A couple of days ago, I had a visit with my brother Bob when he dropped off my mom for Christmas.

It was fun to catch up with him. I hadn’t seen him since early October and that wasn’t much of a visit since it was at his son’s wedding. He was kind of preoccupied that day for some reason. Maybe it was the combination of wind and the kilt that he was wearing!

This time around he spent some time talking about his job for the Peterborough Board of Education as a heating/air conditioning specialist, among other things. He has over 110 schools in his district to take care of, so he basically has no life of his own.

He shared with us how it is hard to train new people in his occupation because it really gets complicated when you are dealing with the heating/cooling systems in a large building. A few things that he said stuck with me.

He mentioned how you have to always be thinking about how what you are about to do is going to impact the system. I guess it is really easy to fix one problem and create ten others if you don’t think through what you’re doing and look at all the variables first.

He also mentioned how you have to always make sure that the impact you are making is positive. You can’t create negative airflow in a building or there will be big problems.

Apparently you have to learn how to think backwards, as well. At times are you actually doing the opposite to what makes sense–just because of the way systems work together.

You have to be a real mystery solver and a “big-picture” guy to handle the kind of problems my brother deals with on a regular basis. That’s why so many start the training and so few stick with it. Bob told me that it takes a good seven years to get the hang of things.

In a way it seemed to me that both I and my brother have some of the same challenges in our work. As a pastor, I have to try and help people see the big picture as well. I have to help people look for positive ways to bring the changes they are looking for and many times spiritual success comes in the opposite way one might think.

I hope I am half as successful at my job as my brother is in his. More than that, I hope I am just as careful in considering how what I do affects others and if those affects are positive—not negative.