Yule Log Head
John 16:13
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth: for he shall not speak from himself; but what things soever he shall hear, these shall he speak: and he shall declare unto you the things that are to come.
Thanksgiving night into Friday morning, the fire had gone low. Embers were still glowing but I was having a difficult time getting a large log and assorted kindling I had placed on the embers to catch the wood on fire. Earlier in the night, my Dad had stoked the fires with something sounding like a bellows which in my semi-conscious state sounded like a giant air pump. Which indeed it was.
Apparently, the macro-air pump is the device utilized to pump up one of those portable air mattresses. My Dad had re-purposed it, for it cost much less than an actual bellows' price, as a fire inducer. I had been blowing on the coals with my breath to little or no effect.
Yet, when I brought out the air pump, the big gun, and whooshed the device, the fire came alive immediately and instantaneously. The stove exploded into flames. It was like magic and reminded me of the importance of air to fires.
I then got into a little foray researching the Yule Log tradition, which is kept burning throughout the Christmas season. It may have Pagan roots, but that in no way diminishes the beauty of the ritual unless one is sacrificing infants on the log or some other evil practice. Let no one deceive you, Paganism was and is brutal and bloody where it is truly practiced and not repackaged as some New Agey self-serving system. So, was the Old Testament, mind you. The Fall is not some myth but a historical fact.
God redeems us and He also redeems our rituals. Origins is not necessarily destiny and that is truly Good News for all of us. God used this simple event to remind me of the work of the Holy Spirit. He, the Holy Spirit, Third Person of the Trinity, takes our dead wood lives and animates us with fresh air and fresh fire. It has been instructive recently because of my mind's inability to close the loop on things. I like to figure things out, but my head typically comes to a lot of dead ends. A big piece of wood just sitting in the stove inert and unburnt. A dull ache. Usually, my dilemmas are about where my life is headed, what God wants me to do. That type of thing.
I have made a lot of unwise (not necessarily immoral but directionally wrong) decisions in the past about what to do and I am striving to be more in tune with what God is saying versus hoping that He will sanctify and bless some self-directed scheme.
Intellectualism and Doctrine can become dead logs. Without the Holy Spirit, I may have the right answers but still a wrong life. If I present my body as a living sacrifice God redeems and transforms my mind. The dead end has now become a avenue of God's grace. I come to God with my dead wood and He brings it to aflame. My responsibility is to present myself, God's responsibility is to redeem me. Not just once and done but continuously.
I find this reassuring.
Comments