It Takes More Than a Spark

A few years ago, I was asked to speak at the Christian Church in the Southwest Regional Men’s Retrat.  The theme was, Ignite a Fire in Me.

It made me think of all the wonderful fire images in scripture—the fire where Jacob cooked the beans that finagled Esau out of his birthright, the fire of that surrounded the Bush but did not consume it, the fire by night that led the Israelites out of Egypt and to the Promised Land, the fire Elijah called down from heaven to consume his altar when squared off with the prophets of Baal, the coal taken from the altar touched to Isaiah’s lips by the Angel,  the tongues of flame at Pentecost . . .  But, what I really thought about was camping. 

I’m an Eagle Scout—big part of scouting is camping, big part of camping is managing a fire.  You come in as a Tenderfoot scout—11 or 12 years of age.  And like every 11/12 year old you’re a pyromaniac.  You figure out that if you want to set something on fire, it’s pretty easy to do.  But, it’s happen to more than one of us that we got so busy lighting matches we’d get down to the last one or two matches and not have any fire built.  That’s when you realize that if you screw up again, you’ll be eating raw food.  And the one thing an 11 or 12 year old likes more than playing with fire is eating.

If you’re lucky, someone will have mercy on you and show you how to build a fire the right way.  They teach you that when building a fire there’s three things you need to collect—tender, kindling and fuel.  Tender is the stuff you can light with a match.  Dry leaves or grass, newspaper, if you’re lucky a paper towel that’s been used to sop up bacon grease, or my favorite out in this part of the state—cedar bark.  Kindling is the kind of wood you can light from tender.  But Tender and Kindling burn up pretty quick.  You might be able to roast a wiener over a kindling only fire but if you want to cook one of them dutch oven cobblers, you’ll need something else.  You have to have fuel.  Tender lights kindling, kindling lights fuel, fuel cooks cobbler.  Simple equation.  And over the years, you learn some nuance.  Like you learn that you have to tend to a fire so it doesn’t burn down acreage your camping on, and you learn to break up coal so that it burns out quickly because you don’t want to pour a lot of water on a fire pit if you’re coming back to it the next night to cook chili or something.  You figure out that fires are hot and the more fuel the hotter.  You learn, particularly in summer, how to put on just enough fuel to cook your food and not cook your face and how to manage the fire so that it dies down at the right time and how to manage the wood pile so you don’t spend all your time searching for fuel.  But that’s it, tender—kindling—fuel. 

So Eagle Scout becomes an adult and becomes a youth minister or youth sponsor . . . goes to church camp.  Eagle Scout responsible adult interacts with artsy-fartsy, hippie guitar player youth dude.  Artsy-fartsy, hippie guitar player youth dude says, “We should have a campfire tonight.  Do you know how to build a fire?”  “Yeah, I know how to build a fire it takes tender-kindling . . .”  “Great, you build the fire, I’ll bring my guitar will have a great campfire for the kids.” So Eagle Scout responsible youth person goes about collecting the necessary wood—tender—kindling--fuel.  Knowing that  artsy-fartsy hippie guitar youth dude will want a campfire every night, you pick up enough fuel to last all week.  Build a few piles.  Time comes, you assemble the wood, tender on bottom, surrounded by kindling, and just enough fuel to last the length of the campfire so that you don’t cook yourself and you don’t have to spend half the night waiting for the fire to die down to a safe level.  As the kids show up, you strike one match—light the tender. Tender catches kindling, kindling catches fuel.  We’re good to go.  And Artsy-fartsy hippie guitar player comes over to your week’s worth of fuel and puts about half of the wood you collected on the fire.  “What are you doing?”  “I can’t read the song sheet.  I need more light.”  “They make these sticks, you stick in batteries, little bulb at the end, on off switch.” “Naw, this is better.” 

So now you know a few things.  One, you know it’s about to get a lot hotter than you expected.  You’re going to start sweating and you’re going to stink.  Two, you know that it’s going to take twice as long to get the fire to a safe level  and that’s going to get you to your bunk a lot later than you wanted.  Three, you’re going to have to spend a lot more time collecting fuel.  And as you’re mulling over these realities, artsy fartsy hippie guitar playing youth dude begins singing. “It only takes a spark, to get a fire going.”  And that’s when you practically reach boiling point and you want to say, “No it doesn’t.  It takes tender-kindling-and fuel.”  And that’s what I would say about evangelism—it takes more than a spark to have a fire worth passing on. 

In many ways, the story of American Christian history—particularly among men—is told as a sequence of sparks.  Jonathon Edward and George Whitefield 1741—Spark, the First Great Awakening.  Cane Ridge, 1801 Barton Stone—Spark, Second Great Awakening.  Azusa Street, Los Angeles California, 1906, William J. Seymour—Spark, Global Pentecostal Movement.  Billy Graham  Minneapolis, 1950—Spark, the modern Evangelical movement.  Martin Luther King, march on Washington, DC, 1963—Spark.  Dr. Bill Lee, Brownwood, Texas, 2012 CCSW Men’s Retreat—Spark.  And what we forget to tell is that these sparks landed somewhere there was fuel present for each of those movements that enabled the fire to grow.  What is true of fires is true of spiritual movements—it takes more than a spark to ignite a fire worth passing on.

In the New Testament letter of 2 Peter, we read these words—“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.  Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”  God’s divine power has given us everything we need. 

From Greek Mythology, we get that story about the creation of humanity—Epimetheus whose name means afterthought had made the other animals but he had given all the really good gifts away—swiftness, courage, cunning, fur, wings.  It came time to do the really important work, and he didn’t have any good gifts left—he thought.  He turned to his brother Prometheus—whose name means forethought—and Prometheus fashioned men to stand upright like the Gods.  And then Prometheus gave them something far better than wings.  He stole fire from the God’s and gave it to humanity.  And as the story goes “therefrom [fire] learns many crafts.”  As the mythology goes, Zeus was angered by Prometheus’ theft and punishes him—requiring him to guard and push a rock and have his liver eaten daily by an Eagle.  In the Greek mindset, the gods withheld the good from people because they didn’t want to have them.  The Christian proclamation is quite different.  It says that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness.  God doesn’t withhold what is good.  God doesn’t chain you to some rock where you can be punished repeatedly.  Jeremiah the prophet proclaimed the word of God say, “ For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. “  We don’t have to invent fire, we don’t have to cause force trees to grow. 

The image I have is of a good Dad—not like me, you know—but one who has the patience and knowledge about how to build things that he can take his son or daughter into the shop, assemble the tools and the materials and show their children how to build stuff.  When there’s a screw to be screwed in, the Dad will take the child’s hand in his hand and wrap it around the screw drive and add just enough pressure to the child’s hand to move the screw into place.  When the project is done, the child will show his or her mother, you know, and say “I built this. I built this.”  “Really, all by yourself?”  “No, my Daddy helped me.”   I think about the man who taught me how to build a fire.  I really was down to my last match.  He had watched me try to light a log on fire directly from the match.  Keith Wells, crusty oilman, World War II veteran, Marine took my hand and he lifted it up and showed me that the dry twigs at the end of the branches are the tree were what I needed.  In the morning when there’s dew, he said, the stuff on the ground may be too wet.  So you reach up to the trees where the wood is still dry.  If it bends too much, you don’t want it.  But keep searching you’ll find the stuff that snaps off easily.  God has provided everything we need—the wisdom we need for discernment, the strength we need for endurance, the energy we need for initiative, the concentration we need for prayer, the memory we need for Christlikeness.  All that we need, God has supplied.  Too many Christians today live with functional atheism.  They believe in God, they believe that Jesus is the Son of God.  They believe in duty and responsibility and obedience.  But, they don’t believe that God ever steps in to help them.  

But the text goes on to say, “For this reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness knowledge; and to knowledge self-control; and to self-control perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness love.  For if you you possess these qualities IN INCREASING MEASURE they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of Jesus Christ.  But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.”  (2 Peter 1:5-9.  It takes more than a spark to have a fire worth passing on.  It take tender-kindling-fuel.  Add to your faith . . . if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive.  ).   Texts like this ring true to me, if you take the first part by itself—it sounds like it’s all God’s work and we’ve got nothing to do—Just let go and let God.  If you just read this part without the first part, you think all the work gets done by you—If it’s to be it’s up to me.  But what the New Testament affirms repeatedly is that the Christian life is a partnership between God and believer, between God and church.  God does 100% of the work through Christians giving 100% of themselves. 

I would like to lift up a few pieces of fuel I think men need in their lives.  Women probably need them also but, I was talking to men so here goes: 

Men need an accountability partner.  Accountability partners is another person who know where you are tempted and tried and has permission to ask about how you're doing in those areas of your life. 

Daily reading of scripture.  I heard once a statemetns, I don't know that I agree with it completely but it's stuck with me for years.  Someone said, "If I go one day without reading scripture, God knows it.  If I go two days without reading scripture, I know it.  If I go three days without scripture, everyone knows it." 

An active, disciplined prayer life.  Every man prays.  Go to a Christian Men's Fellowship work day and you'll hear lots of prayers of petition.  At least that's what I think their doing when they hit a sticky problem.  But those momentary prayers are not nearly as important as disciplined and earnest prayers that include more than just petition.  They include praise and thanksgiving. 

It take more than a spark to get a fire going.  It take tender, kindling and most of all it takes fuel to have a fire worth passing on.