IT’S TIME (Member Journey Guide)
Devotional Excerpt
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REKINDLING FIRES OF FAITH
“I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you . . .” 2 Timothy 1:5-6
Celtic Christian spirituality teaches us that God pervades all of life. Even something as simple as the hearth in the Celtic home carried spiritual significance. Each evening the mother of the household had sole responsibility for preparing the fire for the night. The Celts called it “smooring” the fire. In this nightly ritual the burning coals were formed into three distinct mounds, each reminding her of the three persons of the Trinity. She would then pray for Christ’s presence as she covered the coals with peat till the morning when she would then rekindle the fire. When a daughter was to be wed, the mother gathered up coals from the smoored fire and carried them to the new home as a wedding gift. In this way a family’s fire burned for many generations.
The Celtic fire serves us well as an image of our faith tradition. The fires of our faith that once burned brightly have been faithfully smoored by generations who understood the importance of spiritual formation. Following a long period when it seemed that the intellect had prominence in our formation, we are once again rekindling the fires of understanding that our faith is more dependent on our relationship with God than our understanding of God. Thanks be to God for those caretakers of the faith. Now is the time for us to gather up the coals and present them to a new generation.
It’s time . . . for spiritual formation.
Howard Williams is minister of spiritual formation, Weatherly Heights Baptist Church, Huntsville, Alabama.
Journal Question
How are you “Smooring” the fires of faith for the next generation?