God Speaks from the Fire



So last week was rather eventful around here. On Tuesday morning, after a lovely relaxing Labor Day weekend, I was woken up by an acrid smell and a haze of smoke rapidly filling up the house. I'm so thankful that my husband, rather than his usual "open a window, it will be fine" attitude, recognized the seriousness of the situation and got me out of bed and out of the house. I called the fire department and they soon located the source of the smoke - smoldering insulation in the attic caused by faulty wiring.

We were lucky. We were home, we called the fire department immediately, they were able to locate the source and put it out before it caused much damage. Other than some charred insulation and wiring and a house that smells like a BBQ pit, we didn't suffer any lasting damage. But it was certainly scary!

And, to my amazement, I was surprisingly calm through the whole thing. It brought to mind Philippians 4:7, "Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus." (NLT) Or in the version we all heard growing up - the "peace that passes all understanding." 

 God's peace is unlike anything we experience in the world. God's peace is not the absence of difficulty or strife or violence. That stuff is around us all the time. It is what we call the human

condition. But at the same time, we can, through God's grace, experience the "God condition." In the middle of a chaotic and rapidly changing crisis (albeit on a very small scale), I felt a complete calm and a comforting reassurance that everything was OK. I was more concerned for the firefighters that went in to the unknown situation, and for my neighbors who share townhouse walls with us, than for my own potential losses. 

 "Be still and know that I am God." (Psalm 46: 10, NRSV) So hard to do when it seems like the world is constantly in crisis. Violence in so many forms, children suffering from neglect and abuse, governments that seem so detached from the well-being of their people - it is overwhelming. But in the middle of the fire, just as Moses heard, God speaks. And when God speaks, God loves. And when God loves, we experience peace. 

 So, I still have to put up with a few more days of industrial cleaning, and insurance adjusters and replacing damaged goods, but all of that shrinks to just minor annoyance when I let myself be enfolded in God's peace, which truly does exceed anything I can understand. 

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