Wild Fire

We are out west, and wild fires are raging at the moment.  The summer in Washington has been hot and dry.  With the winds picking up, conditions are ripe for fires.  The middle of the state is in flames, there is another wildfire not 10 miles from here, and the sun here has been blocked for several days.  There is ash on the deck.  An entire town is gone.  This is tragic stuff.

In Montana, where my husband is camping... it is green.  There are no wildfires, surprisingly.  Here, everything is dry, the grass is brown.  There, it is still moist with life.  Life protects the wilderness from burning.  Amongst the thousands of acres burned in the middle of Washington, the only things saved were the apple orchards.  Because they had been watered, and had been bearing fruit. 

I can't help but think of judgement day, when the fullness and intensity of God's love is poured out onto everyone in it's full force.  If we are dead, if we do not have His life in us, if we have dried up in the sun of this world... we will burn, just as the standing dead tree burn, and the brown grass burns.  Who will survive?  Those still green with life.  Those bearing fruit. Life is from Him, fed by the water of His spirit, bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit.  The fire will not harm us; although it may be painful, the fire will not consume us.  It will purify us, burn off the parts of us that are dead, in preparation for eternity in His presence. 

Some day, we all will experience the wildfire.  Of that I am certain.