Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

The fire next time

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

From Daniel 3
King Nebuchadnezzar ordered the furnace to be heated seven times more than usual. Then he had some of the strongest men in his army bind Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego and cast them into the white-hot furnace.

I love life, experience joy in the morning, and praise God as the Father of it all. His gifts are boundless. This is his earth, and everything in it! One of my favorite books on prayer is David Steindl-Rast's Gratefulness: The Heart of Prayer. But often my prayers feel small and inadequate.

I want to share with you a thought or two about prayer in the furnace.

Rob Des Cotes says prayer is the crucible where God moves us "from the periphery of our lives to the center of who we are, from what is superficial in us to the most profound aspects of our being, and from the illusion of autonomy to union with God as our first reality."

This path has a worthy destination. But like most yellow brick roads, following it is much more difficult than it looks at first. When I leave behind my cheering crowd of munchkins, even the trees of the forest threaten me. I need help because the path quickly becomes obscured.

Then before I know it I am in the crucible. I might be a bit more patient if it could be called the "furnace of transformation." But this euphemism does not hold back the burning. The lights are out and the fire will have its way. John of the Cross wrote in his famous poem, "Dark Night of the Soul,"

On a dark night
inflamed by love-longing,
o exquisite risk!
Undetected, I slipped away.

Explaining "inflamed," John wrote, "Impure souls suffer. If they had no imperfections, the spiritual fire would be powerless over them. Imperfections are the fuel that ignites. Once they are consumed, there is nothing left to burn" (Book 2, X, 5, Starr translation).

I only have one task, if you can even call it a task. Famous spiritual director and author Thomas Green says that in the fire "our prayer at this time is simply a question of learning to do nothing, to waste time gracefully" (When the Well Runs Dry, p. 125-126). Green knows how hard this is. Adjusting to, rather than escaping from, this burning black hole, which is often accompanied by depression and sense of futility, requires re-definition and ideally the help of someone who has moved a step or two along this way.

John of the Cross goes on to say, "When the imperfections are gone, the soul's suffering is over and what remains is joy." And his poem ends,

I lost myself. Forgot myself.
I lay my face against the Beloved's face.
Everything fell away and I left myself behind,
abandoning my cares
forgotten among the lilies.

And here we are, Lord, with you in the crucible of today. What you bring for me is what I want to receive. Let my bending in your hand, O Lord, always be for gladness.

Devotions Archive

The fire next time

Wednesday, March 21, 2018