Photo Credit: Melanie Magdalena
Burning embers here, just like we saw adjoined in yesterday's title, is my way of saying "living embers"; that is to say, these contributors to the #EmberSeries are demonstrating the power of the Living Word at work in us by what they have written. Okay, that is a very long definition. Lol. But you get the gist. Yesterday we were blessed by Olumide’s ember piece. Today, I will be sharing be sharing a piece by Adams Allison – my beloved twin brother. May our hearts be filled with God’s precious promises in this season. Remember, if you have your own ember musing to share, please feel free to. Send an email and I will share with everyone. This piece is loaded as usual because Adams wrote it: Pollination of Embers by Adams Allison.
Embers are most often associated with smothering fires, but that's not always the case. Some embers are actually taken from a blazing flame to kindle another. Just like the pollination of flowers. Interestingly, that's the picture of embers we find in scripture.
When Abraham went to make sacrifices and worship God with his son Isaac on Mount Moriah, he took embers with him.
When Isaiah saw the Lord, a burning angel called a Seraph took embers from the altar before the Lord to touch his lips. With that, a new flame of prophetic ministry was kindled.
And when Paul admonished Timothy, he told him to fan into flames the gift of God that was in him by laying on of hands. Paul was obviously a conflagration of fire and by laying his anointed hands on Timothy, he had placed some embers in him. All Timothy needed now was to kindle those flames within him.
In each one of these cases, the carriers of those embers; Abraham, the Seraph and Paul were in a sense the butterfly, the embers are their pollen grain. The use of these embers to rekindle a flame is what I call pollination of embers.
This is the reality of true embers. They are not the product of a dying flame. On the contrary, they are the seed of wildfire, the torch of a conflagration, and the true spirit of a revival.
The image of these embers is not one of an escapist from the darkness as the picture of a smothering flame paints, but they are the torch of new light invading the darkness.
This reminds me of who we are as the church - the ecclesia - the called out ones. Very often we mistake this to mean, "called out of darkness into the light", but that's far from true. Yes, we ARE called out of darkness into light, but that's not what our name and identity - ecclesia - means. It is actually a call from light into darkness. To understand this, you have to understand the origin of the word. It is a name given to the emissary sent out from Greece into conquered territories. In ancient times when the Greeks conquered a territory, they sent over ecclesia to colonize and transform the people of their new colonies from barbarians to cultured citizens of the Grecian empire. The Greeks saw themselves as those in the light, and those they conquered as people in darkness. The ecclesiae were, therefore, the embers, called out from the light of the great Grecian empire to kindle a fire in the darkness of the world around them. That too is our assignment as the light of the world.
Sitting together with a thousand firebrands will not always translate into a world on fire. Sometimes we just have to spread out and travel far from the "burning bush" in order to set the world ablaze with the fire of revival in order to dispel the gross darkness in it.
Arise, and let's pollinate this world with the fire of God's Presence.
- Adams Allison
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