fire fighting

First up today was a meeting over what is really just a misunderstanding.

In fact, two misunderstandings, as it turned out: or maybe a whole load more. Where things get picked up wrongly - or at least in a way that's different from what was meant.

It seemed to me quite apt that the week should begin like this. This is so very much a feature of the world in which we live: it's where so many of the problems that there are - it's where they all begin.

Misunderstandings. And the trouble that they cause. The anguish they create. The divisions that they leave.

I felt like a fireman this morning I have to say.

Like the firemen out in Greece these past few weeks, who've had those dreadful forest fires to try and handle and control.

They may have been deliberate, these recent fires, I know. But often fires like that are mainly accidental. Someone acting carelessly, without sufficient thought for where their acts might lead. But when the ground's so dry, it doesn't take much more than just a spark to start a massive fire. The flames find fuel in almost anything and multiply with frightening speed.

Most times, too, the misunderstandings are pretty much like that. Little fires of hurt and indignation which were never meant that way. And they in turn feed other hurts and soon ... well, soon you've got a great, big, raging forest fire and it's sometimes hard to know just where to start in trying to tackle it and halt its huge destructiveness.

Quite a lot of the time it's like that. I'm fighting fires. Trying to stop them all from spreading.

Later on in the day, I was down at the shops at Craigleith and there, as if to underline the point, was a flashing fire appliance with its crew all hard at work. Fighting fires.

I think it was perhaps a false alarm, there didn't seem much action and certainly not a trace of any panic!

I smiled, I have to say! And I thought, yes, that's me a lot of the time. Fighting fires.

And like the fire brigade, there's a lot to be said for working on fire prevention.

That's what I'm seeking to do a fair bit of my time. Teaching people how to live in such a way that these things don't arise. How we best avoid misunderstandings. How to take precautions in the way we speak, the things we do. How to think the best of those around us and interpret what they say and do the best we can.

So today there's been some solid preparation for the coming days and all the different contexts where there'll be the chance to do some fire prevention. Teaching God's own truth.

It crossed my mind that one misunderstanding which must break the heart of God is simply how we view and understand his church.

I'm concerned in these days to tackle that. And Monday gives the chance again to get my head round all of that and figure out how best I can correct misunderstandings in relation to God's church.

Ironic, I suppose, that the Spirit who enlivens God's own church is pictured as .. well, fire!