, and it is sorely easy for us to run into that blaze with all manner of notions that we believe will assist, but, in truth, will only prove to be fuel for the flames.

The truth is that there are far deeper troubles in the causes of these flames than we often see, and that is where we need to start - thinking that allows (facilitates) sanctity to thrive and dread to cease.

What will carry us through these present trials is not ignoring the deadly seriousness of them, or believing that we can master their fury by some inner pious stamina. Our eyes must be fixed on the one who has passed through all such trial perfectly - who provides us with a place to stand, here and now, and will use such means to enrich and enliven the good He has provided to us.

Dear saints, James writes, count it a joy when faith is so tried and tested, for when proven, such a time will encourage patience, which will then bring about a completion so that you genuinely lack nothing (James 1:2).

The intent here is to bring us into something much more precious than previously known.

The fire which surrounds us is indeed burning away all that cannot stand. The days will be strange and often threatening, but God the Lord calls us to His side - to remain faithful in our words and deeds - that is the need now to quell this fury and folly.

Let us draw near to Him, and find truth and resource in this day of need.

*As quoted in Norman Maclean's 'Young Men and Fire'.