One time when I was a kid on the farm we were going to build a fire under a huge pile of brush and burn it. No matter what we did my brothers and I couldn’t get the fire to go because we had no paper and the wood was wet. My Dad came over to check on us, and seeing our dilemma he said, “”let me show you how the Boy Scouts do it”. We thought we were going to get this slick way of building a fire that the pioneers must have used, but instead he took the little tobacco can that was in his pocket, emptied the remaining tobacco that was in the can into his shirt pocket, went over to the tractor and opened the petcock on the bottom of the gas tank and filled the little can with gasoline, poured it on the pile of small pieces of wood that we had collected, and threw a match on it. In a few minutes we had a rip roaring fire going. I remember thinking, “I don’t think the Boy Scouts build fires that way, but my Dad sure knows how to get a fire going with wood that I don’t think even the Boy Scouts could have done.

So how do you build a fire in your soul so that you are excited, hot, passionate, motivated, and have a strong desire to do something with your life that matters for all eternity. Contrary to what some people think I don’t wake up with my inside engine revved up to the red line, I wake up lazy, indifferent, and grumpy. My 1949 Ford pickup has the original Flathead V-8 engine in it, and when I start it on cold mornings it takes awhile and I have to follow certain steps or I end up with a dead battery with all the cranking. I am the same way, but I have learned how to start my engine, build the fire in my heart, and become a person of drive and “want to”.

I start every day with a prayer of dedication giving my life afresh to Jesus and I declare Him Lord and master of my life. I ask Him to show me His will for my life, and then I ask for His strength, and desire to be put in me so that I can accomplish His will.  I regularly write down crazy ideas of things I could do. I don’t show them to anybody because they are to crazy. I delete them. Later I write them again. At some point I arrive at a clearly written goal that I believe is what God wants me to do, and then I pray about it every day, sometimes several times each day , asking for God to give me everything I need to accomplish this “WIG”, “wildly important goal”. At some point I share it with those people that I need to be part of the process to accomplish it, and sell it to them. By this time I am a blazing inferno, and it is fun.