Soaked In Glory and Full of Fire

 Read: Acts 2

          When I was little, my grandparents would come spend the weekends with us and we would do all kinds of fun things. We would have campouts where we built a fire and roasted marshmallows and hotdogs. We would go on bike rides and hikes. We would plant gardens and dig up trees in the woods and replant them in the yard to create our “orchard”.  My mawmaw is a story teller to her core, so everything we did was an adventure of wonder and amusement. The part of their visits I loved the most though, were the early mornings when I would wake up and crawl in bed with my mawmaw and ask her, “Please tell me a story.” She would pick out one of her hundreds of stories to tell and would transport us from our little room, in her cabin on my family’s Mississippi ranch to a rural cotton farm in the 1930s, in the northern hills of Mississippi. I loved to hear stories of her childhood and the way it was back then. She would tell of panther chases, coon hunts and church revivals. One of my frequent requests was the story of the *coal oil ball fights that she and the other children of the area would have.

As I was sitting in church Sunday, I began to remember this story and God spoke to me through it. The children of the community would take string and cloth and wrap it all very tightly together to create a ball. They would take that ball and drop it in coal oil (kerosene) and let it soak for several days. Then, on the perfect night when the temperature dropped they would gather all the balls of twine and cloth and gather together in a field. Teams were picked and battle lines were drawn. The first person would grab a ball and light it on fire causing it to burst into a blue and white flame. They would then throw the ball to the opposing team who had to catch it and quickly throw it back.  Someone was always close with a bucket of water to put out any grass that accidently caught on fire, but that didn’t happen often. The kids would throw the ball back and forth until someone dropped it and then they would start all over again. As a kid, hearing this story, I could just see the bright streaks of flaming oil illuminating the night sky. The darkness having to give way to its powerful light.

Hebrews 12:29 For our God is a consuming fire.

We as Christians should be a coal oil ball. We are meant to be that streak of darkness-battling light. That object engulfed with the fire of God. My mawmaw and her friends were able touch the ball of flames because of what it was soaked in. People can be touched by God through us because we have been soaking in His almighty presence. You are what you allow yourself to soak in. We can have a fire that burns forever if we soak in the right things. Gasoline was never used for coal oil ball fights because it burned to quickly, leaving behind a charred remnant of what it was. There is no sustainability with Gasoline. It’s a quick, hot in the pan moment that fizzles out. Also, if gasoline was used, it would transfer onto anyone or anything that touched it, destroying them with its flames. But coal oil, burned purely and didn’t destroy anything around it, it caused the ball to burn and glow from the inside out without causing harm to the things around it. Just as we are supposed to edify and build up the world around us. We want to consume them with a fire that doesn’t torch and condemn them but engulfs them with love and grace causing them to glow. A fire that sustains anyone who touches it, anyone who accepts it. A fire that doesn’t fade out when things get hard, but glows brighter and stronger during adversity. A fire that drives us and fills us with a passion that cannot be put out. The Holy Spirit is that fire, all we have to do is accept Jesus and follow him and we can possess the all burning, all loving, everlasting fire of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

*(Do not attempt to have a coal oil ball fight. This post is not encouraging the act or giving a call to action. The coal oil ball fight is used as an example only)