The firewood was damp. I didn’t have any newspaper. What little kindling I could find was wet. It was windy. Night was approaching. It was a challenge, but I got a smoky fire going inside the campsite ring of rocks.
Elijah arranged similar conditions when he challenged the prophets of Baal to a sacrifice challenge. He soaks his sacrifice and the wood beneath it with enough water to fill a moat around the altar. But it’s not a problem for God who send fire to consume the sacrifice, wood, stone altar, and all the water (1 Kings 18:20-40). There’s nothing left but a crater after the Lord demonstrates that he is the one true God.
On a recent walk I saw a burned out shell of a car in someone’s driveway. Every Thanksgiving people post videos of turkeys going up in flames when improperly dropped into a pot of hot oil. I vividly remember when wildfires raged within a half-mile of my home. I never underestimate the power of flames.
Every once in while God shows up in fire. Like the burning bush from which he spoke to Moses. Or chariots and horses of fire when he took Elijah to heaven. Or when he spoke to Zechariah who was burning incense in the temple. The Holy Spirit looked like tongues of fire descending on the apostles on Pentecost. Jesus’s eyes looked like they were on fire when John saw him in the first chapter of Revelation.
Sometimes God’s fire consumes. Sometimes it purifies. Elijah gets an ornament on the Jesse Tree as he prayed for God to reveal himself with fire.
Waite for it... 
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