Where the fire has already burned

A wagon train was one day making its way across the western plains of our United States. The trip had been pleasant, and the travelers were filled with hopes of a new day in Oregon and California homesteads.

One fateful afternoon they looked with mounting terror at the onrushing scourge of the western traveler, a prairie fire. They watched, numb with fear, as the distant flames roared down upon them, fanned by the west wind, leaping dozens of feet into the air.

The cry went up, “We are lost, what shall we do?”

One of the guides, seeing the looming peril, ran quickly and planted several fires in the grass downwind from the location of the wagon train.

The same brisk western breeze that was blowing the larger fire soon fanned the smaller fires into flame and they swept onward away from the helpless wagon. The second fire left a large area of burned ground.

The guide quickly called all of the people, saying, “Come into the place where the fire has already burned. Bring your wagons; bring your children and your animals.”

Seeing the wisdom of this move, the crowd quickly followed. Standing in the burned out area they watched the onrushing flames of the larger fire roar upon them and then part to the left and the right, unable to move into the already burned ground on which they stood.

They soon rejoiced in the salvation which was theirs because they went to stand in the place where the fire had already burned.

So it is that the judgment of God has already burned across the hill which is called Calvary. The death of Jesus Christ has created a place of refuge for every man.

From The Unspeakable Gift, chapter 5 of Discover Your Destiny, by Dave Breese.