What are you building with?

One of my better subjects at school (there weren't many!) was English Literature. I still enjoy reading, mainly biographies, but also a bit of fiction as well when I have time. I recently read Watership Down for the first time, despite it having been first published in the late 70s. I enjoyed it greatly, and have bought the dvd to watch!

Over the years I have toyed with the idea of writing a book myself. In fact, I did start one sometime in the 1990s. One of the reasons the project never came to fruition was the fact that I used my pc to write it, and backed up what I had written on disks which soon became out of date and unreadable by more modern pcs. I suppose there would have been a way round the problem, but somehow it never got done. I seem to think that I wrote about 3 chapters, but though they will never see the light of day, maybe it did me some good to write them.

I had decided to write a book based on part of the 3rd chapter of St Paul's first letter to the church in Corinth (v10-15). I find that passage extremely challenging. Paul uses the illustration of a builder to get his point over, and asks us to think about what we are "building" with our lives (or, specifically, what kind of materials we are using). He points out than when our life's work is tested by the "fire", the lesser materials will be destroyed, whilst the better materials will stand the test.

I was reminded about this recently when I was doing a bit of sorting out in my study at home. I came across my diaries for each of the years since we arrived here in Doncaster (they are simply desk diaries, not a personal record of my thoughts, so I'm not sure why I kept them!) As I looked back over the past 11 and a half years, and thought about all the things written in the diaries, and all the different experiences and activities they represent, it led me to ask the question, "What have I been building with?" "Will it survive the test of the fire?"

Ultimately, we are not to judge, but I believe that it's good to ask the question. After all, human history is littered with examples of what can go wrong when shoddy building materials are used!