we didn’t start the fire.

Most of the world probably already knows about the massive fires that have taken over huge parts of Colorado. If you haven’t, Now is the time to get out from under the rock you have been hiding under and turn on the news. Recently, the fire in the Waldo Canyon has moved towards parts of Colorado Springs in the last 48 hours. What started on Saturday has now left over 32,000 people fleeing their homes and it has doubled in size since Tuesday night. At this point firefighters are doing everything they can just to save homes. But with the temperatures reaching over 100 five days in a row and winds over 65 MPH it’s no wonder the fire fanned into flame and took over 100 homes with it.

Living in Littleton, CO this summer, I am only an hour away from all of this chaos and in case you forgot, that’s the exact city I lived in last summer. But up until a few days ago, I have been unaffected by the fire. Now with word that my neck of the woods has been issued a warning of evacuation if the fire can’t be contained, it’s beginning to sink in. Fire destroys everything in its path.

But fires are not the only thing that has the capability of damaging lives. There are many devastating things in this world that can harm our physical person hood but what about our soul?

  Words have power too. The writer of James compares the tongue to a fire that is set ablaze,

“How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life,and set on fire by hell…but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” -James 3:5-9

I still remember words from my childhood, girls making fun of my frizzy hair and freckles, statements that made me feel like I was never good enough or never pretty enough. While in high school, I always acted like labels, insults and wounds never had a deep impact on me. It wasn’t until college that I realized how much the lies had influenced my life. I learned how to cope with the pain of rejection and injuries from others, but I had never gotten over it. I thought that if I tried to be a better student, a better soccer player, a better anything, I could prove the world wrong.

The funny thing is that the people that hurt me most don’t ever remember the words they said. But they still ring in my ears today. For so long, I tried to silence the sound because the fear would overwhelmed me. I was afraid to let the words linger too long, because I was afraid they were true.

How silly it would be if the residents of Colorado Springs tried pretending the fire wasn’t taking their homes as they spoke about the lovely weather they were experiencing. Women sitting around a table sipping tea and talking nonsense. Now image the man running away into the woods, hoping that if he didn’t see the fire it wouldn’t be true. We would all agree those people were silly and a rational person would remind them both that the fire was still going to burn their houses down. So what can we do about our own inner fire burning us alive?

Put out the spark right away. I sorta feel like Smokey the Bear standing there telling you, “Only you can prevent forest fires.”  Commercials about putting out campfires after leaving a campsite or not lighting a cigarette in a forest dance through my mind. We were all taught to be proactive when dealing with fire in elementary school. So how do we prevent a lie from taking flame?

By speaking truth. The words we proclaim have the ability to give life or take it away. So instead of believing the lies, we can combat them with what is true. I don’t mean that we puff each other up and say nice things about a person’s shoes to dance around the issue that their hair really is a frizzy mess. This is the difference between Smokey and me, I am not saying you can put the fire out on your own. Self-esteem is not the answer. We can never muster up enough good stuff, to make the lies hurt less on our own power. The answer is: Jesus.

It has always been the answer. Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the light.”   Instead of trying to make yourself and others believe you are worth it,  it’s time to know what the God of the Universe says about you. It may not be easy, but it requires listening to the only voice that really matters and telling all the other voices to take a backseat.

Like the famous theologian said, “We didn’t start the fire. It was always burning, since the world’s been turning.” But Billy Joel wasn’t completely correct in his great philosophical assumptions. It doesn’t have to keep burning on. We CAN stop it, by the words we speak to others by cutting off the flame before it gets out of hand. After hearing the Voice of Truth, in the New Testament, people would repent of their sins and then turn from their old ways. They were testaments of Christ’s saving work with their words and their lives. They were never closet Christians. They were wooed by the Great Lover and then were poured out like a drink offering so that the whole world could see the saving grace of God.

Have you experienced the same truth about lies?

What does it look like to speak life into others?

With Colorado on my mind, I pray that God would baptize our country with fresh rains and heal our land.

enslaved in AmUrica

So after a long weekend, I am celebrating Independence Day sitting on the porch watching the fireworks as they go off above the mountains. OKAY!! We live in a beautiful country, I give you that, but as I think about the 4th of July and what it means for our nation, I can’t help but think that we are really missing the mark. Independence Day is about freedom, right? And sure we are free from being ruled over by Great Britian, but people are more than just flesh. We are spiritual too and as I walk the streets, watch drag racing, sit and people watch, visit tourist attractions, I can’t help but see hurt and pain in the eyes of so many. Who are we kidding to say that America is really a free country? When marriages are falling apart because of porn addictions, and strongholds such as alcohol dictate households, children are sold into the sex industry daily, millions of people being controlled by their anger, and drugs declare their hold on so many others. And infinite amounts of advertisements tell us we need more to be satisfied and trap us into the endless cycle of self-hatred.

“There is nothing worse in this world than an enslaved man who naively believes himself free.”

As we celebrate and enjoy our Independence Day, many enslaved people still walk the streets. They don’t even realize their need for freedom. We throw parties, live life up every year thinking it’s our right and end it with a big BANG. All these activities can really keep us busy and trick us into thinking we really are okay, for a while.

We have so much to be thankful for, but can’t seem to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We can’t seem to figure out what is wrong, so we turn to more and more stuff to try fixing the hurt inside. We don’t see that the enemy loves keeping us oppressed, we probably don’t even believe that there is someone fighting for our soul. Maybe our lack of awareness to our soul is what is numbing our hearts and leaves us thinking this is the way it is supposed to be.

Last year I read a book called, Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis. The book is about a demon teaching his nephew how to become a master demon and this quote comes to my mind,

“We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons.  We want to suck in, He wants to give out.  We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over.”

Satan eagerly is fighting for our souls, if that quote doesn’t convince you that there is a war at hand, keep living your so called “free” life, and see how far it gets you. Satan’s goal is to make us slaves, even in this great country-the freest place in the world, there are tons of slaves walking around.

But the story doesn’t end there! Jesus comes to offer us FREEDOM!! Real, authentic, chains are broken kind of freedom. It is not something you can do on your own, you can’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps, that is the beauty of this bloody cross. Romans 3:23 says “we have all fallen short” and because of that we are subject to death, BUT God loved us so much!! He couldn’t imagine you being separated from him forever. His love for you led him to send his Beloved Son, to a cross to die for YOUR sins. Even if it was only for you, He would have done it again. Even if you never believe, he would have done it again. Do you realize how costly this was for the Son? It cost him everything, he was betrayed, abandoned, and denied. His father turned his back on him, he was stripped of clothes, mocked and beaten. He was spit on and left for dead, and then he was killed. He came as a man and he can relate to your pain, because he felt it himself. He did it all for love, so that we could be clothed in righteousness. We didn’t deserve it, but it was given to us as a gift.

His purpose is to redeem his people, that doesn’t mean that we “just get to go to heaven” that means we are new creations NOW! And we are no longer controlled by our flesh. When the world may look at what we were dealt in life and just blame everyone else, God gives us the freedom to love and to have joy in the midst of the storms. Life doesn’t become easier, but it’s becomes worth living.

Count the cost. Freedom is NEVER free. Think about our own great country, AmUURica, the cost was high.

“No greater love than this for a friend to lay down his life”

Our soldiers are a small picture of this selfless love that Jesus demonstrates on the cross. And for this we celebrate, but lets not forget that even though our physical state is free, our spiritual state continues to be at war!