Our house has a woodstove. When I was a kid we heated with wood, but I never realized how much effort it took for my dad to keep our home heated. It turns out stacks of wood don’t just appear in the basement. Nor does the heat keep coming when the wood inside burns up. As someone observed, “the tendency of fire is to go out.”
When we heated with wood, we’d get in the habit of tromping downstairs to feed the stove several times a day. If the fire does go out, you can’t just throw a couple big logs in there and walk away. Instead, we stir the coals up and start over with some dry kindling. Once that’s crackling, we can add the larger pieces that burn longer and put out the BTUs.
Our passion for God is like a fire in our hearts. As Christians, we experience times of great warmth in our relationship with God, but then sometimes it feels like we’re down to coals. We too might need to start with some dry kindling.
Time in God’s Word is a surefire way to reignite our worship for God. After Jesus had risen from the grave, He joined two disciples who didn’t recognize Him as they walked along the road. They were weary from disappointment, thinking the Lord was dead. But then Jesus led them through the Bible, and “He explained to them the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27). The cold inside them melted away as He fanned the flame with the truth of the Word. We know this because, “they said to each other, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us on the road, while He opened to us the Scriptures?’” (Luke 24:32).
Let God’s Word refuel your passion for Him today. HINT: Reading a Psalm would be a great place to get a fire started!
