Is anything better on a wintery day than a roaring fire? Growing up in a log home with a massive stone fireplace, I loved building fires. They were my favorite part of those storied Southern ice storms (Besides our stockpile of bread and milk).
Now grown and married, I still love to build and nurture fires. My husband teases me for hovering over the fireplace. Poke, poke, poke. “You’re not even doing anything!” he’ll say. “You’re barely moving the logs.”
But I smile and continue, because I learned something as a child I still employ today: Even the slightest poke, if it gets oxygen flowing, can make all the difference. The embers can be dimming. The logs can be cooling. But the right poke at the right time can cause it to burst back into flames. If the fire is raging, the right nudge can maximize the airflow and its ability to consume the logs. Two things always result: heat and light.
Any fire left on its own, no matter how impressive it burned, will eventually die out if stripped of oxygen. As the logs burn, they settle together – they grow comfortable – and they block the airflow. Eventually, all that’s left is cold ash.
Just maybe, this is true of humans and churches, too. Whether the fire is raging or cooling, it sometimes needs a poke to inject some fresh air and ensure it burns on. Move things around. Re-evaluate roles. By all means, pray more. Don’t let it cool off. Poke the fire.
