My brother-in-law and his wife–from whose home in Spokane I am writing–related how God spared it from the arson-caused fires of August, 2026 that ravaged parts of the city. Some of their stories were harrowing. But for all its fury and destructive potential, fire can be beneficial in some ways. For example, it clears away built up fuel and supports new growth by returning nutrients to the soil as burned organic matter is broken down. It also opens up the canopy. letting additional sunlight in.
Fire creates habitat variety. Standing, dead trees provide shelter for birds and insects, and fire opens spaces for grasses and flowers to grow. One such flower is wild lupine. It is the only plant that the larvae of the endangered Karner blue butterfly will eat. Fire produces ideal conditions for this lupine to flourish.
I am tempted at this point to haul out the old cliche “every cloud has a silver lining,” but I much prefer the way hymn writer William Cowper put it: “Judge not the Lord by feeble sense/ but trust Him for His grace/ behind a frowning providence / He hides a smiling face.” Similarly, poet John Oxenham wrote, “We thank Thee, Lord, for all things beautiful and good and true; for things that seemed not good yet turned to good.”
David’s trials must have seemed not good, but God turned them to good as he testified in Psalm 119: “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Thy word…it is good for me that was afflicted, that I may learn Thy statutes.” Pain is a stern schoolmaster, but the lessons it imparts can be invaluable. With hymnist George Matheson may we learn to “trace the rainbow through the rain and feel the promise is not vain: ‘that morn shall tearless be,’”
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