Wildfire

Ever since High Park Fire started, I've been praying for it. I'm so excited to be able to say that it is now 100% contained, three weeks after it started. What an amazing accomplishment for the firefighters who tirelessly worked on it.

As I've been praying for it, I've been thinking about what lessons the fire carries with it. I reflected on James 3 one morning and it took on new meaning as I was seeing firsthand the devastation a wildfire can cause. The fact that my words can have that kind of devastating impact? Convicting.

But the thing that has really stuck with me is that rain is usually used as a metaphor for troubles. Michael W. Smith sang of the death of a loved one when he sang, "Into every life a little rain must fall, and losing one you love is like a storm." And people speak of troublesome times by saying things like, "when it rains, it pours."

And yet here I was, just praying for rain. Praying hard. On my hands and knees, begging God to send rain. And I still am - the High Park Fire may be fully contained but others still rage...and rain will help keep new fires from starting.

It finally started raining this week, during my church's VBS. Normally churches pray that it won't rain during VBS. But no one was praying that at my church this week. And when the rain interfered with our programming, the children's director thanked God for the rain and noted it was no big deal to rearrange our plans...keep the rain coming. Kids, volunteers, were dancing in the rain, standing out in it and catching it on their tongues, basking in the glory of rain. We all let out a cheer when one person got a phone alert about a flash flood warning. I'd never seen a reaction like that to rain before. Especially rain that happens during VBS.

I've always liked rain. I don't even own an umbrella because I like getting wet in the rain. But I've never realized how needed it was until now.

It kinda snuck up on me. Maybe the fire officials and such were more aware of the impending danger of our dry state. But me? I knew we hadn't gotten as much snow this winter, I guess. But my sprinkler's been keeping my lawn nice and green, my showers have been plentiful...so it just didn't feel "droughty" to me.

And then High Park Fire started. And soon others. Some by things as simple as a tire rim falling off a car and causing sparks to fly on the road. A tire rim. That's how dry it is.

And in all this I realized...if rain is a metaphor for troubles, we desperately need them. We can so easily become complacent in our faith when there's no rain falling. This was Satan's premise for testing Job. Satan believed that it was too easy for Job to worship God - everything was going well for him.

But the fact is, if we don't have troubles to test our faith, our faith becomes as dry as a forest of beetle-killed trees. And the damage that can happen when a little spark starts will destroy lives. We need the rain to keep us humble and prevent much greater destruction.

So whether you're experiencing rain in your life right now or you do in the future, remember how valuable that rain is. It might just be preventing devastation to your faith that is so great, you couldn't even imagine the damage.

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance." - James 1:2-3

"I pray for rain to come,
And wash away what has made me numb.
I pray for a raging storm to drown the sin in me.
And the rain comes in the nick of time,
I swallow hard 'cuz my throat's been dry.
The rain comes beating on my skin,
'til I'm washed away, nothing left within,
When your rain comes.
Your rain comes."

- PFR

Prayer

I've got to be honest. I'm feeling a bit discouraged by prayer right now.

You see, the High Park Fire has been torching tens of thousands of acres west of Fort Collins for over two weeks now. And ever since it started, I've been praying fervently for it. Not half-hearted prayers. Bold prayers. Prayers backed in faith that God can answer them. Prayers that God would drench our state. That he'd lower the temps and the wind, raise the humidity, and pour forth rain. I've been praying Scriptures about rain. Reading about Elijah and the cloud the size of a fist that brought forth a crazy amount of rain in a land that hadn't seen it for three years, and envisioning that as I prayed it for my state.

And yet the past week has been marked by record-breaking temperatures. So far in June, the area where the fire is has received .06 inches of rain. Total. Containment on Friday dropped by 15%.

I've been praying for the firefighters for strength. Then I read that one was medavac'ed on Friday due to dehydration. I've been praying for homes to be spared. 57 more homes burned this weekend.

I've been praying that God would prevent more fires from starting. This weekend, new fires began to pop up all over the state.

There've been other fires nearby. The one near Carter Lake last summer. Hewlett Gulch just a month or so ago, just north of where High Park is. And I never really followed those too closely, just whatever I read on Facebook. But somehow this one struck my heart from the very beginning, when I first heard about it and it was just 50 acres. With this fire, I felt compelled to follow it, and to pray.

So it's hard not to feel like my prayers have not only been ineffective, but like God is just doing the opposite of what I ask. It's hard to keep faith when the first fire I pray regularly for turns into the 2nd largest fire in Colorado state history. It's like when you tune into a basketball game halfway through and learn that your team has been winning the whole game, but as soon as you start to watch they start losing. And even though you know that it couldn't have had anything to do with the fact that you were watching, it's hard not to feel like you're a curse.

Only this isn't as frivolous as some basketball game. This is people's homes, even a life. And I know that a LOT of people have been praying. It's hard not to feel like God isn't listening to any of us.

I was just about to log into Blogger to write this blog when I read this Tweet. "RAIN!!!! RT @COEmergency its beginning to rain out off CR74E and Boy Scout Road (68C)"

It's 16 days in, but it's a glimmer of hope. A glimmer that God is listening. That somehow he will work good from this. And that he is in control.

Promise

This evening as I drove home from work, I thought through all the things I need to accomplish within the next week. And I wondered if it was humanly possible. I began to feel like I was drowning. Like all the organized planning in the world won't be enough to get me through this.

And then I noticed that there in the sky in front of me was a full, beautiful rainbow. And as I sat at the red light, admiring this rainbow, I prayed, "OK...so you promised not to flood the world again...can you promise not to flood my life?"

Well, I don't know if that's the new meaning of the rainbow, but I do know one thing. That rainbow was a reminder to me that I'm not in this alone. It's not a matter if it's "humanly" possible to do everything I need to do. With God, all things are possible. And as sure as the sun is there even when it's raining, God's there even when I feel flooded—causing a beautiful rainbow to shine out of my life.