Light the Fire (Part 1)

I'm not a scientist, so I don't understand all the physical properties of flint. It seems to me to have almost ancient, mystical properties. I remember as a kid finding pieces of flint at the ranch and trying to make arrowheads out of them. With a small hammer and a piece of pointed deer horn you can chip the stone into different shapes and make almost razor sharp edges. (I say you can, but I never could! I usually ended up breaking the piece I was working with.) The stone seems so soft since you can chip it away so easily and yet it is hard enough to shave steel!

A few years ago I began pursuing the hobby of muzzle loading and historical reenacting. Several of my friends and fellow reenactors shoot flintlock guns. As I spent more time with them I learned more about this magical rock known as flint.

Not only does the flint cause their guns to ignite, it is also used to start fires at most of their primitive campsites. I won a flint and steel fire starting kit at a rendezvous and started practicing my own primitive fire making. What I learned first was that when you strike the piece of steel with the flint, the flint actually shaves off a small piece of the steel, at the same time heating that piece of steel to a temperature high enough to light a fire!

That soft, breakable, chippable, magnificent stone can literally shave steel. Not only that, but the harder the steel, the smaller and hotter the spark that is shaved off.

Something as hard as steel can be used to light a fire when struck by something as fragile as a piece of flint.

I know many people who consider themselves as strong as steel. (It's a Superman complex.) Some spend years hardening their steel so that nothing will affect them. They build walls to protect a broken heart, they harden their hearts to mask a gentle spirit, or they allow callouses to build over the repeated pain of life. And yet, I have also seen something as gentle as the good news of Jesus Christ shave this steel with enough force to start a fire!

It may be just a small spark, but if that spark lands in the right place, the fire will spread.

This is the beginning of a series about lighting the fire. My prayer is that you will see yourself in these elements, and you will allow the word of Christ to light the fire within you. It will be transformational. Jeremiah said, "If I say, 'I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,' there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot." This is what happens when we come into contact with God's Son.

Try it and you will see!