As I hiked through a burned forest the other day with a friend we admired all the new growth on the forest floor. She said, "It is amazing isn't it that in order for life to continue, fire needs to burn some trees down?" I thought about it for a minute and we talked about renewal. Forest fires are a metaphor for life. We need fire to burn down the old growth in our lives once in awhile in order to have new growth.
God tries many other ways to touch our hearts but sometimes we don't listen. He attempts to prune a few branches but we resist. We hold onto the dead growth in our lives and resist that change. For instance, how many of us hold on to a past hurt? Jesus tells us to forgive not seven times but seventy times seven or basically forever. My children mess up all the time and I forgive them all the time. I mess up with them all the time and they forgive me. It is the same with God. He wants to forgive us but sometimes that means giving up the old growth in our lives. He can't forgive if we are still holding onto that thing we are asking forgiveness for. Pruning hurts but fire hurts more.
In these cases of extreme stubbornness God will sometimes burn us down in order to build us back up. He has to do things this way. We need the new growth but won't accept it unless it is forced upon us. Therefore, he breaks us, burning the underbrush of the unclean life. In this broken state we are slowly rebuilt with beauty, patience and care. We become more than we were before the fire. Don't get me wrong the fire burns and it leaves scars and sometimes those scars come up again later but it is still good for us. As a parent disciplines a child so God disciplines his children. It doesn't always feel good to be disciplined but it is certainly necessary.
