A Layer of Kindling

  So every Tuesday I have invited the high school boys to our house for games and bbq.  It's a pretty fun time.  We get to test our skills against each other in playing Nazi Zombies, while at the same time growing together as we work as two person teams.  And we get to get fat off of burgers, hot dogs, and brats.  It starts on the deck and then migrates to the basement. 

  Yesterday, Jan asked me to water her garden while she had a day business trip to Scottsbluff.  I was thankful and you'll know why in a moment.

  We have a charcoal grill.   It makes the food taste awesome but also has a bit of a process to start the coals.  You have to dump them in our handy-dandy coal starter, let them sit and warm up for a while, then try your best to shift them around without burning your eyebrows off.  This looks something akin to flipping pancakes over and over again except it involves fire, which makes it awesome. 

  Unfortunately, the coals were flaky yesterday (meaning they flaked, not that they didn't show up) and lots of cinders fell out as I attempted to toss them in the grill.  I burned my foot.  I also almost uttered words that would have gotten me fired. I was mad at myself for grilling barefoot, but also for charring my deck.

  Our deck is also awesome.  It's ceder, but it's big and comfortable to eat on.  The owner two owners ago built it, but he also built the part that leads to our kitchen over the existing concrete steps up to the kitchen door.  I don't know why, but he decided that it would be wise to hem in the top step with support boards that run the length of the deck.  This was not wise.

  You see, leafs and helicopters (little seed things that fall off the trees and overtake your neighborhood in the Spring here in Nebraska) like to get caught in there and dry out.  So when a cinder falls in that particular part of the deck it's perfect for starting a fire. 

  I kept asking myself, "What is that weird smell?"  Until I looked down and saw the tiny columns of smoke floating up from under the part of the deck nearest to our house.  The only thought that popped into my head was, "Where there's smoke there's fire!"  (Thanks Cub Scouts).  A split second of panic set in, but then I remembered the hose.  I almost didn't water Jan's garden.  I almost left the hose coiled at the front of the house, but there it sat like a leaky, green serpent of deck salvation.  Forty-five minutes of deck spraying later no more smoke, no more fire.  Just wet feet and a slightly concerned and obsessively dousing home owner.

  I thought about it this morning a lot.  Not just because I would be kicking myself for the rest of my life for burning down my first home, but because life has a fine layer of kindling to it.  It reminded me of Hebrews 12:

25 See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking.  For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven.

26 And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, "YET ONCE MORE I WILL SHAKE NOT ONLY THE EARTH, BUT ALSO THE HEAVEN."

27 This expression, "Yet once more," denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. 

28 Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe;

29 for our God is a consuming fire.

  Something that happens a bunch in that book is the contrast of Judaism and following Christ.  While God revealed Himself to the people via Moses on Mt. Sinai, the people "refused him." Over and over again God reached out, but the people turned away.  We live in a time when Christ has come, He's risen, and He's coming again.  His words and life are our guideposts, and yet we live like they aren't most of the time.  We essentially pack kindling on top of the beautiful, combustible structure that is life.  He will consume that which isn't of worth to get at what is, and that can be painful.  Sometimes it takes complete destruction to realize what we had, and that what's left are the only things that are truly important.  Sometimes we just throw up our hands and go our own way, ignoring the beauty of what's left for the temporary things we treasured. 

  I've been guilty of both in my life.  I just hope that this episode reminds we not to store up any literal or metaphorical kindling in life.  I pray that when it's said and done that the whole of my life is packed with things that "cannot be shaken," i.e. things that were dedicated to the Kingdom and the King.  Everything else is really just flash paper. 

  How about you?  Are you building something of worth or just stacking kindling?