How to Stack Your Logs

It's not every day that we get a lesson on building a fire. 

At our Recalibrate Conference  Connie Witt spoke to the room filled with women about the proper way to do just that. No, it was not because winter was coming but because she wanted us to be healthy, rejuvenated and refreshed so that we would be ready to be used by God in the best way that He has planned.

Connie explained the principle that a fire cannot burn if the logs are packed too tightly. Instead you want there to be space between the logs so that air can circulate. After all, a fire needs two things to burn fuel and air. Without either one it will be snuffed out.

Connie's wonderful illustration was tied to our lives. If we pack too many activities into each day, there is no room for the rest and refreshment that we need to be filled up so that we can burn brightly for the Lord.

Are your days crammed with too many activities, too many appointments, even too many good things? If so, then your logs are probably packed too closely and you can’t get enough air, which may cause your flame to be extinguished. 

Questions to ask ourselves to avoid burnout include:

• What things fill me up? Do them more often.
• What things do I have to do? Do them without guilt, complaining or regret.
• What things drain me? Do them only if and when you must.
• What things should I give up? Then do it.

Fire by Judy Brown

What makes a fire burn
is space between the logs,
a breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water would.

So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between,
as much as to the wood.

When we are able to build
open spaces
in the same way
we have learned
to pile on the logs,
then we can come to see how
it is fuel, and absence of the fuel
together, that make fire possible.

We only need to lay a log
lightly from time to time.
A fire
grows
simply because the space is there,
with openings
in which the flame
that knows just how it wants to burn
can find its way.

2 Timothy 1:6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 

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