Stoked, Poked, and Irritated

There’s nothing wrong with the words, it’s just the way she says them. Write those words out in pen and ink and they’d look just fine. But why spoken into the air do they feel like little jabs?  I can’t put my finger on it, but somewhere in my heart there’s a bee sting. I can feel it.

I come in out of the cold, kick off my boots and check the fire. It’s still lit but it’s cooled. I can see glowing embers down below, but the logs lay heavy on top and not much heat is coming out.

I grab the poker and remove the screen. This is my favorite part of wood-stove heat. Stoking the fire. I wield my poker and shove it deep under the logs, flip them over and poke around at the glowing embers beneath. Instantly heat rushes out, envelopes me in warmth.  It’s so hot I have to put the poker down, replace the screen and sit back a bit. I lean against my old quilted pillows, close my eyes, remember these words:

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. (Hebrews 10:24)

Of course.

Pastor Jon had just told us. We know this verse, know we’re called to spur one another on, but do we understand what it means to spur?

That word, translated “spur” is paroxusmos which literally means “to irritate.” Consider: How do you spur on a horse? By nudging it with your spurs!  That is, applying just enough pressure, or irritation, to get its attention and make it move.

Isn’t this how I’d just stoked the fire? By poking it. By digging, jabbing that poker down into the embers, flipping over the logs, stirring it up a bit with some strategic irritation.

Every day I partake in my beloved stoking ritual. I poke and prod and stir up warmth to keep our house heated.

To keep the fire burning. 

Aren’t we supposed to do the same for each other? And truly, isn’t that what this person had done for me? I’d felt a little unnerved, a little irritated. And didn’t this stir me up a bit? Didn’t it flip over my log and expose the underside that desperately needed attention? Didn’t it turn a cold side over and let it find flame? White-hot purifying flame that burns the impurities away?

It did just that. 

The problem is that I thought I loved that verse. But I don’t like the poking part. At least not in real life. Poking on the page is just fine — but poking in person? No thank you.

But if that’s the case then I don’t really love that verse. Then I don’t really understand that verse or obey that verse.

True Christian fellowship always involves irritation. 

Our lives are purified by people-pokes. Dozens of them. Isn’t it the loving hand of the Father who wields the poker? And hasn’t He ordained that we would live, grow, be sanctified in community?

But all this poking is not what we had in mind when we signed up for “community” is it?  In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer,

“He who loves his dream of community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.”

Let’s be honest: Our dream Christian community don’t involve stokes, pokes, and irritations.

But real Christian community does. In fact, biblical Christian community does.  Sure, some pokes are the result of other’s sin. But some are the sanctified spurs — one saint to another.

Do we want to be spurred? I do.

I don’t like the feel but I love the fruit.

—

{Who has irritated you lately? How might this have been the gentle prodding of a loving Father? How can you be spurred on toward love because of it? Perhaps I’ve irritated you? Thanks for reading, for grace, and for sanctified spurs — one saint to another.}