Strange Fire

Burning Out or Burning For

The burning sensation was almost unbearable as I stood in front of the doctor as he examined disgusting little sores that had erupted from just below my belt line, across my abdomen, all the way up my belly.

When I first noticed the pain, I thought my belt had rubbed blisters on my waistline, until the sores, over the course of the next twenty four hours, spread like a wild fire, leaving scorched patches of skin everywhere.

The doctor glanced up at me from his investigative process with a cocked eyebrow, hesitantly probing, “Uh…have you been monogamous?”

I was shocked, to say the least.

“Doc, I have been faithfully married to my wife, was checked out prior to marriage with a clean bill of health, and have been one million percent monogamous—why in the world would you ask me that!?”

He returned to his investigations, mumbling under his breath, “Ok, not STI’s…” and then, “Well, you are awfully young for this but let me ask, are you under a lot of stress right now, working long hours, how’s your sleep?”

I was thirty five, and under a load of financial, relational, and spiritual stress that was crushing me.

Five years prior I had uprooted my wife and three young children from the comforts of rural southern Idaho to relocate to the south end of Seattle to take over a church that was on its last legs.

They had voted unanimously to have me come and “replant” the church with young leadership and fresh vision. That unanimity had been blown away like a house of cards in a hurricane by year five.

Church factions that had been building in private had erupted into full public war. Finances were dire. All my visions of grandeur and being a great leader were up in a mushroom cloud of exploding relational volatility.

I was an inexperienced pastor who, of course, had made mistakes, but was doing everything I possibly could to make this church somewhat viable.

I was miserably failing by my own estimations.

There were late night “meetings” with upset parishioners who were dead set on letting me know how I had wrecked their church and their lives. Countless sleepless nights were spent mentally slogging and strategizing how I could put out a thousand different dumpster fires. After almost endless hours on the clock, the only thing I had succeeded in was a super gnarly case of stress induced shingles.

The church was splitting, and apparently my nervous system was too, being too worn out to ward off the vestiges of childhood chickenpox any longer.

“Your body is acting like its 85 instead of 35, Dan.” The doctor said. His assessment felt like a scolding instead of comforting. “You’ve got to get some rest and get your stress loads under control. Your body is telling you its done.”

Strange Fire

The Bible is chock full of bizarre stories. The burning up of Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu has to make the top ten.

We come upon their story in the book of Leviticus after nine chapters of detailed instruction on sacrificial and ordination processes prescribed by God for the fledgling Aaronic priesthood.

God had extremely stringent standards for how the priesthood was to perform its duties. To approach the Holy Creator of the universe is like coming into the presence of the sun—to approach the sun one needs miraculous protective gear and anything outside of that protection means certain destruction.

Nadab and Abihu, as newly appointed priests, apparently decided that they need not worry about the burning power of a Holy God’s unmitigated presence. They took their calling and career into their own hands, doing as they willed, according to the confines of their limited understanding, and fire burned them out, literally.

“Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, contrary to his command. So fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.” (Leviticus 10:1–2, NIV)

Dan, what do peculiar stories of ancient Hebrew priests and stress induced shingles have to do with each other?

Everything.

Nadab and Abihu approached the holy in an unholy way and were destroyed. They went about their sacred vocation in the wrong way. They lived contrary to God’s command and it killed them. On the surface it looked like they were fulfilling priestly duties but the narrative makes clear that they were doing so in a way God had not prescribed.

It matters not how sincere or well-intentioned our acts of worship are if they are not according to God’s will…— John MacArthur

My shingles were the burn marks of strange fire.

Of course, I was not showing up drunk to late-night meetings, and I was not living in direct disobedience to God or His will. However, the way I was living was not in line with faith, trust, surrender, and love for God—Jesus’ prescription for abundant life.

I was living in direct contradiction to Jesus’ words…

“…apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

I knew the words by heart, I even believed them in my brain. Yet, I was operating as if the whole thing was on me, never acknowledging the terrifying separation from Jesus I was existing in. I was living contrary to Jesus’ command to remain in Him, which some scholars translate as, “rest in Him” or my favorite, “relax in Him.”

“…do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34, NIV)

This type of verse just sounded stupid to me.

Obviously, Jesus didn’t understand our financial situation. He clearly could not see that if these people all left our church in anger then it would wreck everything I thought I was about. The present was full of trouble that could only result in more trouble tomorrow and He had the audacity to tell me, “do not worry…”

I carried the strange fire of anxiety all through my work days and into long sleepless nights trying to control the uncontrollable.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28, NIV)

Nope. No time to come to Jesus for deep prayer, for stillness, for rest—I had to carry this burden lest my life collapse.

I was an inferno of strife, mental rumination, constant strategizing, and exhausting levels of work in the name of “serving God.” As a young leader, I was going about ministry in the full, fiery energy of the flesh.

On the outside, I looked like a hard working pastor, but I wasn’t operating in relationship with God as He intended. I was performing sacred duties in unprescribed ways and now my body was beginning to burn up.

“Burnout is nature’s way of telling you, you’ve been going through the motions, your soul has departed.”— Sam Keen

Mind you, I do not think God was angry and punishing me. Shingles were the natural result of living in contradiction to God’s prescribed ways. If you approach the sun in the wrong way all the sun can do is destroy you.

Where surrendered faith would have sustained me, I let mental strategy drive me. Instead of prayerful fear of and love for God being my motivation, I just wanted these people to like me so bad. I was snared by the fear of man. Sacrilege was burning me out.

Sacred Yes and Sacred No

The whole book of Leviticus is about sacredness.

Sacred generally refers to anything regarded with religious veneration, deserving deep respect, or designated for divine purposes.

Sacredness draws near to God. Sacredness exists in the presence of God, protected by Him, as we live for Him. Sacredness intentionally honors God, not just with lip service and mental ascent, but in heart, mind, and soul.

“Why do we not see the sacred in every moment and being? Because we are too busy with the profane.”— Thomas Merton

Our lives are sacred.

All that we do is sacred.

Shingles set me on a journey of self discovery and learning God’s prescribed ways in all of life, not just ministry.

Alexis and I developed a grid to help us along.

We called it “Sacred Yes” and “Sacred No”

Boundaries, setting limits, me-time, self care: these things are all quite en vogue these days because everyone is on fire. The problem is, they are squirt guns shooting at an untamable conflagration of flesh.

The only way to quell the fires of constant fatigue, anxiety, and mental slogging is to live in a sacred way.

Sacred lives are set apart for God, living devoted to His will, and surrendered to whatever may happen. Sacred lives intentionally rest in His purposes and allow circumstances to reshape our own goals. Sacred living trusts in His timing and gives ourselves space to wait for it. Sacred living labors hard to believe that God has our greatest flourishing in mind and He is accomplishing just that.

We must repent of living contrary to the commands of Jesus. He wasn’t offering advice when he said, “Come to me, do not worry, and apart from me you can do nothing.” He meant it.

We began running every decision we made and every action we took through the grid of “sacred yes” and “sacred no”.

It was like a modern protestant evangelical version of ancient levitical code laying out a prescribed way for handling situations, making choices, and taking actions.

• Should I pay more attention to this complaining faction?

• Should I pay less attention to this complaining faction?

• Should I meet with this person for coffee or wait for the members meeting?

• Should I call in some friends and outside counsel on this issue?

• Should I fundraise again to support the budget?

• Is this my next step in bringing healing and unity?

Every question was framed through the lens of sacredness: actually slowing down and offering everything to God in surrendered faith.

With everything I began to ask,

• How is He directing this?

• Is this being done in fear of man?

• Am I just self protecting my identity or manipulating a situation?”

• Am I doing what I’m doing having been guided by Scripture and Spirit?

• Am I truly living in the fear of God with this choice?

• Am I honoring His wisdom and utterly trusting His love?

• Have I let Him have the whole situation completely, regardless of the worst case scenarios and outcomes?

Sacred yes and no exposed my interior world and what I was oriented towards. In many instances, I discovered that I was bowed down before humans sacrificing my well being for their approval.

Slowly, decision by decision, my soul bowed deeper and deeper to God my maker, and I began to heal.

“Every time you respect the sacredness of life, you are participating in the very heart of God.”— Mother Teresa

Sacred yes and no draws us near to God in humility and dependance.

Sacred yes and no are forms of surrender.

Sacred yes and no clothes us in priests’ garments so that we do God’s work in the world without harm. We live holy and set apart according to His will.

Sacred yes and no has carried us through a thousand decisions, and here’s the amazing thing—the flames have not gone out. In fact, they have gotten higher and hotter.

Burning Out or Burning For

Sacred yes and no allow Holy Spirit winds to blow upon the fires to burn even more hot, only now, the soul burns for God as an act of worship rather than burning out in separation from God.

St. Paul, drawing from the imagery of Leviticus said,

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” (Romans 12:1, NIV)

Introducing sacred yes and no to one’s decision process does not mean that things get easier and every thing suddenly goes great.

Christianity is hard.

Leadership is hard.

Life is hard.

From Job’s perspective,

“…man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.” (Job 5:7, NIV)

The difference now is an internal shift of motivation and worship. Through sacred yes and no, our lives are burned up for God. It’s hot and painful sometimes, but it is life giving not life destroying.

We faced hard things, had to make hard choices, but these choices were made with God truly at the center. They were choices of worship, and the sparks of our lives flew higher and higher into the heavens in His presence.

The sufferings of this life are the fires God uses to purify our souls and prepare us for eternity. Sacred yes and sacred no simply position us in right orientation to God’s burning presence so that He can accomplish what He wills for His glory instead of us burning out in attempts to put the fires out.

Sacred yes will often mean saying no to “me time” in the name of service, but there will be a delightful and strange energy in the sacrifice. Sacred no will often mean doing something that is more difficult, or more dangerous, or less comfortable, in the name of doing what God has directed.

Sacred yes and sacred no doesn’t always result in more comfort, it always results in more Christ and His likeness.

Build the Bonfires

Start approaching every decision with a sacred perspective.

Investigate your motives deeply.

Am I saying “yes” or “no” to this thing, this person, or this action to manage my image, manipulate earthly circumstances to fit my limited perspective, or to keep control of the uncontrollable?

That’s very strange fire and it will burn in a most destructive way.

Am I saying “yes” or “no” to this thing, this person, or this action because I am my Holy Father’s child, commissioned by Him to serve in His power, and invited to trust Him and His infinite love in all circumstances, regardless of outcomes?

That stokes a very hot and holy fire, that will burn in you with an eternal life giving energy.

“…you belong to the Holy Spirit. Let Him set you on fire.”— Smith Wigglesworth

Sacred yes and sacred no helps us discern who we are offering our bodies and lives to and for what reasons.

Of course, we will always have mixed motives. That is just the nature of living deformed and confused by sin. But, self awareness and practices like these reorient our perspectives and align us with God.

Over time, nothing externally may change, the circumstances may remain the same, the relationships may remain unchanged, the uncontrollable future will still loom large, but your soul will be burning hotter and brighter for God.

Just pausing and asking before every decision “Is this a sacred yes or a sacred no as an offering of my life to God”, over time (the entire duration of our life), becomes piles of sacrificial wood added to a growing bonfire.

Rather than shingles and burn out, this transforms a life into a living sacrifice burning for God. Fires of peace and joy spread through us, because the soul is in proximity to God, actually with God, and living in His prescribed ways.

“May the fire of God consume in us every passion, save that which leads to His holy presence.”— Oswald Chambers

Start today with every yes and no that you will have to decide on.

Those decisions are sacred, so live as if that is true.

May you burn ever hotter and brighter in His holy fire.