Oh, not for Thee my fading fires, The ashes of my heart.

May I tell you a tale of the African veld? It concerns the fire lily.

A grass fire in a hill country is one of the most wonderful sights in a wonderful land, surpassing in subtle attraction the grandeur of a veld fire on the plain with its roaring flames leaping skyward as they lick up the tall dry grass. Among the mountains where the grass is much shorter, you watch with tireless fascination the long running lines of light on the distant heights—something like the illumination of a town seen from far away. With morning the scene is changed. You lift your eyes to greet the mountains you love, and they answer you with blackened faces. A little longer and these same hills are clothed in springing green, and, from the ashes, one of the first of the flowers, rises the fire lily like a little scarlet flame.

“Beauty for ashes!” (KJV). Here are the very words of God incarnate in His works. The matchless message of Isaiah 61:3 comes with a deeper meaning as we consider the fire lily. Its story unfolds the Old Testament promise in the radiance of New Testament light, for it shows by what means God would make actual in our own experience the glorious possibility of resurrection life.

When we surrender our old nature to God that He may carry out the death sentence pronounced upon it, He accepts it in the only way He ever accepted a sacrifice, by turning it to ashes (Psalm 20:3). And where the fire has been, there springs from the ashes of the old life the fire lily of the beauty of Christ. As more ground is daily yielded, on the fire-swept hills of our inner life will be wrought the miracle of life out of death, and the bare slopes will burst with blossom. One unburnt hill will mean a jungle growth of grass and weeds; one valley spared will mean less Christfulness. This is the law of God—both natural and spiritual—no fire, no fire lily; no ashes, no beauty. This is the secret of the fire lily. This is the meaning of surrender.

P. E. SHARP

But there were only ashes when He came Saying, “My daughter, thou hast tried to serve In thine own way? but now, stretch forth thy hands That I may lead thee out of self’s dark cell And work My will through thee— When thou hast ceased to be.”

I said, “My youth is gone; my strength is gone; My life—it lies before Thee bare and sere. For very shame I cannot offer Thee These ashes that are left me, gray and drear. Yet, work Thy will in me And teach me not to be.”

Then through the ashes of that fading fire He breathed His breath; and when the ash had fled, Laid on some smoldering embers a live coal That was His life, His love, all flaming red. “Thy will be done to me, So shall I live in Thee.”

AUTHOR UNKNOWN

Before God gives a blessing He writes a sentence of death on the means leading up to it!