Standing in the Flames

We have to dip our feet in disinfectant before entering the chicken house and after every crop is over the entire coop has to be cleansed thoroughly to make it ready for the next crop of baby chicks. In cleaning the house down we use a lot of water and after that, fire. The water to clean off the many surfaces, and the fire to burn off feathers and other foreign objects on the organic flooring to reduce bacteria carrying over from one flock of birds to the next. One thing is for sure, we could not use the water before the fire. 

God also has a reputation for transforming with water and fire. Noah…check. Sodom and Gomorrah…check. All of these thoughts were triggered by a quote I heard some time ago. 

“Water makes things different but fire makes things new.”
-- Unknown

Could it be that the watery baptism is for us to be set apart, to reboot our mindset and our spiritual frame of reference? While the trials, tests and tribulations that follow are there to truly make us new? Mind you, not only Christians experience “haaaad life”. As we say in Jamaica, “Rain nuh fall pon one man house top!” But by being made different through the watery grave of baptism we are able to be truly made new by these fiery trials. Why? How? Because we no longer see the tests that almost daily come our way, as just another set of suffering on planet Earth but a part of the process to seeing eternity. 

As we did with those chicken houses, it is God’s ideal plan to first make us different with water, then make us new with fire. My friend...do not be afraid to get out of the kiddie pool of your early christian walk and step into the flames of daily trials. Like the three Hebrew boys, He is ready and waiting to stand there with you. 

— YorkAli Walters