This summer I spent a month taking a 5,000 mile road trip!

As I drove alone for 5,000 miles, a number of ideas popped into my head. Now that I’m back home in San Jose, I’m turning them into blogs.

I drove my car (nicknamed White Lightning) from our house in Vero Beach, Florida to the Northeast, then through Chicago to the Pacific Northwest. Now, I was on the final leg of the way to San Jose, driving south on the Interstate not far from the Pacific Ocean.

For miles and miles, I drove through an endless vista of black pine trees. Wildfires had recently burned huge areas of the forest.

As you may know, forest fires can help rejuvenate forests. They open up possibilities for new growth.

I remember seeing this principle in action when we took our children to visit Yellowstone National Park. A terrible fire had consumed much of the Park a few years before. Now the blackened areas had been replaced with lush, green meadows, full of the types of animals who thrive in meadowlands. New trees were beginning to spring up.

Similarly, some “fires” in our lives can strengthen us for future challenges.

As the author of Hebrews wrote:

We “need to persevere so that when [we] have done the will of God, [we] will receive what he has promised.” (Hebrews 10:36).

“God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” (Hebrews 12:10-11).

I must say, however, that these miles and miles of black pine trees didn’t feel like the result of wise discipline. They felt like the result of massive fires caused mostly by dying undergrowth that accumulated over many years and by bad changes in our climate.

Similarly, the “fires” afflicting our lives and our civilizations today do not feel as if they are a form of wise discipline.

Instead, these “fires” feel as if they are mostly the result of our foolishness and evil.

These “fires” feel as if they are mostly the result of the buildup of “chaff” in our lives and in our civilizations because we do not put into practice the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, fulfilling the ideals of the Law of Moses and the ideals of the Prophets. (Matthew 5:17; 7:24-27).

These “fires” feel as if they are mostly the result of the “climate” of our civilization changing in bad ways due to the Power of Money, the Power of Religion, and the Power of the Kingdoms of this World.

We need to hear, see and understand the same warning that John the Baptist gave two thousand years ago to “Pharisees” and “Sadducees”—to all people who do not put the words of Jesus into practice and who serve the Power of Money, the Power of Religion, and the Power of the Kingdoms of the World:

“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” (Matthew 3:7-8).

“The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into fire.” (Matthew 3:10).

“[Jesus] will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:11-12).

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For additional thoughts arising from my 5,000 mile road trip in my car nicknamed White Lightning, please read my blogs “Lightning from East to West”, “Directions Along the Way”, “Delays Along the Way”, “Dangers Along the Way—Narrow Roads”, “Dangers Along the Way—Heavy Traffic”, “Hiding in Plain Sight”, “Smoke from Distant Fires”, “Camouflaging Hideous Death with Fake Life”, “Dry Lightning”, and “The Mighty River of Living Water!”.