We have begun the wonderful discipline called 'timeout'in our home with our toddler. Certainly, you recognize some variant of timeout from your growing up. I certainly do. Mine (and my daughter's) took place in the corner. It is discipline which makes you stop for a second, step away from that poor choice, and 'think about what you have done'.

I do not want to see my girls keep getting hurt by their bad choices. So I discipline them for the bad choices in HOPES they will not continue to be harmed by them.

"For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines...but if you are without discipline, then you are illegitimate children and not sons/daughters...For we are disciplined for a short time as is best for us and our good. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful; but sorrowful; yet to THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN TRAINED BY IT afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness." (Heb. 12.6, 8, 10-11)

God will let others fall under the weight of their sin, but not his children. Children without a Father are illegitimate. Children without a Heavenly Father are eternally illegitimate.

But to those who belong to God will be disciplined for our poor choices in HOPES we will not continue to be harmed by them. We are disciplined in hopes we will learn from those things which keep harming us.

Image #1: Cold winter night; possibly snow on the ground and frost on the windows. Everyone huddles near the fireplace within which the logs are being consumed by the flames while creating a warmth and comfort. Image #2: Hot summer day; a few kids playing with fireworks out near the lake-house. One rogue bottle rocket explodes in a patch of dry grass, and an inferno soon consumes the garage and damages part of the lakehouse.

Image #3: "for our God is a consuming fire." (Hebrews 12:29)

Fire is equally useful and destructive; comforting and painful. Either way it consumes what it comes in contact with.

There are moments when I struggle to figure out how God connects and relates to me, and then there are moments when certain images of God consume me with a great strength.

Today I am processing and wrapping myself up in the image of God as a consuming fire. There are times when he has been my source of warmth and comfort when I need it most amidst a cold and discouraging time.

I cannot recall too many times in which GOd has been a source of destruction and pain in my life. But I cannot allow that to make me cease to understand his great power to be a consuming fire.

Hebrews only quotes Deuteronomy when it mentions God as a consuming fire. The context in Deuteronomy is a reference to how JEALOUS God is.

God is a consuming fire, and there are moments he has likely been jealous and thus angry when I have pursued lovers far less wild than he is.

There is an anger and almost violent sense of God as a jealous lover. My whoredom for other lovers of my soul must enrage him, and I see this consuming fire image begin to take shape and form in my soul's gallery of images.

Because of his great mercy, though, I place that image just next to a consuming fire, which produces a great warmth and comfort when I have needed it most.

My God is a consuming fire!