FUEL for Your FIRE – Fuel for Your LIFE
Fire is defined as “the phenomenon of combustion manifested in light, flame, and heat.”1 A fire can be destructive or useful. A blaze can cause harm leaving scars, or bring comfort, warmth, and even new life. The flames of an inferno rage with ugly billows of dark smoke, while those in a campfire or fireplace are a thing of beauty to watch.
When deprived of oxygen and/or fuel, a fire will soon be extinguished. As the light of the flame goes dark, heat is lost until the last of the glowing embers becomes nothing more than blackened soot.
Fire is also defined as “burning passion” or the “liveliness of imagination.”* In this way, the fire within us can ignite feelings of affection, friendship, and love, or it can kindle our ambition, inspiration, and motivation.
How we perceive fire depends largely upon whether or not it is contained—controlled or uncontrolled. Our thoughts and actions are very different if we are faced with a peaceful campfire or a raging forest fire. One is safe, the other is not.
The same holds true for the fires burning within our hearts.
The fire within is fueled by our attitudes or mindsets. How we think will either feed a destructive uncontrolled fire, or our thought patterns will kindle the fulfilled life we desire. Just as a furnace controls the flame to provide warmth for your home, a firm foundation governs the fire within us to bring about the abundant, happy life we desire.
An ancient proverb says as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.2 When you and I choose to adjust our mindsets, we change the kind of person we will become. The transformation of our bedrock attitudes requires hard work, but we can cultivate new patterns of thinking.
Firm Foundation helps us have FUEL for our FIRE – Fuel for our LIFE. Healthy thinking develops the infrastructure of our minds, so our inner fire energizes us to achieve the life we want for ourselves and our families.
FUEL, FIRE, and LIFE form an acrostic to help us remember the 12 mindsets for a fulfilled life. These bedrock attitudes are:
- Faith
- Unlimited Gratitude
- Eternity in Mind
- Love Big
- Forgiveness
- Integrity
- Refocused Sorrow
- Endless Possibilities
- Leadership
- Invest your T3
- Fun-Filled
- Exhale to Rest
Let’s begin a journey to look at the foundation of our lives. Together we can make any needed repairs, add missing mindsets, and firm up the foundation of our thinking so we can enjoy the abundant, happy life we’ve always wanted.
1 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fire; 2 Proverbs 23:7