We moved to the mountain house last March and I soon had to learn how to build a fire. I knew about paper and kindling, but my fire building skills fell flat.
Then my husband Jim told me his secret: a cup of sawdust mixed with kerosene. If you mix a little of that on top the paper and around the kindling, the fire has a better chance of taking hold.
God had me think about that sawdust this morning as I started the fire. Its ground up—pulverized wood, soaked with kerosene. We keep it outside in a plastic bucket. It stinks and it’s good for nothing but starting that fire.
Then there’s a paper, yesterday’s news now crumpled and readied for the match. The kindling may have been a chair, a piece of furniture, a window frame, a board that warped. It was shattered and splintered under the hatchet’s blow.
The paper burns most quickly. The sawdust lights up and allows the flame time to ignite the kindling.
And then there’s a log. It doesn’t begin to flame until all the others are pretty well engulfed and burned up.
So here is today’s metaphor for the revival many of us claim to seek:
How often I’ve wanted to be the log! That one at the center of the action, proudly displaying the flame and soaking up all the glory!
And in the background, unseen, humbly broken are the ones who pray, and seek, and allow the splintering, the crumbling, the pulverizing, remaining soaked and separated in the oil till the flame comes and the wind ignites!
The Agony of Victory 