Growing up in a small town named Columbus, the Columbus Day holiday was always a big deal. One of the best parts of the day was watching them fly their hot air balloons. They were all different colors, and it was always amazing to me that they could get off of the ground and into the air. Periodically, they would have to have a burst of fire to create hot air. This was necessary to keep the balloon in the air. If you didn’t refill the balloon with hot air, it would eventually fall back to the ground.

This is a good analogy for our own lives. We could think of our own Christian walk as a balloon ride. When we first become Christians, we have incredible burst of fire that start us on our journey. We have a burning in our hearts about the word of God. We desire earnestly to do spiritual things. We want to tell the whole world about Jesus and what He has done for us. That spiritual flame is visible to all around us.

However, just like the hot air in the balloon, if we do not keep that fire going, the air in our balloon starts to cool to the temperature of the world around us. We need to make sure that we feed the fire so that our balloons keep afloat. To keep our spiritual fire, we need to spend time studying the word of God to gain knowledge of Christ. We need to pray to Him and revive that relationship. We need to spend time with other Christians and let our time with them be an encouragement to us. By keeping the fire alive we can stay afloat in this trying world.