Refiner's Fire

For months we have been piling up branches and brush blown down by storms. The pile has grown and grown. For weeks I have wanted to burn it. Each time we were about to the winds were blowing too hard.

Today was the day. After some early morning mowing we had a five hour block of time where we had nothing to do. The winds were down and so today we lit the fire. It was huge. The boys and I alternated between time in our lawn chairs watching the flames consume and stoking the fire and rearranging the branches so everything would burn. We spent every bit of that five hours managing that fire.

At one point it was just Taylor, Tanner, and me sitting there. As we watched the fire consume everything on the pile I told them about [I Cor 3:12-14] and how at the end of every Christian's life our lives and works will be judged by God's refining fire. Much of what Christians live for, work for, and spend for will be burned up as nothing. I asked Taylor and Tanner what would be left at the end of their lives? Wood, hay, stubble, or precious metals and stones. They responded with the latter. Taylor told me he wanted to remember that lesson and one day share it with his children looking into a fire.

So much of what we think is important will not stand in light of eternity. Many years ago I was working out when a man from our church approached me and asked me what I thought about his sons playing baseball on Sunday. I told him that God was not going to ask what his kids batting averages were when he stood before God's refining fire.

We get so misdirected. In the course of five hours I saw months of brush burned to nothing. I mean nothing. I wonder how many people experience that in eternity. They worked, played, volunteered, bought, sold, built houses and empires for nothing. God's judgment fire will burn it all up. All of it. That means whole lives that appeared successful in this life will be considered failures in God's eyes.

I don't want to be a person who wastes his life. None of us really know how much life we have left. We all think we will live to a ripe old age even though experience has has shown us otherwise. We are not guaranteed tomorrow. With whatever amount of life we have left how will we expend those days. Will we have anything to show for them in eternity? Will we have led people to saving faith in Jesus Christ? Will we have invested our money in building God's kingdom? Will we have served and sacrificed for the Savior? These issues matter in eternity. They need to matter now.

I am thankful for some time around that fire with my boys and for the life lesson we shared today. Maybe one day I will hear Taylor sharing that lesson with his children and my grandchildren. Until then I want to live for that day I will stand before God's refining fire.