Fire and Water

Jesus Christ...He shows Himself to us in the most basic elements of our existence. Food, drink, breath, shelter, fire, water, wind and land. Man's most basic needs....earth's most basic provisions....this is Who He is to us....if we can receive Him... everything we need and every meeting of that need.
There is a quote... that if you look at nature you find God in His heavens... it goes on to say something to the effect that if you look at God, you find Him inside...This is what I aim for...Even a heathen can look at the mountains or the oceans and appreciate the handiwork of God. Things in nature are lovely and incredible reminders of an awesome being and His power, like no others, but nature is a shadow of Him, a mere reflection. I want something more...I want a revelation of Him and who He really is, deep inside my spirit. A revelation that changes me and makes me more into His image. I want a knowing of Him in a more real way. I don't just want to appreciate His handiwork, I want experience it, personally, internally.
I think I could take every element indiviually and discover more of Him but lately He is talking to me about fire and water....and maybe shelter, but I'll save that for later.

Fire is such a powerful force...overcoming almost everything....reflective of passion, desire, intensity...it can be incredibly beneficial, not to mention mesmerizing and soothing, even creative and life giving...it can also be very dangerous and destructive. Either way, as Nancy said in her comments, things are never the same once fire is involved. God likens Himself to a consuming fire...that can be a good thing...or a very bad one depending on which side of Him you find yourself. :) He is also quite fond of purification using fire as a tool, so that all that remains of us is Him...flesh cannot withstand fire....it melts like toasted marshmallows...:) Ouch!
However it is Christ as water that usually speaks to me most clearly....His life is the river that flows from the throne of God written in Revelations. It is a trickle, a stream, a waterfall rushing, flowing from the heart of God right through our hearts, into our spirits and out from our spirits to the world,... to one another....and though water also has the power to change it carries hope in its wake.
....Water brings life...without water the earth dies...we die......but it can also brings death...crashing torrents of water destroy...and nothing can stop it.....man can only try to contain it for a time in dams and resevoirs but sooner or later water breaks through...the floods from Katrina destroyed New Orleans...the sunami killed thousands....yet the much needed rains save crops and rivers and oceans sustain life.
Water...so necessary...so strong...it seems to me that nothing has power over it....water can conquer fire....but I do not think fire can conquer water...it can seep through solid rock, be frozen or evaporated and still come back to its own....
The first thought that comes to my mind when you say water is life...the first thought that comes when you say fire is destruction.....
Here is a list, I'm sure incomplete, of other words that come to mind when thinking of fire and water:

Fire

heat
light
warmth
comfort
spark
life
death
mesmerizing
purifying
cleansing
creative
purging
raging
burns
destroys
melts
powerful
frightening
overwhelming
conquer
irreversible
useful

Water

flows
Runs
washes
purifies
cleanses
cool
warm
drowns
conquers
floods
contains
life
death
supplies
food
refreshment
nourishment
rain
snow
clouds
ice
river
ocean
useful
soothing
frightening
overwhelming
destroys
powerful
changable
necessary

Please add others to the list if you think of them. Thanks for rambling along with me as I think outloud....:)