Word on wildfires
Not too long after the 3/11 word, the Lord spoke to me again at our noon Eucharist, that Oklahoma was going to be in the news, because it was the Sooner state, and God was doing things “sooner” than later in this 3/11 season. Probably about a week later, it was on Fox news that wildfires had broken out in Oklahoma and I knew immediately that God was beginning to speak a word. The 3/11 word had 2 scriptures that were 3/11 related: Ruth 3:11, “Ask me anything you want, and I will give it to you”; the other one was Matt 3:11, where John speaks about Jesus’ baptism being the baptism of the Holy spirit and fire. I believe that God was saying that at the top of his list of things we should be asking for, crying out for in this 3/11 season is a fresh baptism of the Holy Spirit and in fire. I believe that the word about the wildfires in Oklahoma was God speaking to us that He wants to ignite in our hearts and in our parishes a wildfire. That can be a scary term to people who are afraid of charismatic things, because that’s what they fear, for the charismatic stuff to be out of control. But I do believe there’s a fire of the Holy Spirit that man cannot control, but it’s not flesh either and that God does want to create, not just a fire or a small fire, or a campfire, but He wants to ignite a wildfire in our hearts and one thing wildfires do, is they destroy man-made structures and that’s why people are so committed to try and stop wildfires.
But the truth is that in nature, wildfires accomplish good things; they burn up old brush and cause regeneration in the soil, just like people used to burn their yards during the winter because chemicals go down in the soil so that the next Spring, the grass would come up stronger and thicker. So, in nature, wildfires create good things, but men stop it because what wildfires do is destroy human structures and this is really God. God is saying in the spirit that He wants to ignite a wildfire in our hearts, in His church, in our parishes, like in Matt 3:11, in the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire. In the process of doing that, when He does it, He will destroy all the structures that mankind has made. And by structures, I mean all the stuff of the flesh in our life, not the holy structures or traditions in the church, but man-made stuff, things that are of the flesh, things that we are doing in the flesh, things that we are trying to accomplish in the power of the flesh, that is what wildfires destroy. The spirit of God will be out of man’s control and will destroy the things that are man-made in our hearts and in our ministries.
Also, one of the things they did in Oklahoma was they assigned teams that went about looking for hotspots because when they thought they had the fires under control, they discovered a hot spot, a place where there were simmering embers and all it took was for the wind to blow and that hot spot would erupt into another wildfire. God said that he wants us to pray that our hearts, our churches would be hot spots, places that are always ready to explode into a wildfire, that all it takes if for the wind of the spirit to blow. So we are to ask the Lord to make our heart a hot spot. I think of the attitude of Ruth, where she was laying in a surrendered mode at the feet of Boaz, on the threshing floor, this place of separation, this place of cleansing and repentance. She lay there with a heart of repentance and absolute, total submission to Boaz; it is in that mindset that we need to have that broken, surrendered, repentant heart. That your heart is hot sport, or your church is a hot spot.
