“Fire Cider is a pungent concoction.. It is steeped for weeks and is used as a home remedy drink to strengthen the immune system and ward off cold-weather illness"
-Wikipedia
I was captivated by all the pretty colors sitting above my stove and as I was thinking about the process it took for us to finally be able to drink my home made fire cider, the Holy Spirit impressed something onto me.
I started making it several weeks ago and is just now about ready.
To make good fire cider, you need quality ingredients, preferably organic, (which usually cost more). After combining them all together, it has to sit in a dark place for 6 weeks. Once that time is up, it must be strained. The ingredients are left out and only the liquid is consumed.
But make note, it only reaches it’s full potential in effectiveness when it’s been marinating for the appointed length of time in that exact process. This allows for the health benefits from each ingredient to be drawn out and infused into the vinegar.
Immediately I was taken back to the hardest seasons of my life.
In the thick of it, they felt like I was in some sort of a gloomy oblivion that I didn’t understand, where the answers to my questions would only come with unwanted waiting, where I would lose friends, where familial relationships would be strained and where much would be broken off of me.
What I didn’t understand then but am aware of now is this:
The next phase commands quality character and that is developed in the refinement process. It is costly, it can be painful, it is typically inconvenient. But it is necessary.
It happens in what feels like the dark. In solitude. In the stillness of God’s presence. In the prayers you weep. In the cost you “pay” for this new life.
If as saints we are going to truly be effectively influential in what matters, then we cannot view refinement as “bad”.
Old ways of thinking must be challenged and undone. Old habits reeking of self righteousness must be put to death.
Old “junk” must be left behind.
For the redeemed, this process occurs over and over as we make our way through sanctification.
Are you walking through something hard?
I encourage you not to mistaken pruning for destruction, solitude for loneliness, or restoration for loss.
If there is resistance,
If there has not been a perpetual “straining” of self,
Can we really say we are offering something other than old, stale and ineffective to others?
“So come on, let’s leave the preschool fingerpainting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ. The basic foundational truths are in place: turning your back on “salvation by self-help” and turning in trust toward God; baptismal instructions; laying on of hands; resurrection of the dead; eternal judgment. God helping us, we’ll stay true to all that. But there’s so much more. Let’s get on with it!”
Heb 6:1-3 MSG
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