Tea Anyone?

In high school, God gave me the image of a tea kettle filled with this stagnant water. When you heat a tea kettle, it gets put under a lot of pressure, and it screams! And then, after the water's hot, you can pour it, and it meets someone's need for something to drink. Just so, when God heats us up--sets us on fire with the Holy Spirit--we become an outpouring, something drinkable for others.

Well, lately, I've been feeling like this tea kettle again. This Lent, God's been stirring up the stagnant, lukewarm water in me. The Holy Spirit has been forcing me to "let off steam" and "whistle." I've been resisting--which has only increased the internal pressure!--but finally, in the past two weeks, I've been experiencing the joy of letting God presure me, gently encourage me to change and conform to His perfect plan for my life.

But I really like the tea kettle image because I think, often times, when we experience in the Christian walk the Holy Spirit's stirring in us, when we feel, as Queen would say, "under pressure," so hot and uncomfortable with our lives and what we know to be God's will, we can get anxious, proud, fearful, and feel that we're being punished by God. We want to figure out what He's doing with us and why. We forget that in order to get the water hot enough to serve, in order to produce water that is pure, the pressure has to be there, the heat has to be there. The water's temperature has to change, and the water has to change dramatically. God's putting us under pressure isn't a bad thing but a good thing! He only wants to purify and set on-fire those children whom He loves!

But He doesn't just change us for our own salvation; He does so for the sake of the Body, that we could be an acceptable offering poured out for those around us who are thirsty. People need to drink pure water. Jesus did something much more than become pure for love of us. He became "impure" for us, taking on our sins in his death and then, in His resurrection, freeing us from the burden of having to be totally pure as a result of our own efforts. He came and set an example of what it means to become something that we naturally are not. He "humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross."

So, the Level 2 challenge: Will we let God purify us? Will we let Him in these two weeks before Easter "turn up the heat," even if it means we will be gently and persistently invited to change areas of our lives? Will we let him "turn up the heat" and let ourselves experience the good kind of "pressure" that leads to purity, for love of Him and our brothers and sisters?