Psalm 118:24
This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
My son, Bruce, and I recently decided to begin our own Bible study together. As he was growing up from a child in diapers we have seemed to spend most of our time together in the shop. So we decided that it would probably be most comfortable for us if we were to sit together in his shop while we studied. So, last Saturday morning I drove down to his place and we sat down in front of the wood stove which he had fired up to keep us warm during our time together.
Now, his shop is much larger than mine, and I don't even have a stove. I do have a small propane heater but there isn't nearly as much room to spread out as there is in his shop. I have always seemed to get along with a shop that is what most would call “cramped.” From the time Bruce was in diapers until he was in his teens our only shop was the inside of a converted old Sunday School bus that I purchased from the church for $100 when it had finally carried its last load of precious little souls.
Bruce, having grown up in such a cramped condition, somewhere along the line decided that he was going to live his life different from that of dad's. And his dream has always been to have a BIG shop. After moving into the house he now owns he converted a large one-car garage and carport into a two-bay garage with plenty of room left over. He even has plans to make it even larger somewhere in the future.
Well, we had better get back to the story about the log on the fire. That story starts back when I was just a child too young to go to school. My father, who worked for United Air Lines, had been transferred from Cheyenne, Wyoming to Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington. Our family bought a small house on ten acres of land about six miles east of Renton, Washington. That's where I first learned about burning wood because that's how my mother and aunt Chloe, who lived with us in that small house, cooked our meals in the kitchen.
Not only did my aunt Chloe live with us, but, after a few months my grandpa and grandma moved out from Cheyenne to live with us until they found another home. While they stayed with us, which in my memory seems like a long time, I followed my grandpa around everywhere he went and he did a lot of wood cutting. We would walk into the woods behind our house and bring back logs to be cut and split in the wood shed. I still have a scar on my left wrist from where I tried splitting wood once when no one was watching.
When I was ten years old my folks moved into a larger house in town and that was the end of my wood-burning experiences until I graduated from college and moved to Pasco, Washington to teach school. That was in 1966. From 1966 until 1992 I burned wood or coal in a pot-bellied stove to heat the different homes I owned. During most of those years I burned wood.
I guess I don't really need to review my life history except to let you know that I am not ignorant of all that goes along with burning wood for heat. You first need to find a source: a place to fetch enough wood to keep you warm over the winter months. Then you bring the wood to the wood shed and begin the process of cutting and splitting the wood. If you are an orderly kind of person you will also take pains to stack the wood carefully. That also helps keep the stack from falling over at some later date.
Finally, you are ready to build a fire and keep it going as long as necessary to remain comfortable. You start with something that burns easily like newspaper or old brown paper bags. Crumple them up and lay the kindling on top. Next, you place smaller pieces of your logs over the kindling. Then you light the paper with a match and watch as the paper ignites the kindling and the kindling ignites the logs. As you recognize that the first layer of logs are burning well you can lay just about any size log on the top of the pile and you're set for the rest of the duration.
As the fire burns and the hours and days go by you will begin to notice that a layer of ashes accumulates at the bottom of the stove. These ashes are all that is left of logs that burned away yesterday or the day before or even farther back than that, depending upon the stove and how often you clean out the ashes. But any stove will always burn warmer if the ashes aren't left to interfere with the routine of one log burning away while it gets another started in the process of heating a home. And, if those ashes are never cleaned out it won't be long until the fire dies and the stove becomes nothing but a cold piece of metal.
Well, last Saturday while my son and I were sitting next to his stove with our Bibles in hand I looked at the stove and I looked at the stack of wood sitting nearby and I noticed that there were some ashes in the stove along with the wood. And the Lord gave me a wonderful thought which I now share.
Let's imagine that you, and the rest of us, are a stove. In order for us to be alive and warm we need those logs burning away in our lives. Let's also imagine that each log over in the stack is one day of our lives. That reminds me! I should have mentioned that some wood burns much better than other wood. In fact, some wood is excellent for burning in a stove and some wood is almost worthless. I have hauled logs home that were rotten and decayed. After going to all the work to haul them home, cut, and split them, I found that they also burned as rotten as they looked. Not only that, they generated a lot more ashes than the good wood.
So, there may be some rotten wood in the stack or just some wood that doesn't burn as well as the other wood in the stack but when the stack gets down to those kinds of logs, we throw them in the stove anyway.
Let's go back to our example and consider that each log burning away in the stove represents one of the many days of our lives. As we all know, some days are made of good wood and some days turn out to be pretty rotten. Sometimes we even end up with several rotten logs in a row. That's when our lives begin to feel a bit more cold than when we had the good logs burning each day. But sooner or later the rotten logs are burned away and become nothing more than ashes. And as those ashes lie there in the bottom of the stove we can enjoy the warmth of the better day that is currently burning in our life.
Now, may I tell you how to live your life the way the Lord would want you to if He had created you as a stove instead of creating you in His own image. First of all, He would want you to be enjoying the warmth from the log that is burning today. He would try to tell you that it is wasteful to let that log burn away and become nothing more than ashes while you spend your time doing anything other than taking pleasure in it. This is the day that the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
I think we could safely say there are two kinds of stoves. There are stoves that love the warmth they receive from the log on the fire right now. They relax and soak up all the heat that comes from that log for as long as it lasts. Then they look toward the stack close-by and hope the next log will be good wood too. Those stoves burn warm all day long.
But there are some other stoves that are not as blessed, and who don't burn as warm. These other stoves spend their time concentrating on the ashes from the logs burned away yesterday and the day before and maybe even the year before. They seem to concentrate on the memory of a rotten log that burned away long ago. These stoves can't seem to take their eyes off the pile of ashes left behind by that rotten log. And, while they are spending so much time concentrating on those dead ashes they are missing out on the warmth and pleasure they could be receiving from today's log that is currently giving off all of the heat it will ever have to give.
Today's log may not be made of the best wood but it is still giving off warmth and that warmth was ignited from previous logs that are now gone forever. And it's a very sad thought to consider, but there are lots and lots of people who could be living their lives like the warm stoves but who just don't understand that the yesterday's ashes need to be put somewhere else and forgotten.
That old stack of wood will only last so long. There are only so many logs left to burn and when there is no more wood the fire will go out. The same is true of our lives. The Lord only gives us so many days on this earth. It is His desire that we gain pleasure from each day He gives to us. He longs for us to be glad and rejoice with each day He gives us to live. He wants us to look forward to the days we have left and not be concerned with the days that are gone forever.
Have you taken the time to thank the Lord for this day? Maybe it's not turning out to be the best day you've ever had but it is what the Lord has given you for this moment in time. Let this day be the log that burns for right now and radiates the warmth of a loving God in your life. Make the best of it in the best way you can, for it will soon become ashes and you will be left with one less log in the stack. Stay warm. God loves you.