For the Ones Who Have Been Licked By the Flames

Me, attempting to jump at just the right moment

While in New Caledonia, we spent most of our days on campus at the University of New Caledonia.  Our hope was to continue efforts to establish a long-term ministry as there are no Christian organizations there and many students are not familiar with Jesus.  Or, if they are, they have a very vague idea of who he is.  We would walk around, engaging individuals or groups of students, asking them their thoughts on God, what it means to be a Christian, etc.  It was amazing their openness and genuine curiosity to learn more about Jesus. In total, by the end of the trip, 17 students had made decisions to accept Christ. 

The very first day we went to campus, I encountered a girl named Alice.  I was actually having a separate conversation with a girl, Kinsley, at one picnic table, with Alice sitting alone at another picnic table just behind us.  I had noticed Alice walk up and sit down behind us, but I didn't think much more about it. 

As I was talking to Kinsley about Jesus and the Bible, Alice piped up and called across the area, saying, "Yes, this is all true, what you are saying, it's all true."  I turned around to look at her because I wasn't expecting to hear this soft-spoken voice behind me.   She turned around and didn't say anything after that, seeming very shy, like she surprised even herself by speaking up.  We asked her to join us at our table, but she opted not to. 

Kinsley eventually had to leave, leaving just Shannon and Mike, two other members of our team, and I sitting at the table.  We invited Alice again to come sit at our table and this time she elected to join us.

She was a tall, slender girl, bundled up in a few layers, as it was a slightly windy and cool day.  She had a few straggling strands of hair hanging down over her right eye.  When she slid over on the bench next to me, it was then that I noticed her scars.

They covered most of her face, slightly skewing the shape of her eyes. Her hands were scarred also, her fingers just as slender as the rest of her body.

As we began chatting with her, we eventually made it around to her scars.  She shared that as a young child, she had escaped a home fire, but just barely.  Her body had been badly burned and her mother had spent hours over her hospital bed, praying for her, begging God to let her child survive. 

Alice plainly and boldly shared her confidence in God, that there's no way she would have survived that fire apart from Him and His sovereignty.  As she grew older, she continued to rely on that faith she had discovered as a three-year-old. 

I walked away from that conversation humbled and grateful to have crossed paths with this soft-spoken woman.  I was reflecting later and I just kept having this recurring thought run through my mind, "This is who the gospel is for."

Looking out over the student union area

The gospel - the saving grace of Jesus Christ and him crucified - is for the ones who have been scarred and burned by the flames.  It's for the ones who have watched their homes and their lives turn to ash around them.  It's for the ones who have breathed in the smoke of this life and gasped for clean air.  It's for the ones who have been fighting back the fire-breathing dragons of their past and the madness of their present.  It's for the ones whose lungs burn from lack of oxygen, whose legs threaten to give away beneath the heat.  It's for the ones whose hearts have been licked by the flames.

That's who the gospel is for. 

That's who Jesus is for. 

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick."  (Matthew 9:12)

The gospel is for the sick and the ones walking around with wounded hearts and scarred minds. 

Alice might have been the bearer of physical scars, but those scars reminded me that we all walk around with our own set of scars.  Most of us just don't wear them on the surface for the world to see.

And as grace would have it - the gospel is for you and all your scars, whether physical or figurative.  It's for your lungs that are screaming for air and your heart that been seared from the heat. It's for the ones who are desperate to find water to douse the flames of this world. 

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;  I have summoned you by name; you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.  When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.  For I am the Lord your God."  (Isaiah 43:1-3)

When we walk through the fire.  When.  We will walk through it.  We will have scars.  No one will escape this world without them.

Jesus is for the ones who have been singed and burned and licked by the flames.  He has walked through them himself.  He's not afraid of them. 

And for that I'm grateful.