Refreshing Fires

My first several years of Oregon life was relatively fire quiet. One fire a few miles away quickly contained.

Then 2020 lit the skies.

I scrolled Twitter under hashtags for the Oregon fires. Any account asking for prayer received a like from me.

Then 2021 lit the skies.

That year, it came nearer to my home. The smoke was thick in the air. I package taped my front door with garbage bags. My Twitter account gone, I opened the #firemappers website every day and prayed over Oregon. Rainy season started early, on Sept. 1, and I rejoiced at the clear blue skies.

Then 2022 lit the skies.

Oregon has a few conflagration fires this fire season. Prayers again supplicated the skies.

Accumulated weariness and stress seeps into our homes like the thick smoke the fires produce. Three years of devastating fire seasons is hard to bear, especially for those that have lost much.

The disciples had lost Jesus, and they were hiding from the Jewish leaders.

There is another fire blazing above the heads of the apostles. This visible manifestation of the Holy Spirit would equip them to spread the gospel. During times of calamity, it is a chance to get right with God. Or as C. S. Lewis writes in The Problem of Pain: “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”