Only You Can Stop Forest Fires

Photo by Ross Stone on Unsplash

It's been a minute since I wrote here, but I'm in a writing mood, and I feel like sharing a memory that was sparked today. 

I had the good fortune of being the department office manager at one of my schools. (This mostly meant I manned the room and answered the phone, but it also meant that professors stopped by often to chat.) One day, one of my professors came in and plopped down on the sofa. He was visible exasperated about something, and that was rare. He was usually a model of serenity and a person of extremely few words. In fact, it was because he was such a model of self-control that this encounter was so memorable. "I just don't like him," he said.

I swung around in my desk chair, eager to hear what had transpired between this person and my gentle teacher. It had to have been significant, because I had never heard him say a negative word about a soul. I waited to hear what he would say next.

"I've tried. I've prayed about it. I know I shouldn't feel this way, but he drives me nuts, and I just don't like him."

That was all he said. I waited, but, he didn't add anything. It took me a second, but I slowly realized he wasn't going to tell the story. He wasn't venting about the other person or even the event that caused his distress. Instead, he was acknowledging his own negative feelings and chastising himself for them. He didn't need to enlist my help in criticizing the other person. He didn't need to tell me how I should feel about that other person. He didn't need sympathy about being driven nuts. He needed to make a confession to somebody.

And that was the end of that. He sort of shook his head as if to shake his thoughts away, and changed the subject. He never told me what happened or who was involved. He owned his own feelings about it and kept the gossip to himself. And I'm glad.

Let's assume that whatever the conflict was, he was in the right. There would have been no benefit in telling me the story of what caused his distress. Had he told me how that other person had wronged him, I would certainly have taken his side out of respect and loyalty because I thought very highly of him. But he knew that if I had a relationship with that other person, I still had the possibility of having good interactions with them if he didn't negatively color my feelings. He didn't need to put himself in between the two of us. It's also possible that no matter what that person's character may have been at that moment, that they might change over time, and if my teacher had vented to me to elicit my loyalty, I might have missed the opportunity to know the other person as he or she grew better. Instead, he allowed me to go on, as a cynic might say, "in ignorant bliss" of the other person's flaws and believing the best of them. And that is as it should be. Christians are not meant to be cynics. There is scripture aplenty encouraging us not to allow idle talk to tear others down, and to be as good a lawyer for a brother or sister's faults as we are at rationalizing our own.

Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. James 3:5

That verse makes me think of Smokey the Bear. Only you can stop forest fires.

I'm not yet as wise or disciplined as my professor. I'm guilty of wanting the selfish ego boost of having someone agree with my point of view, or the pride of seeing my own influence. I still sometimes think that maybe God needs *me* to help him influence someone else's perceptions of another one of his own children. Laughable, isn't it? If someone has a petty character flaw, nobody needs me to point it out. That flaw will almost always point itself out, and my talking about it only displays my own petty faults.

And thus concludes the evening's ruminations. Take from it what you will.