From Sleeping Embers to Roaring Flame

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t was on one of my first overnight camping trips with the Boy Scouts that I learned to build a fire.  This was one of the requirements for both the cooking and the camping skill awards. Both of these skill awards were themselves requirements for merit badges which were required for Eagle Scout!  Already I was sick of requirements! I wanted to have fun and build a fire and that is exactly what I did without thinking about the requirements.

My fellow initiates and I gathered as much wood as we could find. Fortunately, we were camping in a large patch of woods so there was plenty of fuel for the taking.  Finally, the big moment came when we arranged the kindling, lit the match, and started the fire.  From a humble spark, a huge fire soon grew.  The more wood we piled on the higher the flames grew and the more successful we believed ourselves to be.

It soon became blatantly apparent that we could not cook our dinner over such a huge fire.  The scoutmaster then explained we needed to let the fire die down and cook over the glowing embers.  That’s where the real usefulness of the fire was anyway, in the embers.  These were the bits that remained after the inferno.  They glowed red and could easily cook our food in record time.

After dinner we stoked those embers and built the fire back up.  It provided warmth and we sat around it telling stories and talking.  Occasionally, someone would chunk another log on the fire and the flames would jump to life, eagerly consuming the new source of fuel.  As the night waned on and the time for sleep approached, again our scoutmaster told us to let the fire die down.  When the flames were gone and glowing embers were all that was left, he taught us how to bank the coals for the following morning.  He insisted we would be able to resurrect that fire from the embers we protected overnight.  I was skeptical but in the morning I found his words to be very true.

I have thought about that first camping trip often.  Only in later years did I realize all the important lessons about life I learned in that patch of woods just a few miles out of town.  Over and over again in my mind’s eye I see that fire and stare once again into those glowing embers and I remember how they grew into a fire even after a long, dark night.

In 2 Timothy 1:5-7 Paul also teaches Timothy how to build a roaring fire from sleeping embers.  In this passage he writes, “I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. “

Here, Paul pays homage to the faith evidenced by Timothy’s grandmother and mother.  The same faith lives in Timothy but Paul wants him wake up those glowing, sleeping embers and fan them into a flame.  In order for effective embers to be made, there must be a roaring fire.  In order for there to be a roaring fire, sleeping embers must be uncovered, stirred, fanned, and fed.  This is what Paul encourages Timothy to do with his faith.  Paul wants him to stir up his faith and use it for the furtherance of God’s kingdom.  The fire in Timothy’s life will attract others to its warmth and provide the comfort and security found only in Jesus Christ.

What does your life look like today?  Is it a roaring fire or are the embers sleeping?  It’s time to wake those embers and fan them into roaring flames that will encourage and warm others along life’s road.  Have you learned the lesson of building and maintaining a good spiritual fire?  Is your heart’s fire roaring or sleeping today?