Ted and I went last Saturday to this thing – a fire – that was presented by the Michigan Prescribed Fire Council of which our son-in-law Andy is part of. Yes, they had an actual fire. It was part of a “Learn and Burn” education day that explained and demonstrated HOW they burn land areas and WHY.

Did you know that fire is very important to the environment? It can clear out old overgrown debris that chokes out new growth. It can minimize the spread of insects and disease while recycling nutrients back into the soil. And with burned areas that offer a flatter surface of new growth – it can provide a stop to potential catastrophic fires that burn out of control. There is much much more about WHY prescribed burns are so beneficial – click here to learn more.

The fire we watched covered an acre – and was indeed controlled.

It made me think.

I love the song “I Will Never Be the Same Again” that I’ve often sung in church. Here it is if you want to listen to it:

I Will Never Be The Same Again Hillsongs w lyrics YouTube – YouTube

The song speaks about how God can and DOES cleanse us – and changes us. We may simply ask for God’s forgiveness and He, with marvelous love and grace, can forgive us of all our sins. And if we are on the wrong track in life, we can call on His strength and power to change us. Sometimes those changes take time – and sometimes those changes can be painful as we perhaps endure unpleasant situations that bring about our change. Think about maybe an unplanned for job change, or financial crisis, or the death of a loved one, or a health issue. The lyrics sing about how we are to “sweep away the darkness, burn away the chaff, and let a flame burn to glorify Your name.”

So what is chaff? Mathew 3:12:  His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” In biblical days, when wheat was harvested, they first cut the wheat stalks, then brought them to the threshing floor. “Threshing” is where you separate the wheat from the useless parts of the stalk. The ‘chaff’ was the husk or covering of the wheat grain. By using a winnowing fork, they would toss the threshed wheat into the air so that the wind could blow away the useless (and lighter weight) chaff.

The bible verse from Mathew 3:12 speaks more about how God will, in the final days, take His faithful followers home with him. God knows his people and will take them with Him but those who deny Christ and live in sin will face the unquenchable fire. But I think there is a lesson here for us on another level. As we grow and learn and become more like Christ and as He helps us through trials that make us to be stronger and more faithful Christians, God is in a way cleansing us from our old ways. Our trials are like the threshing and the winnowing is how we give up and/or separate ourselves from past sins and unsavory lifestyles. Just like all the regrowth of plants and trees after a fire, we can ‘burn’ away those old useless bad things in our lives, only to be changed and cleansed. Like scorched and cleared land, we will have room to grow back better and stronger.

just Laurel