FIRE, BOTTLE ROCKETS & CONFUSION

In the dark of the night lay a collection of limbs, trunks and logs piled together from various trees for a vast bonfire. When Daryl, the kids and I pulled up the fire was already going. Mike and Kara had invited us over to burn off the heaped up tree limbs. Over to one side lay a small fire where we could gather around, visit and enjoy the warmth.





We stood some distance from the large fire because of the intense heat it gave off. We discussed hell and how this fire didn’t come close to radiating the heat that hell would radiate. We were all in agreement that we didn’t want to go.






At one point Mike went to his truck and began to remove trash to put on our small fire, the kids joined in the search. Someone found a plastic coke bottle filled with water and tossed it into the fire. We all stood around with great anticipation waiting for the bottle to melt and the water to spill out. To our amazement, the water in the bottle began to boil and the plastic bottle remained in tacked. I took a stick and tried to turn the bottle in an upright position but instead it fell, lid down into the fire. We continued to watch the water boil in wonder.


Before anyone could react the lid melted on the bottle and the boiling water sent the bottle rocketing out of the fire at great speed. It whizzed pass Mike and slammed Daryl in the side of the face, knocking him around, scratching his glasses, cheek, ear and leaving a good size bump accompanied with a bruise on the side of his face. Daryl was dazed, confused and admitted to seeing stars. It would take the remainder of the evening to convince Daryl that my intentions were honorable.



Romans 7:15-20, 24-25, 8:1 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.