It’s fire season in the Cariboo and throughout BC. Last week we were breathing smoke and checking the wildfire updates several times a day to see how our local fire was expanding. One hot, dry day it jumped from 2800 hectares to 7000 hectares in just 24 hours. Wildfires out of control have a way of changing your patterns and priorities. We have been praying for a local couple running a fishing lodge who were staying in the fire zone trying to save their home and business. We prayed for the Lhoosk’uz village which was evacuated when the fire breached the only road in and out. Thursday’s sky displayed to us an eerie sight as the sun went blood red and cast a pink glow on everything we could see. It was the 3rd day that we couldn’t see beyond our front yard due to the heavy smoke and it all felt apocalyptic.
For the past 10 years, it has become our habit in the summer to pack all the things that have meaning to us into our church pick-up truck and leave the truck in safety with friends in town whenever we go away for any length of time. At least our most treasured possessions would be saved if a fire swept our home away – a real threat in any given summer here. Family photos, heirlooms passed on from grandparents and great-grandparents, memory sticks and important files all get loaded into the truck and driven to a less vulnerable place. Living in the bush with no fire protection puts us in the position of considering what is most important for us if we had to choose to save only a few possessions. It has been interesting to me to realize that I actually pack up less and less each year. As I grow older, less of my ‘stuff’ is important and the truck has more empty space each season.
Contemplating my ‘stuff’ often also leads to asking the bigger questions about what is most important in my life. Where are my priorities? What in my life is really worth focusing on, and what will last? In reading Phillip Yancey earlier today I came across a couple of lines he quotes from a well-known poem: Only one life, ‘twill soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last. One day, sooner or later, death will come like a consuming fire and burn up all the chaff of our lives. How much of what I spend my time and energy will last through that fire? What will be left? Only what I’ve done for Christ. The thing that will remain when I leave the Cariboo ministry is the love of Jesus that I’ve been able to share with the people here. What will endure of my legacy in my family will be how well I poured out my faith in Jesus into my children and eventually grandchildren (I hope!) Job acknowledged when he lost everything that he had come into the world with nothing and would leave with nothing. That is true in part. We can leave with more than we came with as we grow in our love for Jesus, and we leave that behind for others when we go.
Sucking smoke into my lungs doesn’t give me much pleasure. Knowing the stress that the summer fires place upon my friends and neighbours leads me to prayer. The one thing that these fires do produce that is good (besides a great mushroom harvest next year) is the opportunity to once again consider what is important. What do I want to save from destruction? What will last in my life? What will be left when the fire sweeps through to purge all that is not firesafe? Maybe you can take some time to get some fire perspective too this week.
