Dancing in the Fire

I'm wearing a pair of shoes that don't match any more. One shoe is almost new; the other is worn out and blackened, with holes in the nylon mesh and crusty shoelaces. Let me explain...

Saturday was a very windy day in Katy, and much colder than the day before. We had four grandchildren at the house along with their parents, and we had a charcoal grill ready to go. I had cleaned the grill with some paper towels soaked in cooking oil while the fire was hot, and tossed these in the trash bag in the garage. After dinner we wanted to have a fire in the fire pit and enjoy what would probably be the last cold day before summer, which starts early in this part of the world.

Hurriedly I put the grill away and got out the fire pit. In my rush I dumped the fire pit ashes in the trash bag, thinking they were cool. You can probably guess the rest of the story, or not.

About ten minutes later, while I was watching the grandkids madly running around the back yard, my younger son looked in the garage and shouted, THE GARAGE IS ON FIRE. I bolted to the garage to see a nine-foot-tall blaze reaching to the ceiling and quickly filling the garage with smoke. The fire was starting to engulf the front of my wife's car and spreading across the indoor-outdoor carpet in all directions. The only thought that crossed my mind was to keep the flames from getting under the car, and without really thinking clearly I decided to try to stomp the fire out with my right shoe. The first step or two were wildly risky, but thankfully the flames were quickly reduced to knee-high flames and my other son came to the rescue with the garden hose just in time to save me from setting my clothes on fire.

When all this commotion finally came to an end, I was a nervous wreck. It didn't take long to realize what a miracle had just occurred. That flame could have easily brought down our house if it had gone unattended for even one more minute. Only a few feet away I had a gasoline can with a gallon of fuel mix in it. When I looked around I realized that NOTHING had been damaged except about ten square feet of indoor-outdoor carpet, and one almost-new sneaker. I was deeply humiliated about my hurried decisions that led to this conflagration. I could not believe the grace of God that spared me the terrible damage it could have caused.

For just a few moments it might have looked like I was dancing in that fire. I thought about the story in the book of Daniel where the Hebrew children were walking around in the flames unharmed. I know the Son of God was with me because not a single hair on my body was singed. Yes my right shoe was partially melted, but that's just a reminder to me of God's protection and mercy that was extended to me absolutely undeserved. As King Nebuchadnezzar said,

"Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego,

who has sent his angel and rescued his servants!"

Daniel 3:28

The Spectrum of Politics

This year in politics has proven my long-held theory that the political universe is not linear from left to right, but curved. In this bizarro world of politics, Bernard Sanders and Donald J. Trump live in the same neighborhood. Bernie's neighbors to the left and Donald's neighbors to the right actually live in the same house together, a crack-house whose residents feed on fear and anger caused by the desperation and delusion of a world without God.

In the spectrum of politics, where deep red and deep indigo plunge into political darkness, demagogues of the past fanned the flames of fear and anger to rise to power while the masses that followed them drank their witches brew of delusion and zeal. Look into this darkness and you will see where the generals of Saddam Hussein's left-wing Baathist party collaborated with the most right-wing zealots of Islam, a meth lab known as Camp Bucca where the evil army we now know as "ISIS" was born.

Demagogues who rise to power have a nasty habit of making themselves demigods. I say this not to suggest that our current political wannabes are of such ilk, but to state plainly that America and the western world have chosen that path by rejecting God. The path away from God leads not to freedom but to a world of hatred and tyranny, led by the prince of darkness. I can understand why those in darkness run to this destructive light, but what baffles me is how the children of God can be led in the same direction.

Jesus said his kingdom is not of this world, and the world of politics is beneath the pursuit of eternal things, but decisions we make in politics have an irreparable effect on young people growing up in the world we leave them. Let us not leave them a world of political extremism where lives are cut short by angry mobs and unnecessary wars. Let us turn back to love and the God who enables love through his unconditional offer of grace.

I am writing a new commandment to you,

which is true in Him and in you,

because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining. 

The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother

is in the darkness until now. 

The one who loves his brother abides in the Light

and there is no cause for stumbling in him.

But the one who hates his brother

is in the darkness and walks in the darkness,

and does not know where he is going

because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

I John 2:8-11