Many times, when an image comes to mind, we will entertain it for a moment then dismiss it without inquiry. Some of these images are prophetic insights that need to be unpacked, investigated, and shared. Yesterday, I saw one such image.

I saw a person open their mouth to speak and fire came out. It was not your typical fire-breathing image. The words were like molten lava slowly rolling out from an erupting volcano. The person was speaking words of measured wisdom without the shrill sounds of desperation. The lava-infused words could not be hindered by the obstacles of human logic, compromise, or acquiescence. The lava was able to burn through these issues that held people in places of ignorance and bondage.

I am beginning to hear voices in pulpits and on the streets rise and speak asking questions about a variety of narratives we are being asked to believe without further inquiry.  These narratives if not confronted will radically affect the lives of people in dramatic ways. The molten lava of these voices is also burning through the fallacy that Christian love will always roll over offering no inquiry or resistance to issues that many are beginning to interpret as governmental overreach and a violation of personal integrity. I applaud these brave individuals. Their words carry a significant risk to their relationships, reputation, and livelihood.

These molten voices are the outpouring of a spiritual volcano the Lord is erupting within His Church. No longer are these individuals willing to live and lead in a disconnected place between the Gospel and its application in the affairs of culture. They are challenging this faulty gap in our thinking calling out deceptions being offered to us under a false interpretation of love. Their words are burning away the accumulated debris of deception and falsehood we have been asked to leave in place without an appropriate and reasonable challenge. 

To submit without such inquiry is not a balanced understanding of biblical submission to authority. A quick read of history over the last hundred years will reveal that when a culture begins to enter perilous waters where individual lives, families, and entire cultures are put in jeopardy by a single, unchallenged version of reality, and that potential jeopardy is not investigated and processed with integrity, we will place our lives and our witness in a place of unnecessary regret, a regret that will linger into future generations.