The Burning Joy
It was one of those moments when you all-of-the-sudden realize something must be wrong without any idea of what it is. I was sitting at my desk when my phone began to vibrate. I was in a meeting and I couldn’t answer, but the phone kept vibrating, one call after another. Usually when this is happening in a meeting, I say something witty like, “Do you mind if I answer that just to make sure the house isn’t on fire?” As soon as the meeting had ended, I reached for my phone to get the report and as I surveyed the missed calls and I noticed that all of the calls had something in common. They were all calls from my neighbors. It took about ¾ of a second to process the data and conclude that something must be wrong in our neighborhood.
I returned the last call missed to hear the frantic voice of one of our neighbors. She answered the phone with the words, “Jason, are you at home?” I responded, “No, what’s going on?” And now, all I had joked about was suddenly true. “There is a big grass fire in the field behind your property and it’s moving towards your house!” I hung up, gathered my things and rushed home. A mile away, I could see the grey-white smoke plume rising into the sky bearing evidence that the fire was primarily burning grass and hadn’t reached any structures. As I turned the last corner to our street, I quickly counted three fire trucks parked in our driveway and on our lawn with lights spinning. What I had left in peace and order earlier that morning was now a scene of chaos and emergency. I parked in the street and quickly jumped out of the car to assess the situation. By the time I reached my house, the fire department had already put the fire out. As I would find out, they were on the scene within four minutes of the fire starting. I also learned that the cause of the fire was a lawn mower. In an effort to mow down the tall grass behind our property, some of the dry grass landed on the mower’s muffler and quickly ignited the field into flames beyond control. Within four minutes, the fire consumed two acres of grass, miraculously burning around each side of my neighbor’s storage building before reuniting and stopping at the fence between our properties. What began as an attempt to turn something overgrown and ugly into something beautiful became an emergency with catastrophic potential before ending in a smoldering black field. In a matter of minutes, the neighborhood had gone from calm to chaos and back to calm. In the midst of the post-fire calm, all who were involved were thankful for the quick response from the firemen and the limited damage.
It has only been two weeks since the fire and as I backed out of the driveway this morning, I noticed something new in the field. The black charred dirt was giving way to green. The field that had been a jungle of dead brown grass two weeks before was now re-emerging in a delicate green layer of new growth. The green of the field is so vibrant and beautiful that it even supersedes the green of my manicured and pampered lawn. What had previously appeared to be dead, was now alive, and in a strange kind of way, I found myself thankful for the fire. My heart had traversed from thankful the fire was out to thankful the fire had happened. Don’t get me wrong, I would never purposely want a fire to burn towards my house. But now that it has passed, I am thankful that it happened. Without it, there would be no joy in the new growth.
This strange new way of thinking about the fire has followed me all day long. I can’t help but think about the situations in my life that mirror the experience of the field on fire. Though most of my harder life experiences don’t involve real flames, they do involve real fear, real pain, and a real sense of being out of control. What at times, seems to be leading to death, actually ends in new life. In less than four minutes our lives can shift from calm to chaos and from pleasure to pain. A phone call from the doctor, a text from a friend, an email from a co-worker, a meeting with a supervisor or the breaking news headline that hits too close to home. And in all of these situations, our heart’s desire is to find peace again… at all costs. We react to chaos with urgency. The question that drives our reaction is, “How can I put this fire out before it destroys everything?” We fight with all that we have to put out the fire of hardship. Our natural reaction is to move away from the heat of the flames as fast as we can. What if, instead of trying to move away from the heat of the hard situation, we moved towards the heart of our Heavenly Father? Is it possible to find a place peace in the midst of life’s fires? Is it possible to find comfort in the valley of the shadow death as the psalmist so poetically proclaims?
To the Christians who were being hunted down and persecuted by the Roman government in the fist century, the Apostle Peter writes a letter of encouragement in the midst of affliction. Instead of resenting the fires of affliction, he pointed the early church towards finding purpose in the midst of pain. “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:6-7) Rejoicing in affliction is a strange paradigm... unless you can see the purpose of the Father that leading you to new life. While trials are nonetheless painful, they are tempered with purpose in the hands of a loving Father who cause new life to emerge from the charcoal fields of suffering and affliction.
“Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.” (Isaiah 48:10)
“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” (Genesis 50:20)
“1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. 3 He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (Psalm 23)