The Fire

Chapter One: The Fire

“His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.” - Jeremiah 20:9

Understanding the inner fire

When I was in my teens, I had RFS (Radical Fan Syndrome). I was a radical fan of one of the toughest chicks going around. She was a tomboy (which I could relate to), she had a fearless attitude (which I couldn't relate to, but wanted to all the same), and she made music that I couldn't stop listening to. I idolised her because she was the kind of chick I wanted to be. She was different from all the mainstream artists and maybe that's why I grew such an attachment to her.

Her name was Avril Lavigne.

This punk-rock artist had me wrapped around her little finger; I only listened to her music, I only wanted the type of clothes she wore, posters of her dominated my bedroom walls, I tried my hardest to adopt her attitude and style and even her crazy Canadian accent (kind of). And she was all I ever liked to talk about. I had RFS. Bad. This pop artist became my passion.

But she was just a person.

When we gain a passion for a favourite artist, actor, sportsperson or even someone in our lives, we develop an unhealthy attachment and develop RFS. That person becomes our sole idol; we admire them and want to be like them. That's okay, actually it's quite okay to have someone to look up to. But the problem arises when we look up to them too much. When we have a passion, a fire, for someone other than God then we're doing life wrong.

We all know what it's like to be passionate about someone or something. It feels like a fire is burning inside of us that is hard to contain. All we want to do is talk about that thing we've developed a passion for. It feels good, doesn't it?

Sometimes we develop a fire for someone or something that is short-term; an expensive car, a TV series, Avril Lavigne. These things are usually from ourselves (I'm happy to say my attachment to Avril Lavigne has been extinguished) and they don't last forever. They're not inherent. They're determined by a view or feeling at a particular time.

The long-term passions we have are the things that shape us and make us who we are. They've been placed within us when we were created in our mother's womb. God has placed certain values, beliefs, and desires inside of us that help determine that fire. We each have a unique set of characteristics that make us feel passionate about different things. If someone's heart breaks for refugees, but you don't feel that same string of emotions for them, that doesn't mean you're heartless. It means we each feel differently about issues. Your heart might be tuned with another injustice in the world and that's God's plan; He's given each of us a heartbeat for different things. Different issues require different people.

Think about the first time you fell in love. Whether mutual or one-sided, the feelings associated with being in love are so highly nurtured for us as human beings. Just having that one person on your mind all the time, thinking about them before you fall asleep and when you wake up, anticipating every message or every call to be from them, desiring to serve them and make them happy, investing time and love and patience into one person is something that most people will experience at least once in their life. When you're in love you have such a passion for that person; your ears prick up when their name's mentioned or you look for opportunities to bring their name into conversation. Your heart burns for them. Being in love is one of the best feelings in the world. That's the passion I want us to remember when I continue with this chapter.

Burning for God

Now that we understand what it means to have a fire inside of us, we can gauge what it means to have a fire for God. Having a love for God goes so much deeper than the mushy feelings we have in a new relationship. Being in love with Him should inhabit the same feelings but be deeper, more meaningful and purpose-driven.

I think the most powerful way to illustrate this concept is by introducing one of my favourite songs into the mix.

If you know the song Like a Fire by Planetshakers, take a moment to sing it, hum it, or jump on YouTube and turn up the volume. It has such a powerful meaning behind it. It contains all the components needed to reveal to you, dear friends, what that fire for God truly looks like.

Like a fire shut up in my bones

I want the world to know

You are God

With a passion burning deep within

I want the world to know

That you live

When we have that fire, and when we nurture it, we want nothing more than to announce God's love to the world. He becomes our passion; and passions are very hard to contain! Jesus is known in Scripture as the Bridegroom. The Book of Song of Songs is his love song to us. Jesus wants so much to be our lover, to be the one we think about when we got to sleep, to be the one whose name is brought into conversations.

Now I want you to think of when you had a massive crush on someone. Those people who are game enough will usually try and pull out all the stops to try and gain the attention of Mr or Miss Potential. Guys like to send flowers or chocolates, write cute little messages (and yes, they do tend to make us girls feel all gooey inside), organise romantic dates, and give endless compliments, either subtly or far-out obvious. For us girls, we like to be a little more subtle. We'll dress to impress, flirt, laugh at our crush's jokes (even the lame ones), seek out opportunities to be alone with them, and try not to appear too eager yet maintain an interest (okay, I can see why we're known as the more complex gender. All we need to do is buy them footy tickets and they're ours). The point is, we do everything we can to try and be noticed.

This is what God does every day. He burns with a passion to be noticed by us. When the average guy buys us a bunch of flowers, God sends us endless blooms. Everywhere we look, there's a gift from God in the form of nature. Have you ever been out for a walk and a beautiful, luscious red rose has caught your eye? That's a gift from God. He knew one day you'd walk along there and be captivated by its beauty; God was wooing you. And he woos us every day. He gives us beautiful sunsets with streaks of colour hand-painted especially for our enjoyment. He gives us the sounds we find in nature, the peace and quiet, the soft rustle of leaves and the gentle breeze we delight in. Every day there is a new gift waiting for us. It's God's invitation to be his bride. Knowing the effort He goes through to make us smile should be enough to make anyone fall in love with Him.

When that fire for who God is burns within us, we'll want to proclaim His name to the world. It won't be easy, faith isn't easy, but by inviting Him into our hearts and allowing Him to blow on the spark we have inside of us will be the starting point for a lifetime of romance with our Bridegroom.

The fire of God

For this book I wanted to use the metaphor of a fire for a number of reasons. I like the attributes or properties of a fire; it's bright, it's a powerful yet calming sight, it can rage or it can crackle, it exudes warmth, it's hard to contain and its power depends on how it's managed. If we relate this to a fire within us, the attributes can be transferred.

I also want to highlight how a fire is perceived or expressed in the Bible. We read of God as being a “consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29) and that a fire usually represents His presence. He appeared to Moses through a burning bush (Exodus 3:2) and He came in the form of a cloud that looked like fire which guided His people (Numbers 9:14-15). We can also gather from certain passages that He used fire for both glory and judgement (Numbers 11:1, 2 Kings 1:10, Judges 13:20, 1 Kings 18:38).

While these passages give us a picture of God's position with fire, the New Testament can help us gauge our link with it. The Holy Spirit is described as fulfilling his job by using fire as a tool. When we invite Jesus into our heart, the Spirit will bless us with God's presence, passion and purity. He dwells within the heart of every believer (Romans 8:9). He's the one who creates that passion inside of us. It doesn't come from ourselves, we can't strike a match and create it ourselves, it has to come from the Spirit and ultimately from God.

When the believers came together at Pentecost, we are told that the Spirit entered the temple like a mighty wind and “they saw what appeared to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them” (Acts 2:3) and the Spirit enabled them to speak in many tongues. They wouldn't have been able to do that without the fire. We can do nothing justly without this presence and just like the apostles at Pentecost, the Spirit will also enable us to speak the word of God boldly (Acts 4:31). We just need to be open to the idea of God as a silversmith and us as His precious jewels. Just like a silversmith uses fire to refine his metal, so will God use the Spirit to cleanse us of our sin and refine us for His glory.