When the Backburner Turns On

If you put God on the backburner, guess what. He's going to heat it up.

I have learned from experience that when I get too busy for God, He is going to remind me where my priorities are and where they should be. If we aren't on fire for Him, you can bet we will be soon. Leaving God on the backburner is hazardous to us and those around us.

As a Christian, you might have heard of the term lukewarm. This means that we have lost some of our umph and we aren't as enthusiastic in our walk with Christ as we should be. Often, this happens because we get busy, and slowly our priorities begin piling up.

It is easy to come up with excuses. "God, I'm just too busy to read my Bible. I'll do it tomorrow." Tomorrow comes, but guess what... we make more excuses. Eventually, God has been pushed right to the back of our stove onto the proverbial backburner.

Heating Up

It may take a while for us to even realize that God is no longer a part of our daily routines. After so many excuses of pushing him backward, He is out of our minds until we need something. We aren't out of His, though. He is waiting until the moment He needs us back the most. The moment He knows He can catch our attention. All the while, he is gradually heating up the eye he is sitting on and biding his time.

On Fire

You ever turn your stove on and notice the eye is so hot it turns red? Yeah, that's how I imagine the eye God is on just before He makes His move to pull us back to Him. What is His move, you might ask? God doesn't just tug us gently back to Him. He knows just what we need to reignite us and to restore the passion we had for our Father. God doesn't gradually heat up the backburner just to let it fizzle right back out. No, He lights it up so that when it completely ignites, it sets a fire under us that is impossible to put out.

They say not to throw water on a grease fire. Once a Christian's fire has been lit by God, I think that non-believers trying to put us out is about like someone trying to do just that. The more they throw at us, the bigger our flames get until we are at risk of consuming all the believers around us.

Spread the Heat

As Christians, our job is to start these fires. It's like the song "Start a Fire" by Unspoken. It opens with, "It only takes a spark to start a whole blaze." Once God sets us alight, our sparks are enough to cause other believers to combust. God wants us on fire for Him. He wants us to spread that heat. Don't put God on the backburner. Let His fire shine through you and set fire to others. When we allow Him to stay in the forefront of our lives, our fires stay lit, and we can share that blaze with others. When we put Him on the backburner, He's liable to cause an explosion to remind us that He belongs front and center.

Don't be a fading light that flickers each time someone questions your beliefs. Don't let your flame waver each time you share the light with another believer. If we are lukewarm Christians with God on the backburner, it is hard to have enough light to share. I don't know about you, but I don't want my fire for God to be like a flickering birthday candle at risk of smothering when the wax runs out. I want to be a flame thrower so on fire for God it comes off me like waves and others can't help but catch fire too.