Prairie Fire

Tuesday, 17. March 2009 by Ronald T. Brown, Ph.D.

Sixty-four laps.

That may be the blink of an eye for NASCAR drivers, but for someone who runs slightly under 8 mph as opposed to driving 200 mph, 64 laps is a surefire recipe for monotony. This past Friday, our community hosted Relay for Life, an all-night event designed to raise funds in the fight against cancer.

For the second straight year, we hosted the Relay in our fieldhouse, which boasts a blue indoor track whose outer lane measures a quarter-mile. At 11:30 pm, when my time came, I ran around and around that confounded track. Halfway through, I was aching for a change in scenery—any change—so I turned around and ran against the flow of traffic for the final 4 miles.

By Sunday, I was eager to take advantage of climbing temperatures and abandoned a whole winter on the fieldhouse track for the nearby running trails that wind through 5 miles of our local forest preserve. Conditions were soggy in spots, but wet socks were a small price to pay for the scenery and fresh air.

Early in my run, I detected the smell of burnt toast. A couple minutes later, with the odor growing stronger and stronger, I scaled a hill and arrived at the source. Earlier in the week, the forest preserve must have conducted a controlled burn on my favorite stretch of the trails. As I surveyed the landscape, the prairie looked, well, naked.

I had grown accustomed to the tall, waving prairie grass and shrubs which had been there for years, so to see nothing but scorched earth in their place was a little on the surreal side. Little green stubs of growth were shooting up through the surface everywhere, undoubtedly wasting no time in taking advantage of the suddenly roomy conditions.

And in those little green stubs, I saw a glimpse of how God operates.

In Deuteronomy 7, there’s this timeless story about God promising that the Israelites will invade and conquer the current inhabitants of Canaan, the promised land. When that happens, the Israelites are to burn all the foreigners’ idols in the fire. God basically tells them, “Hey, when My prediction comes true, don’t forget what I told you to do.”

Kinda like Microsoft Word 2008, aren’t you and I merely the latest, most updated version of the Israelites in that story? Let me ask you this: when we experience success on any number of levels, doesn’t it become extremely easy to allow our landscape to become cluttered and overcrowded?

It’s as if we cannot help but let our love wander to this person, to that circumstance, to our own abilities, etc. Not that we shouldn’t love those things, but we have got to take care not to suffocate and drown out Jesus’ presence in our lives. The final prophet of the Old Testament, Malachi, pointed toward Jesus’ impending arrival:

“ ‘Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to His temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,’ says the Lord Almighty…‘For He will be like a refiner’s fire…He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.”  —Malachi 3:1-3

Now the Levites were the priests of Israel, messengers of God who were supposed to show the people what God was really like. Not to belabor a metaphor, but you and I, we’ve been hired to be Levites 2.0, modern-day agents of God.

As I stared down at the remains of the controlled burn, I couldn’t help but notice the few mature trees which dotted the charred landscape. They had lasted, strong enough to survive the fire. Noticed or not, though, these trees had obviously been there the whole time.

In Paul’s first letter to his Corinthian brothers and sisters, he speaks of Jesus as the real and true foundation of our lives. I half-cringe at this, but how we respond to that foundation will be evaluated someday.

“It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward.” —1st Corinthians 3:13-14

To wrap things up this week, we can’t be so narrow-minded as to look at fire as a tool of destruction. This can be a good thing, guys. Yesterday, I learned that some seeds cannot grow without controlled burns (sad, huh?). They simply remain dormant until the heat of the fire melts away a coating that has covered the seed.

I’m not suggesting any of us needs to literally incorporate fire into our journey, but how can you uncrowd your life as we approach the celebration of Resurrection Sunday? How can you reconnect with the most valuable relationship in your life, one that may be lost in the clutter of all our human relationships? Are you at all interested in clearing the way for God to shoot into your life in new ways?

How will you and I respond to a God that, noticed or not, has been there all along?