©Back in 1995, I had this cool apartment in a nice, relatively new complex. It was my first place of my own. I had just purchased a new sports car, had a great paying job, just graduated from college and life was good. Now in addition to my full-time job, I was also a contractor for a few record labels so each week in the mail I was getting a lot of free music.

Well, one Saturday night in January, I decided to get out, hit the streets and listen to some of this good music. As I was getting ready to leave, I heard a loud knocking at the door. To be honest, it was more like a pounding. I came out to see who it was but before I could open it…the door was practically kicked open…and on the other side stood a firefighter.

I asked him what was going on and he said, “Sir, you need to grab up whatever you can and leave the building immediately. There’s a fire heading this way!” Wow I thought…so I ran back into my apartment and looked around. Then I ran back out to the porch to make sure this was really happening. I looked down and saw utter chaos which told me that it was happening, so I grabbed my keys and my wallet and ran out. I figured that whatever I lost I could replace so there was no sense in trying to take anything else down with me.

Now, this was no ordinary fire; this was one of those multi-alarm deals where you see several fire trucks on the scene. A few things stick in my memory about that night. One was the heat. There were over 20 buildings in the complex. My building number was #3 and the fire originated in building #8. But when I came downstairs and looked down towards building #8, I could feel the heat.

Another thing was the sound that the fire made. It was a hard to describe, loud, roaring type of sound. But the thing that has stuck with me the most is the image of the people. It was a big complex, so I imagine there were a couple hundred people running to get out…while a handful of people…firefighters were running to get in.

You ever been in a fire? I’m not talking about your house or apartment or your car being on fire; I’m talking about a fire where life itself is burning down around you. You know the type of fire where your finances are burning up. I’m talking about one of those fires where your health is burning up; where your job is burning up…one of those fires where you yourself are burning up.

Fires in life are inevitable so get ready. When one of the fires of life comes, remember the people who were like those couple hundred or so people who got their things and ran out. But more importantly…remember the ones who chose to be like that handful of firefighters who while everyone else was running to get out…cared enough about you…to run to get in. Learn from the burn…