Fire Extinguishers: Things We do that Put Out Our Fire, Part III

Image by Dean_In_SF via Flickr

Fire is a living thing. We have spoken about how it must be fed. It must also breathe. Place a candle in a jar, seal the lid and you will see the flame expire. So too, the fire of God which burns within us must be renewed daily from the breath of God.




“Breathe on me breath of God, fill me with life anew, that I may love what thou dost love and do what thou wouldst do.” Yeah, I know the language is pretty dated, as should be the case for an old hymn. The theology is pretty solid though. It is a great old hymn using a great old image for God’s presence. Like fire and bread, breath – or air – is one way that we have tried to describe what our experience has been like. We say that humanity was created when God breathed into Adams nostrils creating a living soul. The Hebrews call the spirit of God “ruach” and the Greeks called it “pneumatos”. Like the bread of heaven that feeds our fire, the breath of God keeps it from suffocating.


Breathing, like eating, is not just something you do once. Yet, it seems that we hold our breath as if the air around us is in limited supply. For many, of us it is not a matter of access to the supply that suffocates us, we smother ourselves by not exhaling.


Now, I know this seems like an odd image but give me a moment. I think that we as Christians all too often miss the point of our existence as vessels of the fire of God. When it comes to the breath of God our job is not to be storage. Rather, we should think of ourselves are transport vessels carrying fresh air into the staleness of the world. Rescue breathing, if you would, for a world that is breathlessly waiting for some hopeful, good news. Our failure is a failure to exhale. If we smother, we smother ourselves. Unfortunately, we allow other to smother as well.


So, how do we exhale? Well, you remember that I said we are rescue breathers. Our duty is to take what we have been given and share it with the rest of the world. The problem is, once again, that we do not believe there is enough to go around so we do not share at all.


Revisiting the feeding of the multitudes, we see the crowds gathered on the hillside and say, “Lord there will never be enough to feed all of these people!” His eternal response is simply to ask that we bring him what we have. Bringing our limited supply to him, we quickly realize that with his blessing there is enough for all.


We have to get away from seeing God’s presence as some sort of limited commodity which we must hold onto like grim death lest our fire die. By mercifully exhaling this breath of God into the nostrils of other dying souls, we open our own fire to that breath a new every day.


There are many ways we can exhale. We exhale when we feed the hungry. We exhale by caring for the widow and the orphan. We exhale by visiting and caring for the sick. We exhale by showing hospitality to the stranger and the alien in our midst. We exhale by clothing the naked. In all of these things and more we exhale when we rescue the lost by sharing this Good News Christ has given us; this good news we call the Kingdom of God. In short, we exhale by showing to others the same grace and love which we ourselves have received.


It is nothing new or novel to say that this is an expectation God has for us. Jesus insists that those who would claim a share in his kingdom do these things to others as if it were being done to Jesus himself. James, revisiting the teaching of his big brother, tells us that if we say we have faith but do not do these things - do not love – it is as if we have no faith at all.


For John Wesley the sanctification of the individual meant that the love of God and neighbor was to be shed abroad in one’s heart. The result was the production of “works meet for repentance” This was Wesley’s way of saying that you should exhale after each breath of grace.


These works of mercy are not the things which make us holy. Rather, they are the natural result of God’s holiness with in us, fanning the flames of his spirit. They are the pleasure of breathing deeply in God’s presence, allowing us to love as God would love and do as God would do. Enjoy a deep exhale after each fresh new breath of grace.