purified

Today in the One Year Bible we read from Isaiah 6:1-7:25. This is a great passage. "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the LORD." Isaiah sees the freaky angels with all the wings. And he realizes that he's in a holy place. He becomes terrified, because he knows that he is a sinful man. Like Peter, who told Jesus "depart from me, for I am a sinful man," Isaiah wants to bug out. But for both men, and for me and you, that's the wrong answer.

Our natural inclination when we meet holiness is to run away. We know we're not holy. We know that holiness tends to burn up things that aren't holy. So we run from the fire.

But God calls us INTO the fire. He wants to burn away all of those impurities, like the angel does with the burning coal in our reading. Believe me, He's only going to burn away the things that you don't really want anyway. He's going to leave the good and take away the funk. He's going to kill the "bacteria" that is making you sick, leaving your healthy organs and the good bacteria that we carry in our gut that helps us to be happy.

Of course, this is all a metaphor. But it's also very true. God takes away our sins, burning them away, but like the bush that Moses talked to, even though we're aflame, we are not consumed. We burn, but we don't burn UP. The flames of life and light come on us like tongues of fire and make us truly ourselves, and give us gifts that we literally can't even imagine.

God, please take Your flames and make us whole again.