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Have you ever sat down at watched a fire? How the orange tongues consume the dry wood? How slowly but surely those big, hard pieces of solid wood are transformed into ashes that are lightly carried away by the wind? Dry objects catch on fire faster than anything else. A dry leaf, dry piece of paper… anything you can think of that doesn’t have water on it is ignited almost momentarily by fire, even crumbled up from a distance. One night, while playing camp on my back yard with my dad and my brother, I sat down and watched the fire for what seemed hours. My dad proceeded to explain to me that his grandmother used to take green leafs and put them into the fire to create smoke for the mosquitoes to go away back when there was no such thing as “off.” He went up to a tree, took a hold of a green leaf, pulled it off and threw it into the fire. When a green leaf is thrown to the fire, all sorts of things happen to it; boils start to grow upon its surface, it does indeed release a lot of smoke, etc., etc. until finally, it is consumed. I noticed that what happens to the dry leaf happened to the green leaf, only that the green leaf took a lot longer to be consumed.



http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=consuming+fire



We see that in various occasions in the bible, God is called an “All consuming fire.” It’s simple to see the analogy here; God is the fire. So naturally, we would be the wood.

Mathew 10:38 states that, “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” What does this mean? How do we lose our lives? Why would we lose our lives? Very much like leaves in a tree, from the moment we are born, it is our nature to strive to be the best we can be, that very best being the leaf’s green. We set career goals stating what we want to do with our lives, how we want to manage our times, what is wise according to our lives, and sometimes, if we’re successful and dedicated, we do become green leaves.



What we don’t expect is the following; some of the leafs on a tree have been predestined to feed a fire. Putting ourselves in the leaf’s perspective, we might think “why in heaven’s name would I want to throw myself in a fire? I’m green! I’m fulfilling what I was meant to do here, right?” Yeah… but that’s only one part of it. Regardless of that leaf’s wanting, it will eventually fall dry naturally or be pulled apart from the tree to illustrate a point, just like my father did. Either dry or green, the leaf will fulfill its purpose.



In this case, the tree represents our comfort zone. We don’t ever want to leave that, it’s were we have grown, all of our necessities are there. We have food, water, other leafs to chill with. It’s all we ever wanted. But we all know that as followers if Christ, at some point, we will be asked to leave that place. Some of us will leave it naturally, when our time as green leafs pass and we fall down to the ground defeated. Others will be pulled away from the tree. Regardless, we will be taken out of that comfort zone one way or the other.



The green represents everything we are. The ideas that swim through our minds, our self provided identities, what we consider to be right and wrong… judgments, memories, traumas… Everything and anything that describes who you were, who you are and who you want to be, which translates to our soul.



And then there’s that inevitable moment that we are presented before the fire. If we come dry, broken and torn, that process of burning, of being consumed is short and sweet. We just crumble; become ashes because we have learned to accept our fate. At some point, we were green, this is our time to be consumed although it might hurt, and move on to something better. If we come as green leafs, the process takes a lot longer. We know that being consumed, as mentioned before, will hurt. Not only are you being forced to leave behind all that you knew, but now, you are forced to be something that you don’t even want to be! We fight that fire as leafs even though we know there’s nothing we can do. Smoke is released and everyone that is around that fire will be affected by it, I mean, have you ever had smoke fill your eyes before? It hurts!



Sometimes as green leaves, we make it so complicated, that the function we could have done in excellence is turned into a power struggle between the inevitable. The irony is that the result is still the same.

By God’s mercy.



The difference between a leaf and us is that we have a choice. We can decide to not leave the tree, but will that mean we won’t ever leave the tree? No, we will eventually fall from it, be left in the ground to rot. We can decide to not go into the fire, if we have been chosen to be in that fire, we all know that our best bet at life is the all consuming fire. When we come into God’s presence, it’s best to come dry. Because even if we fight to stay green, the end will be the same, only more painful; agonizing. Not only that, but in the process, because of all the fuzz that you are making, people will be affected. The function of pleasant warmth and example you could have been for others at that moment has been delayed, if not completely destroyed because not everyone is willing to sit through mass amounts of smoke.



Here’s the promise: Mathew 10:18 states that, “On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles” How do you know that something has been burned by fire? It’s no longer the same. In fact, it’s completely different. When something has been completely burned by fire, it becomes ash. Ash is carried by the wind easily, and anyone who sees it knows that a fire has taken place. When we read Ezekiel 37:9(dry bones), we can safely conclude that the Holy Spirit has a breath like that of wind, so it’s safe to assume that the wind that will carry us to be testify of that consuming fire that has changed us is, in fact, the Holy Spirit.



This is all for His glory, folks. In Peter 1:7, we understand that we need to be refined by fire, just like gold is purified. That refining process is never easy, but it’s the right way to go. 2 Corinthians 4:17 states that, “Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”

What’s your decision?