One of my favorite things about the summer is the longer days. Of course a day is still 24 hours in summer but we get a lot more daylight. I struggle during the winter months with seemingly endless dark, gloomy days and much shorter amounts of daylight. I keep a lot more lights on in the winter and I also light candles when I am at home. Not only do they provide some light, candles ooze with metaphoric qualities and rich spirituality.

Yesterday I studied at home and before lighting my candles I trimmed all the wicks. While I was working with the wick trimmer (yes, there is such a thing) the Holy Spirit prompted me to write a blog post about trimming wicks. I just grinned, said okay, and here we are.

I like large candles that have hundreds of hours of burn time in them. If a wick is not trimmed it will not burn evenly, it will collect too much useless material on it, and will produce smoke. Can you sense the metaphor to come? My fingers can’t type this out fast enough. Let’s dive in…..

A wick by itself with a little bit of ignition could burn for a very brief time before it consumed all of itself. If we liken ourselves to a wick, we can certainly make a name for ourselves for a very brief period of time using our own strength, our own wills. We will burn hot and fast but there will be nothing left at the end to sustain us or light the way for anyone else. We are a conduit, not the Source. We are a part, an integral part, of the plan of God but we have no fire, no fuel, no lasting light without the candle…..without Jesus. A wick can’t just be near the candle or spend one hour a week with the candle to burn. The wick is immersed in the candle. To burn properly with Light we must be saturated and surrounded by Jesus. We were never meant to dip into Him once in a while for a little bit of fuel and then go on our way to save the world with our light. It is always going to be about Jesus, for Jesus, through Jesus, and with Jesus that we pour forth light.

Once a wick is immersed into a candle it can be ignited to burn. This is life in Christ. Unfortunately, without proper care and attention we/the wick can become too long and burn too fast and move out from the candle. We can begin to admire the light we are pouring out and start comparing our flame to other flames. We take our eyes off of Jesus and put them on all that we are doing for Him. Righteousness through Jesus burns steady and secure but self-righteousness burns hot and fast. The wick becomes more important than the candle. Stay close to your Source. Burn brightly, burn true, burn steady. Trim your wicks. Every single thing you need you will find in Him and only in Him.

A wick that is not trimmed begins to get a big head. If I have let a candle burn all day it will often have a thick black knot of itself at the top. I don’t know what is doing that scientifically but for the sake of the metaphor I understand it clearly…..it is as if the wick tries to create it’s own source of energy and it does it at the furthest point from the candle. Can you see it? If we don’t stay close to Jesus, and I’m talking about trimmed so closely that we can’t even ignite without Him, we will start to create false ideas about our strength. We might even start to think we can do it ourselves. Satan is a soothing whisperer of subtlety. You may not even notice yourself moving away from Jesus. We trim our wicks with humility by declaring our utter dependence on Jesus for every step, every word, every breath.

Finally, if a wick is not trimmed it will begin to smoke. If we stray from His presence at all, the healthy light that once shown brightly will turn to an unhealthy haze. We were never meant to be The Candle. He is the source and we are the conduit. Trim your wicks. Decide for yourself to do the trimming and stay saturated in Jesus and then the Light you reflect and the pouring out you allow will always be The One True Source of all love, all goodness, all forgiveness, and all healing.

The above picture is the candle that has been burning while I wrote this post. This completely summarizes a life lived in, through, and for Jesus Christ. His light burns pure and true to light the way and the excess of Him is poured out for all. This is what reckless abandon looks like. This is what reckless love looks like.

Trim your wicks.