Unshackled Moments ~ October 17 ~ What Lies Beneath

My wife and I live in the country. OK, technically that  isn't true. We're a few blocks from the center of a community that has a city limit sign and everything. It's not a city though.  It's not even a town. It's an accumulation of houses and property with one, too expensive, convenience store, a volunteer fire department and no  restaurants, medical care or trash pick up. Because of that last one, we have a burn pile where I burn the trash.  Of course some things, like metal and glass and such, won't burn and have to be removed. But what will burn is torched.

The thing is, sometimes even what will burn or should burn doesn't. Maybe there was something too wet in the garbage can, or the way the trash is piled up causes the fire to smother itself rather than consume, and sometimes the fire just doesn't want to stay lit because of the way the wind is blowing or because the path of the flames takes it away from what needs to be burned and to the leftovers of old fires instead. Regardless of the reason, even though the trash is burned regularly, the pile begins to grow over time as what should have been burned away survives the flames.

Now instead of a pile of ash, there is a pile of trash. If it is ignored, it will only grow worse. That old trash must be reduced to ash to keep the burn pile from getting too big and starting to stink. So every other week or so I take a stick and stir through the remains of fires past. This shifts the rubble and exposes things that didn't completely burn. Then I add fuel that will not go out quickly and will burn hotter than just lighting another bag of trash would burn.  When that is set aflame the old refuse is destroyed. Even if only a small percentage of what I try to burn doesn't, over time it becomes a huge mess.

The principle behind the burn pile is why we must continue and regularly take personal inventory. I understand that I have asked God to remove this sin, this  habit, this character defect from my life, and progress has been made. I am grateful that the fire of the Spirit has burned the majority of that mess out of my life. But as I have a little almost every day that is still there, I know that it is building up to be an ugly, stinky pile that is going to detract from my ability to reflect the glory of God, and make it harder for me to show others a life of freedom that inspires them to do what I did in order to gain what I've gained.  Instead of seeing my new freedom, they will instead only see the mess of trash that accumulated because it didn't all burn and the remainder was not dealt with.

Regular inventory is like stirring through the burn pile with a stick in order to expose what hasn't been completely burned away. When we are wrong, we need to promptly admit it, but we need to do more than just set the pile on fire again. We do the inventory with the help of the Spirit's guidance, and the fire must be supernatural as well. Just the fire of will and determination will not burn away the residue of sin in our life any more than it could burn away the big stuff we couldn't control. We have to get closer and closer to the Spirit who is able to burn without dying out and to burn hot enough to rid our lives of all the impurities and refine us like gold. It's not a one time process, but we can't let the pile grow large again before we address what lies beneath the work we've done so far.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.

- Psalm 139: 23-24

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