A Consuming Fire

   Tumbleweeds are one of those strange wonders of nature.  They start off as your ordinary garden weed but soon grow to the size of a small bush.  Their lifespan lasts for the remainder of summer.  When fall comes they die and dry out.  Later, the following spring and summer, the wind breaks them off at their stem and sends them rolling across the prairie.  If you live in Pueblo West, you just might see a sign saying, “Beware: Tumbleweed Crossing”.

    These prickly, dry weeds roll across the road in droves.  (if you have the road all to yourself you might play a game called “Dodge the Flying Tumbleweed”). 

     Once, someone asked me what I did in Pueblo West for fun, I told them that I chased tumbleweeds, which is mostly true, except I don’t do it for fun.  I usually chase after them, catch them, and throw them in the burn barrel.

    Recently, my mom came up with another family activity (the week before it was painting the fence).  This time, we were to burn the tumbleweeds that had accumulated on our two acre property.  We do try to keep up with their removal, but it just takes one strong wind and then you have all your neighbor’s tumbleweeds to contend with!

    My brother had spent the previous day finding these thorny weeds and stacking them up next to the fence, a nice sea of tumbleweeds, generations of tumbleweeds: moms, dads, kids, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, extended relatives, twice removed relatives, and all their friends.  It was going to be a long day.

    The morning of the big tumbleweed burn, I drove down to the fire department to obtain a burn permit.  I thought (and hoped) that obtaining the permit would be my ultimate contribution and perhaps I could make myself scarce with some other chore needing to be done.  Tumbleweed burns are not very fun.  By the time you have finished: your muscles are extremely sore and you’re skin is sunburned; you smell of dust, smoke and tumbleweeds; and you’re eyes burn from sweat and sunscreen.

     I thought to busy myself with dinner preparations, etc.  However, my mom had a different idea.  She approached me with her proposition. “Sooo, how would you like to be the supervisor?”

    Anyone who knows me knows that I can be quite suspicious and skeptical.  If I am to accept a job I might as well know what it will acquire of me, which prompted my question.  “And… what does this job entail?”

    “You just stand by the burn barrel, stuff tumbleweeds into it, and make sure they don’t fall out.”

    After careful consideration and debate, all of which took about 5 second, I gave my answer.  “Hmmm, I don’t think so.”

    My mom wasn’t going to give up, “How about a helper?”

    “And… what does that job entail?”

    “You just stand by the burn barrel, stuff tumbleweeds into it, and make sure they don’t fall out.”

    Right then I was thinking, Is it just me or is the helper doing the supervisor’s job?  I had to give my mom a point for her psychology, and had it been anyone else it might have worked.  I mean, who wouldn’t want to be ‘The Supervisor’, I mean doesn’t that job just sound important to you?  Way better than ‘The Helper’.  Since she gave me the choice… “I’ll be The Supervisor.”

Where did that tumbleweed go?

     And so I pulled on my old tennis shoes, tied my hair back, and slathered myself with sunscreen (temperatures can rise to 108 degrees outside).  Armed with a rake, some newspaper, a box of matches, and some sunglasses; I marched outside.  Wadding up the newspaper I formed a little nest and threw a match in.  That quick, the inferno started, sending me scampering around the yard picking up every tumbleweed I could find and carry back.

    No sooner had I deposited the first armload of prickly weeds, it went up in flames, and I ran to get more.  At this time I shall mention that we have had a problem with fire ants, and so my mom came up with this idea to place the burn barrel on the ant pile and burn them out as we burn the tumbleweeds.  It might have been fine except the ants started flooding out with their little jaws snapping, angry to have a fire atop their home (had I been an ant, I would have been mad too but I am a human, and as a human I don’t like fire ants so if this vacated the mean critters I was all the happier).

    I quickly formed my strategy:

1.      Run around the yard and gather as many tumbleweeds as possible and stuff them in the burn barrel.

2.      Push the tumbleweeds down so they don’t fly out and catch the whole of Pueblo West on fire (guaranteed that wouldn’t look good on my list of achievements).

3.      Don’t burn my arms or hands as the flames get higher.

4.      Dodge and skip over the fire ants that are only too eager to bite me, given the opportunity, (this involved hopping and jumping around so they didn’t crawl up my leg).

5.      Avoid getting caught in the cloud of smoke and ash that inevitably springs up when I push the tumbleweeds down.

    Doing all this was sort of like a circus act, and I was the star!  My mom and little sister pitched in too.  An hour passed and the tumbleweed pile didn’t seem to be getting any smaller.  After a while my little sister went in, and it was just me and my mom.  I sang songs, most of them about tumbleweeds.  We talked, laughed occasionally, as we worked side by side.

     We worked steadily for about three hours, before we took a short break for water.  We also had a quick lunch before resuming our work again.  My eyes were burning from a combination of smoke, sweat and sunscreen dripping into my eyes.  It seemed to me that the fire was never satisfied; no sooner had it licked up every dry bramble it would smolder for more.

Chopsticks!  They sure come in handy.  :)

    I continued to throw in tumbleweeds by the handful, then I found two, long sticks which I used as giant chopsticks.  My mom and sister smiled at my invention but had to admit that it worked.  I used the sticks to fork tumbleweeds into the burn barrel and shove them down further.  Now the tumbleweed pile rapidly began to diminish.

     At last, the remaining fragments of tumbleweeds were burned.  All that remained of six hours of labor was smoldering ashes.  I went in and got cleaned up.  When I finished, I went and relieved my mom from sentry duty.

I have mastered the way of the tumbleweed.
They shall perish by fire!

     As I sat on the porch watching the ashes smolder; I remembered how my mom and I had shouted encouragement to each other (perhaps in some kind of dread that one would quit and leave the other to work alone).  We kept on working and we accomplished what we did because of each other.

    I couldn’t help but compare it to how we should be as Christians.  How much we should encourage other’s in their walk with God!  Perhaps we do it out of fear that they may quit.  Indeed, this is a perilous time we live in, what guarantee is there that the other will make it?  And so we pray, trust them to God, and shout encouragement during the most fierce battle of our lives.  It feels good to have others working beside you, all working to achieve a common goal. 

    I also thought how a fire is never satisfied, it always wants more.  We should always want more of God, we should never be stagnant but keep going, further and higher reaching up to God even as He is reaching down to us.  What happens if we don’t feed that fire?  The desire to feed on the things of Christ?  Eventually, it goes out and dies. 

    The devil must be surprised when he thinks he has reduced us to nothing but smoldering ashes.  However, when a little bit of fuel is dropped in that smoldering pile of ash it will catch fire.  God’s word should fuel our lives; It is what gives us life.  Our lives should be on fire, a raging fire that the devil cannot fight or put out.

    How discouraged the devil must get when he tries to drown our burning flames with a bucket of cold water (temptation, sin, etc.), and it is a mere thimble compared to the flames, having no effect on them!  It is still burning.  Our God is a consuming fire, and fire is a purifier.  In our lives it burns out the sin, until there is nothing that resembles sin.  How can you, in the ashes, pick out anything that resembles a weed?  If the fire has been allowed to run its course, it is gone, sent back to where it came from.

   A fire is a beautiful, useful thing, in its proper form.  Once fire comes into contact with something, that object is never the same again.  How much should we be fires, when we come into contact with people that they may never be the same.  Can you imagine the joy you would feel if that person you came into contact with at the store, walking down the street, or at school; would say, “I met a real Christian today.  My!  There was just something different about them!”

   Oh Lord, may we all be fires burning for You!  May Your fire purify us and destroy all sin our life.  Let our lives testify of You, and may we only be satisfied when You call us home.

For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.   -Deuteronomy 4:24