A Candle in the Gale

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

And I answered the second time and said to him, "What are the two olive branches which are beside the two golden pipes, which empty the golden oil from themselves?" Zechariah 4:12

"Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness." Chinese saying.

During our early days in Xiamen we bought candles by the case because the power was often out. I even carried candles shopping, because several times the power went out while we were in windowless stores. At least two or three times I browsed Zhongshan Rd.'s Xinhua bookstore by candlelight!

We don't need candles nowadays, but I still love to use them. Nothing beats dinner by candlelight, and sometimes I just sit and watch a candle, gazing deep into the heart of the flickering flame, and imagining what it will be like someday to see the Source of all Light, face to face.

Candles amaze me. The darker the room, the brighter they become, yet the wick is not consumed because it is the fuel, not the wick, that burns. The wick is simply the catalyst that allows the fuel, be it wax or oil, to burn. Only if the fuel is exhausted does the wick burn out.

Jesus said we are "the light of the world," but whether we flame, or flicker, or simply burn out depends upon how well we replenish that Fuel within, and where we burn.

Replenishing the Source If a candle consumes all of its wax, or a lamp its oil, the wick burns and the light is extinguished. We should seek, daily, to ensure that nothing impedes the flow of that inner Fuel from our Father.

Candle in the Gale. Elton John sang that Marilyn was a candle in the wind, snuffed out early. But she burned on her own strength, and in circumstances that her Father never intended for her to be in. She was not a candle in the wind but a candle in the gale. Even Jesus resisted Satan's temptation to prove his deity but leaping from a cliff, forcing angels to catch him. He replied, "Don't tempt the Lord your God.

In the same way, as long as we, the light of the world, are candles, we should illuminate where He places us. And if, over time, our Father sees fit to allow us to blaze and cast a greater Light, he will transform us from a flickering candle into a blazing firebrand that not even the storms can't extinguish. But that is His timing, not ours.

For now, I'm still a candle, and a pretty weak one at that--rather like the tiny candles on a birthday cake==though I like to think I'm one of those "magic candles": I may get snuffed out occasionally but there is still a spark in there, and after a few seconds I sputter back into life!

F.B. Meyer ("Our Daily Homily," London, 1894) gave an interpretation of Zechariah 4:12, "Two golden spouts..." (R.V.).

WHAT a sermon there is in a wick! Sit beside it, and ask how it dares hope to be able to supply light for hours and horus to come. "Will you not soon burn to an end, you wick of lamp?" "No, I do not fear it, since the light does not burn me, though it burns on me. I only bear to it the oil which saturates my texture. I am but the ladder up which it climbs. It is not I, but the oil that is in me, that furnishes the light."

Yes, that is it, and when we anticipate the future, our hearts might well misgive us if we were counting on meeting its demands from our only slender resources. But this is not necessary; we do not give light to the world; we only receive the oil from the Holy Spirit and the spark of his fire; andif we burn steadily through the long, dark hours, it is because we have learned to translate into living beauty those supplies of grace which we receive in fellowship with Jesus.

But how necessary it is that nothing interrupt the flow of oil; that there be no uncleanliness permitted to clog and obstruct the narrow bore of the golden spout of faith. Let us daily see to this; let us watch and pray, that there may be no hindrance or impediment; let us draw from our King-Priest more and more of his grace, to enable us to persevere. It cannot be too often repeated, that it is not what we do for Him, but what He does through us, which really blesses men. Be satisfied then to be only a wick, unseen amid the glory of the light that crowns it, and willing to be consumed by the daily removal of the charred fringe. Delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus may be manifest in your mortal flesh.
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