more consequences

Last week at the SU group we got the children to play a game of Consequences. Fairly innocuous 'X met Y...' sort of stuff.

Not all of them made much sense, but some interesting little stories emerged. Like this one -

"Ben met Jacqueline at Edinburgh.

He said to her, 'I love you.'

She said to him, 'Do you want to go to the swimming pool with me?'

And the consequence was that they had a baby."

Consequences.

Sometimes our actions, however small they may seem, have consequences way beyond what we'd have imagined.

It's been a busy few days, and today, I knew from the start, was going to be full and quite rushed. A bit like yesterday, when I was chairing an all-day meeting of folk out of town and then was back for an evening of important pastoral ministry in the home of one of our members.

So this morning I was down first thing, a good bit before 7.30am. There were soups to be made, for a start.

However ...

The previous night the tap on the automatic boiler in the kitchen (which gives us boiling water round the clock) had been left a tiny fraction on.

Not a trickle of water or anything like that, just a steady little drip into the tray at the base of the boiler. So small as to be easily overlooked when closing down for the day the previous night.

But come the morning when I went in first thing the kitchen floor was flooded. A steady drip through the hours of the night can soon amount to a massive pool of water! So the soup-making's right-away postponed. There's a floor to be mopped and flood damage now to be remedied.

Once done, I left the bucket and mop in the corridor and got the soup on the go. Then out by the fire exit to dispose of the water I'd collected from the flooding on the floor.

Except it's a very windy morning and the fire door blows shut behind me. Now I'm locked out of the building completely - and left standing in the vestibule (it at least was open which was just as well because the wind was cold and raw) with my apron on. Twiddling my thumbs and waiting for someone with keys.

It's a healthy reminder from the Lord, I realise, that it's not what I do that counts. Sometimes he takes us out of the frame to make his point.

He anaesthetised Abram and sent him to sleep, after all. To underline the point that it's he, the Lord, who does it all. We do well to remember that.

Well, a keyholder arrived, and I got round to the school for the first of two assemblies I'd be at - a little late, for sure, but better late than never.

Then back to the halls to begin to address a pastoral crisis which I've been alerted to. And then a quick rush round to the school again for the assembly mark 2 (this time the younger pupils).

From there it's off to a meeting to do with our pastoral ministry here. I have to leave before, I think, they're finished, as I'm meeting up with Douglas and going off to the local fraternal.

I'm back just in time to be coming through the doors just a few short steps ahead of the folk I've arranged to meet at 2pm. A family right in the midst of terrible grief after the death of their 23 year old son. Time with them cannot be rushed. I feel their pain acutely.

They're barely gone before I'm seeing the person whose crisis I had learned about this morning. There's more pain. Consequences really.

Consequences of things now way in the past. And consequences, too, of choices being made in the present.

We're complicated people; and life is full of heartache. Oh for heaven, when the sorrows, tears and fault-lines in our make-up will be gone!

I've a quick turn-around over tea, including the chance to see a friend from ages back (I can't say an old friend, because she's not that old!), before a full-length meeting at night at which, not least, we're looking at the congregation's finances.

There are matters to concern us here. We live in harsh economic times. Everyone's feeling the pain.

But we're having to think about consequences once again. Can we really afford to sustain a new appointment? Can we really afford not to?

And how are we best going to foster a culture of giving and its consequence of growth?