Five Minute Friday ~ Ember

Gypsy Mama is taking a break from Five Minute Friday for the month of December; since I'm on vacation the next several weeks, I've got a lot more time than usual to enjoy Five Minute Friday this month...

So, I didn't want to stop. I came up with a list of words that might be heard around Christmastime - and randomly select one for each Friday in December.

This Friday's word is...

Ember

Hot

Mesmerizing

Dangerous

Constant

Potential

Glowing

Bonfire in our front yard or fire in the fireplace... Niger or Michigan... Glowing embers of a fire are inevitably one of those lovely things about the Christmas season. 

Just the other night, for Jonathan's birthday, I made marshmallows and chocolate graham crackers, we invited a few other families with boys Jonathan's age to join us, and for a couple of hours we sat around those embers visiting, exchanging stories, roasting the marshmallows and using the graham crackers to make modified s'mores to munch, and sometimes just quietly soaking up the warmth while staring at those glowing chunks of wood.

Sometimes Jesus followers are compared to embers in a fire. Have you ever heard that metaphor before? 

Coal embers are most powerful, most potent, most probable capable to exert energy and to warm when they are gathered together. Long after the fire has died, those embers maintain the capacity to explode once again into flame for a much longer than expected time, but only if they have been nurtured by other coals.

I'm the same. I can keep on for a period of time when I'm on my own and there are seasons where that is unavoidable and necessary. But I must always, periodically, find my way back through the gate, into that circle of warm fellowship and companionship with others who are lit by the same infinite flame to reheat, recharge... 

Otherwise, all the potential buried within remains there, buried.

So basic, but so powerful... This lesson to gleaned from watching ember emanate, converting potential energy into powerful exhibitions of what God is able and willing do in and through one who is a member of His body.

Photo by Michel Filion