As the fires continued to be contained, God is doing a little containment work in my own heart. As people step into the dystopian realities that were once their neighborhoods, I find myself dealing with the uncomfortable reality of Christian forgiveness. While we call fires natural disasters, they are really a joint effort between man and nature. It seems that some of the fires were acts of arson, which has lit a different kind of fire in my soul. The thought that people would be so thoughtless of others that they would begin a fire purposefully during such dangerous fire conditions chafes me. I cannot imagine what it does to those who have lost nearly everything.

It’s not my job to mete out human consequences for poor choices; that is the role of the judicial system. And I completely understand that grace does not negate earthly consequences earned by wrong doing. Twenty seven lives were lost, and souls mean more to God than many worlds. However, as a believer in Christ, it is my job to have a heart that abounds in forgiveness, even and especially the most costly kind. Just as physicists learn and stretch scientific knowledge through thought experiments, forgiveness experiments do the same for the human soul. As I’ve been thinking and praying for those whose homes and belongings were lost in the fires, I’ve been running a forgiveness experiment of my own: what would I do if I were faced with a repentant arsonist who asked for my forgiveness in earnest? How easily would forgiveness rise to the surface of my soul?

If I am brutally honest, I have felt mostly anger towards the suspected arsonists. I have felt indignation and judgement. I have had a tisk tisk attitude that asks, “How could someone do such things?”

Thus, the stubborn fire God has been trying to first contain and then put out in my soul.

If I struggle to forgive an arsonist, even if only in my thought experiment, I do not understand the severity of my own sin and the scandalous nature of the forgiveness I’ve received in Christ.

Costly Fine, Costly Forgiveness

After all, what was our original sin in the Garden if not a careless, thoughtless mishandling and destruction of all the beauty God intentionally and thoughtfully created for us? Sure, Adam and Eve did not literally set the garden aflame, but they broke the shalom of this sphere, creating a cosmic tear in the fabric of God’s creation.

The crime was serious enough to warrant an eviction from the presence of God and the glorious garden that was intended to be our home. Worse than the physical consequences, we severed our relationship with God, and we do so semi-flippantly.

Creation fell with us, something Paul mentions in the book of Romans. Nature itself groans under the weight of our sin and its consequences; the whole created order, from Palm Trees to Pomeranians eagerly waits for our full redemption and the subsequent restoration all things (Romans 8: 19–22). I love the JB Phillips translation of these verses:

“The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the sons of God coming into their own. The world of creation cannot as yet see reality, not because it chooses to be blind, but because in God’s purpose it has been so limited–yet it has been given hope. And the hope is that in the end the whole of created life will be rescued from the tyranny of change and decay, and have its share in the magnificent liberty which can only belong to the children of God!” (Romans 8: 19-22, JB Phillips translation).

The sin of an arsonist may have destroyed Pacific Palisades, but our sin most definitely destroyed the entire created order. Those are heavy charges, but they set the stage for the incredible hope found in the forgiveness offered us through Christ.

As the fires were raging, many of us found hope in the following words of the prophet Isaiah:

“But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you’” (Isaiah 43: 1–2).

The imagery is both palpable and powerful, but the reality of these verses was bought at a terrible price. Our souls can only pass through flames because Christ descended into the fires of hell only to rise again (1 Peter 3: 18–22). The forgiveness of our sins came at the unthinkable cost of Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf (2 Corinthians 5: 21).

Every Sunday (and hopefully every day of the week), believers remember and rehearse the forgiveness of their sins, as well we should. But those who have been forgiven much are expected to love much (Luke 8: 47). Those forgiven an infinite debt ought not struggle to forgive even the most massive finite debt, which brings me back to that soul fire within me this week.

My struggle to forgive an arsonist (even in an imagined scenario as a bystander) reveals how little I understand the severity of my sin and the scandalous forgiveness offered me in Christ. Dallas Willard is known for saying that the surest mark of Christian maturity is a spontaneous love for one’s enemies. These wildfires are showing me that I am nowhere close to offering spontaneous love for my enemies. But I am certain that a deepening understanding of my own sin and a closer clinging to the redemption purchased for me by Christ are the paths closer to that spontaneous love for even the most egregious sinners (a list on which I belong).

God is doing a quiet, consistent work seeking to put out these fires of judgement and anger in my soul. He is wrapping me up in the fire blanket of his love and reminding me that there is enough space within for all who are His children. He is judge, so I don’t have to be.