setting the world ablaze

So, "setting the world ablaze" sounds like perhaps I'm going to have some poetic blog entry, or something profoundly theological. Actually, the phrase literally popped into my head mere seconds before I wrote it. Maybe I'm not as bad at titling things (my song titles are generally boring) as I thought...

But our world needs some Fire, some Light, some Goodness. And I'm more and more sure that only Jesus sets a fire in our hearts to go and do the same. This week I've been struck by pictures of a terrible bombing in Pakistan, images of little children in the arms of already injured men; words from my fellow Memphians about their neighbors in this city, in this case neighbors who are considered poor, pondering, "are they poor because they're stupid or stupid because they're poor?".... such outrageously hurtful questions to ask. And a sister who is struggling, plagued with fear and worry and discontentment, who has yet to embrace freedom.

Yet amidst the darkness, there are those setting the world ablaze. Matthew and Brian have been burning a trail all over the eastern half of the country with their stories and songs and laughter; friends in India are passionately loving a people mostly without the Fire of Christ; the Church slowly raising a voice against the injustice of Memphis city schools, and inch-by-inch children in our inner-city are bearing the name of Christ, rejecting the apathy and destruction of their often dark and oppressive surroundings.

Ablaze, I'll tell you... ablaze.

Brothers, sisters.... keep setting the world ablaze with the Light.