Revolution (Grace Vineyard Youth Group)

This is a reprint from a Myspace blog done this last Winter.

I'm sitting here at the fire. We built one tonight. Outside it's gotten cold again. Why is it that if someone drops a cigarette in a rain-drenched forest, hundreds of acres burn, yet I can't get 3 perfectly good logs to burn with a pile of newspapers and a whole book of matches? After much work it did catch.

While my wife has fallen asleep on the couch a few feet away in our tiny apartment, here I sit writing at the fire-side. I love fires. I always have. I know I'm not alone. Sitting and writing by the fire always makes me feel a bit like C.S. Lewis...well, without all the brilliance and eloquence. To me a fire is somehow sacred, almost mystical. At fireside I recall camping trips of youth and my grandfather's house in winter. The smell of the wood and cracking, popping, intense heat always inspire me.

What gets me the most about fires, though, is the art of the whole thing. Fires are definitely more art than science. My lamp is simple. It is science. I flip the switch, which connects the circuit. The electrons flow. I get a light that is steady and clean. Fires aren't like that. Fires dance. Fires hiss. Fires below smoke and are anything but clean. As I write this the flames tease me as they flicker on the page. Sometimes they die down, only to pop back up again when I least expect it.

My wife and I read the beginning of Exodus tonight in our One Year Bible, by firelight. We are a couple of days behind. In this passage, God talks to Moses from the burning bush. Honestly, we really didn't plan it this way. In fact, I didn't even catch the connection of our fireside reading and the content of the passage itself until later. Thinking on it now, there is something powerful in that, I think. I mean, I see it all a little different now. I always pictured it with Moses walking around in the afternoon and seeing the whole thing. Maybe I just automatically envision the whole thing consistent with Charlton Heston's portrayal.

Maybe it wasn't afternoon, though. Maybe it was actually evening. Moses sees this bush a little ways off, and he's drawn in. Then God speaks. That must've hit ol' Mo pretty hard, you have to assume. He's spent some years now out of Egypt. He had his family. He must have thought he had it all worked out. Everything about his life seemed neat and clean: science. Then God shows up-in the fire. He changes everything. Moses makes it clear that he doesn't think God is making sense as He calls Moses to go and rescue His people from slavery. He's not the right guy for the job. He's no leader. He doesn't want to do it. It says, "God's anger burned at Moses." Why would God be angry? He's the one throwing the wrench into Moses' nice little machine.

It doesn't seem to make logical, scientific sense. I would think that God would have done some research. He would've examined resumes and very thoroughly, scientifically determined His great leader. But in that sense, God is more art than science. He looked at Moses and saw what He would make him become.

I think God is much more like a fire than my lamp. He dances. He's unpredictable, uncontrollable, and a little dangerous. We try and clean Him up. We try and make Him predictable. He just isn't so. I'm not saying He's capricious or mischievous, just not so tidy. We put Him into three point, bite sized, 45 minute, pre-packaged slices. I don't think He likes that. The worst part for me is that I do it just as much as anyone. If the sermon goes long, I look at my watch. I want Him to be clear and I want Him to speak to me when I want it, which is generally between the hours of 10 and 11:30 on Sundays. Just flip the switch, and it's God. He just won't work that way.

It sounds really silly saying it that way, but I really struggle with this. In church today, we heard about how God had recently healed a woman of brain cancer. It was a miracle. I mean healed-not chemotherapy and healed, not surgery and healed, just medically verified (both before and after) totally healed! Wow! I had prayed for her. I had asked for this. God had answered. But at the same time, I told God I was going to keep bugging Him until one of my fellow staff members is healed of something that hurts him deeply. I've prayed for him a hundred times at least. I've asked God during my quiet times. I've talked to Him in the middle of the night about it. I'm tired of it. I'm going to keep paying, but I'd like an answer. I've waited in line. I'd like the healing now. I don't know why he hasn't been healed.

There is no "why." In fact, I think that anyone who says they know the answer to that is either making it up or being dishonest. God has His reasons, and He doesn't always make them clear to me. I don't like that, but I can respect it. It is the same God who spoke to Moses from the fire. God is just fiery.

My wife and I see a lot of new homes that we hope to buy someday with these ceramic logs and glow-y metal filings. "It is so simple," they say. "You just turn the gas key, and viola...instant fire magic with none of the mess." We were talking about those tonight, and we don't want that. We don't want to turn a key and "viola." We want messy ashes and wood that won't light. That's a deal-breaker for me at least. No "viola."

I just can't see things as being that simple. I can't imagine God really does either. I don't think things were meant to be so clean and easy. That gives us such a false sense of control, and it hinders us from those burning-bush moments where God says, "I don't really want you to be so comfortable. I think He wants us to wrestle with big questions: the kind that doesn't have easy answers. I don't think I could do that in front of a ceramic log. Like Moses, tonight I met Him in the fire. He wasn't simple, or tidy. He wasn't clean, or safe. He wasn't science. But, I think I'm OK with that.