You Gotta Believe

I grew up with my Dad being a volunteer fire fighter. He had a blue station wagon type car and I can remember riding to and from school in that car and smelling his boots and equipment. It was a smell of smoke mixed in with a chemical type smell. It is sort of hard to explain but yet a smell that I will never forget. To this day if I smell it I will stop in my tracks, take in a deep breath and smile because to me that smell is my Daddy.

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As I got older and we moved away from the volunteer fire stations I can remember being late for school because a fire truck would fly by and before I could blink my Daddy was chasing it. He just had to know where the fire was and exactly what was going on. As he would talk about fire he would talk with such passion and intesity that it always intrigued me. That might be why I love fire so much. The thought of being a fire fighter never crossed my mind but I love to watch a fire or smell a fire. I'm not scared of a fire but I do respect it. If there is one thing my Daddy taught me about fire is that it has a mind of its own. It goes where it wants without rhyme or reason and each fire is special. No two fires are alike and if you listen close enough it will talk to you and tell you its story.

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I can remember being no more than 8 or 9 years old when Daddy had to leave to go to a fire. I can't remember if it was a house fire or a store fire but I just remember him leaving during dinner to go to this fire. He came home smelling like, well, fire and his face was black with soot, his hair was wet with sweat and he was worn out from fighting this fire. He began to talk about how bad the fire was and everything that happened.

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"I don't understand, Daddy, how you can go and walk into a fire and not be scared" I said.

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Without hesitation my Daddy looked at me and replied "Well, before you go in you just always have to believe that you'll come right back out."

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At the time my Daddy's statement didn't mean a whole lot to me and I took it for what it was but as I have gotten older that statement has rung through my mind time and time when I was facing my own fire. Before you go in you just always have to believe that you'll come right back out.

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You know Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had that belief before they went into the furnance. "If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us..." Daniel 3:17. Here they were facing certain death standing at the doorway to this furnace and they believed that God would save and rescue them. God not only saved them, he walked with them! You know so many times in life we are standing at the doorway of our very own furnace. We know that we are just about to the edge of the doorway and there is no way around going straight through the fire but we are scared. Girlfriend, don't just walk into that fire, jump into that fire. You can dance around and sing and praise God because he is right there with you....believe that he will not only get you through the fire but believe that he is right there in the midst of the fire with you!