Fan It Into Flame

"For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you." (2 Timothy 1:6)

Paul tells young Timothy to fan a fire he did not light. Notice the order of it. The gift is already in him. God put it there. Timothy did not generate it, or earn it, or manufacture it on a good day, and if he lost it he could not go and make himself another. And Paul says, blow on it. There is the whole tension of the Christian life in one image. The fire is not yours. The fanning is.

You cannot make a flame out of nothing. But you can absolutely let one go out. And a neglected fire does not explode or announce its dying. It simply gets smaller. It becomes embers, and then one morning you reach for it and find only warmth, and then a morning comes when there is not even that, and you cannot name the day it happened, because it did not happen on any particular day. It happened by not being tended.

So blow on it. Today, whatever is left of it. Do the small faithful things that let air to the coal: open the Word, bend the knee, sing the song you do not feel, sit again with the people of God. You are not being asked to strike a match, which you could never do. You are being asked to not walk away from a fire that Another already lit in you. Grace gave the flame. Attention keeps it. Give it your attention today.