Fires had just raged across Malibu a day before this image was taken of Pepperdine University’s tower

Ask anyone on the West coast – wildfires are frightening.  When I was in High School, I remember a visit to the Berkeley Hills outside San Francisco following a particularly vicious outbreak of wildfires.  The hills were charred black, with the only recognizable structures being an occasional lonely chimney or metal beam contorted by the terrible heat.  It was a startling site.  Tina and I also visited the Malibu hills in 2007, a day after the Malibu fires that year had subsided.  It was the same picture.  Acres of charred, black coastal hills.  While in nature, wildfires may be a natural process that actually helps regenerate forest vegetation, when this comes in contact with human civilization the effects can be devastating.

On a recent trip to Titusville we noticed an alarming plume of smoke rising over the neighborhood.  It turns out the smoke was coming from a prescribed burn in the marshlands just West of Titusville.  My father, Alan Long, is something of a prescribed burn guru.  For years he’s provided teaching and consultation on prescribed (controlled) burning throughout the Southeast.  To quote the guru:

“Prescribed (or controlled) fires today provide the same benefits that accrued to natural fires  – periodic fuel reduction to decrease the likelihood of high intensity wildfires and regular renewal of the high plant biodiversity in the ground-level vegetation that is so important to many forms of animals. Critical to maintaining the fire benefits is the need to repeat prescribed fires on cycles similar to those that occurred naturally.”

I was reflecting on all this wildfire and controlled fire business and 1 Peter 3 came to mind:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls”.
(1 Peter 1:3-9, NIV )

In reflecting on this passage from Peter, and the thoughts from my guru-father, it occurred to me that trials and challenges in life are a lot like prescribed burns.

First, they help eliminate the outbreak of much worse uncontrolled wildfires.  Sometimes God is using the situation you are in to refine your character, to strengthen your resolve, to deepen your faith.  Only God knows why, but I believe at times it’s because He knows there’s a threat around the corner far more perilous to our testimony and our spiritual livelihood that requires a toughening of our spiritual fortitude.  This doesn’t mean you’re in sin, it just means God wants you stronger than you are.  Believe me, I don’t like it, but I’ve seen this to be the case in my life time and again.

Second, trials can renew our fruitfulness (our “ground vegetation”, if you will).  I’ve heard story after story of how God has used somebody in the middle of a seriously trying situation to actually minister grace and healing to someone else in a similar situation.  Perhaps you can recall God doing this in your own life.  Look for ways that God wants to use you to replenish the life of others.  He is a master at this and I marvel every time I see Him work this out in the lives of His saints.

Third, and this is probably the most painful part, trials often need to be repeated.  Although sometimes this might be due to our hard-headedness (I certainly will own that one), I think the actual reason is far less clear.  Sometimes we never know “why” some suffering continues to plague us over and over.  But, as a former pastor of mine once said, “God doesn’t waste pain”.  Your suffering isn’t arbitrary.  And this is where I cling to Peter’s assertion in the passage above: “These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”.  He has a reason, and it is ultimately in glory.

So, no matter what the fiery trial you are facing, and no matter how many times it has returned upon you, I pray you also know that in it and through it, through faith you are “…shielded by God’s power”.  Whatever God’s ultimate reason may be for allowing it, His power is at work in the middle of it to refine and strengthen you and to make you more fruitful, that through you He may bless others.  Ask Him to reveal that regenerative power through you today.

Controlled Burn west of Fox Lake, Titusville, FL