A HEARTH ON FIRE

In the recesses of one's thoughts and feelings, what burns the longest and hottest is our real desires. Not the ones we claim or put on display for others, but the ones we truly crave.

That doesn't mean we admit to it. And how often that "hearth" of the soul will simmer and burn for the longest time, no matter how much we attempt to keep it from being seen by others.

What if the coals stoking that fire are full of evil? Well, if we accept the scriptures in terms how God sees man, we know that sin is part of everyone's hearth.

But none of that reality in anyway prevents us from clinging to some idea that we can be good. All we have to do is follow some set of rules, even if we do it with lies and we are okay. The world we see the saint we pretend is our heart and not the demon who really possesses our essence.

So what happens when the heart inside gets filled with kindling that creates a fire, which warms us in totally corrupting ways? Now the comment might be made that we are capable of avoiding wrong if we chose.

However, what happens when the corruption is subtle instead of obvious? We might start by refusing to break a given law since we know it is wrong. But suppose we are able to violate it without anyone knowing it? And what if it is such a minor law we figure there isn't any harm?

It is so easy to go from a clear sense of right and wrong to one that is very fluid and slowly deteriorates our values to the point that eventually wrong never seems that wrong. We see that on plenty of times when some spiritual leader goes for years living what seems to be a wholesome and pious life. Then one day the person does something totally shocking and scandalous.

Everyone shakes their head and tongues start wagging like we ourselves are to invincible to fall for such a weakness. And we go back to our own lives, feeling superior because we didn't get caught.

The hearth of one's soul can only ever be kept from burning too bright with sin's flames when God's spirit is allowed to once and awhile do the cleaning. That doesn't mean we can expect it to never be refilled with the wrong kind of heat. Only that we have to be willing to accept we have never arrived "spiritually" and are never in this life going to be perfect.

It means accepted we make mistakes and sin. And it means trusting only to salvation in Jesus as Lord and Savior over our own idea of good deeds. Then when we fall, we let him help us back up and to clean out the old logs of corruption in our heart while replacing them with ones that give off a more profitable form of log. We just have to remember that all logs stop burning eventually and need to be replaced.