An Observation on the Waves and the Fire

I recently just got back from a winter retreat with our high school students. I was amazed by the ways God moved and how He spoke. For me, it was an incredible time to get away and just BE in the presence of my savior. Well needed alone time. The Lord gave me some great insight and thoughts while I was there. There was one day while we were there that I had a piece of a song stuck in my head. It's a newer song from The Rend Collective Experiment. "Fire before us, you're the brightest. You will lead us through the storm. Safe to shore." Those three sentences kept playing on repeat. I wrote them out and started drawing. I drew flames, then drew waves. And being the great artist I am (ha not) they looked exactly the same. "Isn't it interesting that fire and waves look the same. Fire refines and waves bring us to the shore. They're so similar. God uses both the fire and waves to bring us to Him. But too, God is the fire and He is the waves. His light burns the brightest and His waves bring us safe to shore. Fire and waves (trials) are not meant to hurt us, but are for our benefit. We view them as bad things, but I think God uses them as good things. If we trust in Him, He knows He can rescue us from them. He knows we will be better because of them. He sees through the fire and waves....It may feel like you are being whipped around and drug out in the ocean, but God calls us out upon the water. Jesus is there, all along. He's walking on the waves. He wants us to walk with Him on the waves, but sometimes we sink in our own power. The storm doesn't last forever. Storms always end. There is always a peace at the end of a storm" [My journaling from that day.] This picture of fire and waves, has just stuck in my head this last week or so. It's a perspective changer. If we view the waves and the flames as opportunities to grow, instead of difficult things to endure, it changes everything.