Tag: faith

Categories
being peace

Who Rules?

Taken on the outskirts of Frome back in the summer of 2025 on a walk with my mum. Love the definitions of this dead part of tree.

I’m still doing the daily readings with the Bible Society for Lent, and on the whole enjoying it. The other day we read Psalm 110 and this jumped out at me

The LORD says to my lord: 

‘Sit at my right hand
    until I make your enemies
    a footstool for your feet.

Psalm 110:1-2

When this verse has been preached on, and even in the commentary on Bible Society, it is said that the lower case “lord” must be Jesus with the uppercase LORD being Yahweh, but I’m wondering if it isn’t. I’m wondering if it is that part of ourselves that lords it over our behaviour and decisions.

In doing QEC healing and also watching Awakening With Brian and reading books like The Body Keeps The Score etc etc etc I am wondering if the “lord” in this psalm [and possibly in other places] is our subconscious, which is often led by our childhood traumas, our conditioning, our expectations, and lots of unspoken stuff, for instance Jung’s shadow selves.

We all do things that we don’t like doing or are surprised that we do. We react in ways that we don’t want to. I was really tired last night and was being really needy but in an antagonistic way. I knew I didn’t want to be behaving like that but I was. When I handed it to God I realised I was looking at things through the little child who got looked over and had to take charge.

So I all I had to do was sit at God’s right-hand, that place of honour, and allowed God, who loves me unconditionally, to bring those parts of me that were being my enemy under Their care. Those niggles and issues then became something I could rest my feet on and let go of.

By doing that it stops me then from doing those things we can all be guilty of doing [1] trying to rationally sort out why I was feeling that way, [2] feel guilty about acting off and go into a further sulk, [3] dismiss it all and blame the other person.

So if I put “my lord” into THE LORD’s hands then LORD [as in Creator God] can deal with my enemies – which are more often my own thoughts, fears, deep seated insecurities, and things I don’t even know about but which keep me in that flight, flight, freeze, fawn place – and I can be at peace.

I do wonder if, too often, we over spiritualise the Bible, trying to make lots of things in the Old Testament be by about Jesus, when often they are about the human condition, and how God wants to support us and help us through the hard work of being human. Maybe if we took it like that then we could spend more time being than rushing round doing.

Here’s my dogs on this morning’s walk enjoying just being rather than having to sort the world out. They trust me to do that for them.

Categories
chaos freedom

Psalm Sunday

Today at church we were pondering Psalm Sunday. After I had given a talk at youth group last Sunday about how Jesus turned his friends and followers heads regarding the Passover at the Last Supper he shared with his friends. I ended it by saying how we have to be careful not to get caught in just going through the motions with our services. So I thought I ought to be listening today for a new revelation.

Firstly, as we know as Jesus came in through one gate into Jerusalem Pontius Pilate and the might of the Roman army came in through the other. The Romans were expecting trouble. They knew about Jesus. They knew something was going on. They would have heard the followers cheering and shouting because the city wasn’t as big as our cities. It was probably the size of a small town. But also as we realise at Jesus’s trial, there had only just been an insurrection led by Barabbas where people had been killed. Probably Romans! So Pilate was prepared. I wonder too if he was miffed because Jesus had attracted the crowd he was expecting?

Roman had come in to take charge. But Jesus had other plans. He was going to let go of there needing to anyone in charge.

One of the questions our preacher this morning asked was “how does one see governments?” and people shouted out the negatives – warmongers, greedy, untrustworthy. But I think we also like government. I think we like the order it brings, how in the good time it brings stability, rules, security, as well as, in Europe schools, hospitals, Police, fire services, etc. We know what to expect from our govenments on the whole, and most of the time here in the Western world we can march [as with the American #nokings marches] and mainly get away without coming to harm.

But what does Jesus bring? Well he brings freedom but with freedom comes choice and choice leaves space for disagreement, for disorder, for chaos, for uncertainty.

To have to forgive each other and ourselves, and God and circumstances, is hard work. It is easier to blame, to pity, to take control. It is why we like our churches to have leaders, to have wardens, to have regular ordered services, to know what to expect and what is going to happen. I don’t think Jesus is like that. As with the Passover supper he goes and does the unexpected – from saying that a specific piece of bread is his body to washing his disciples feet, something a rabbi would never do – he turns things upside down.

Also unconditional love, as well as giving security and confidence to those who grasp it, also leaves the door open to do the unexpected, to give things a shake because we know God loves us even if we make a mistake.

The whole Jesus, unconditional love, forgiveness, I think, can make people feel unsure, confused, and in need of some order they can recognise. I also think that’s why there is so much talk of doing rather than being in Christian circles. It is much easier to search for the right job/ministry/place to live/person to live with etc than it is to step out into the world not knowing where we are going and what we are doing, Yet we can do this when we know we are fully forgiven again and again and again because we are love unconditionally by the Creator of the Whole Universe. It was this Creator who became human to show us how much we are loved and forgiven and to reunite us with these truths of what we were created for; to love and be loved, to forgive and be forgiven.

So let’s start living as free, forgiven, loved people and stop trying to “get it right”.

Categories
crucified passover

When The Sky Turned Black

From Openverse but seems to have come without a credit!

Yesterday at our family-type service we taught on the link between Passover and Communion and then told the story of Good Friday.

I’d done a story type piece about the lead up to the Passover with all the plagues – all the water turning to blood, loads and loads of frog, then loads and loads of gnats followed by flies followed by the Egyptians all getting covered in sores, then covered with boils, then there was a plague of locusts, followed by the daytime turning pitch dark. [Exodus 7-11]

As we were all watching the Lego version of the Crucifixion I had thought.

Jesus is crucified and when the sky goes dark he is recorded of crying out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” [Matthew 27:46].

Common teaching is that Jesus was in so much pain that he felt God had forsaken him. Or that God couldn’t look on what was happening to Jesus and so God did look away. Or that because Jesus was carrying the sins of the world God looked away because they couldn’t look on all that sin. But what if it was connected to the Passover?

In Exodus 10:21-23 if says that God would cover the land of the Egyptians with a darkness so thick they couldn’t see each other but that there would be light where the Israelite’s lived. It was after these three days of darkness that the whole Passover happens with the blood on the lintels and the Angel of death taking the firstborn of all those who didn’t have faith in the blood of the lamb.

At this pivotal moment of what we now know as Holy Week God makes all the sky turn dark and it stays that way for three hours [Matthew 27:45]

We will never know for sure if Jesus really did say these words or something similar. Or maybe they were added by Matthew for part of the narrative he wanted his readers to hold on to. By using these words the Jewish reader will be remembering the Passover story. It is said that Matthew was writing for a Jewish readership. It would remind them that after the sky turned black the lamb was killed and it was the blood of that lamb that brought their salvation from slavery in Egypt.

But here was an even bigger release from an even bigger slavery – from those things within us that keep us from knowing we are loved by the Creator of the Universe, that we are forgiven and that we can trust even when the sky turns black.

We are not forsaken no matter what happens around us.

Categories
psalm trust

All About Trust

Those who know you, LORD, will trust you;

Psalm 9 shared by Bible Society’s Lent readings

Renly and Willow assisting with my writing!!

I have noticed the more our new rescue dog, Willow, hangs out with us the more she trusts us. But it isn’t just that. The more she hangs out with our old dog Renly, the better they get on with each other. We are all getting to know each other and learning to trust each other.

With Willow too, the more often we go round the park the more she gets to know it and the regular people and dogs who walk there and so the more she is comfortable and trusting there. There is also the thing that the more she trusts me on a walk the more she trusts where I take her.

It is the same with God. The more we hang out with God the more we learn to trust God and the safer we are. I can’t remember who it was, maybe Henri Nouwen, who said that we need to get to know God in the calm times of our lives then we can trust God in the rough times.

Fourteen years ago now we went through a very tempestuous time and I know if I hadn’t built up my hanging out time with God before then, spent time devouring my Bible, praying, worshiping, reading about God, then I know I would not have been able to trust God during that time. Like Willow I build up my “hanging out getting to know God” time and knew then that I was safe with God wherever.

Again it is not about throwing requests at God, not about being busy doing things with God, but it is hanging out with God and just “doing life” with God, which is how the trust is built up.

[Though back on the Willow front – it is now 4.30pm and she still doesn’t quite trust that I will remember to feed her and Renly, which just goes to show we all need to work on trust 🙂 ]

this is the first stage of looking longingly
but by this one she’s talking to me

Categories
delight desire

Do You Know The Desire Of Your Heart

and how often do you sit calmly for long enough to listen? Or can you only really hear your heart’s desires if you are delighting in God?

Aber Falls footpath March 2016

According to Googlephotos it was ten years ago today that we first walked to Aber Falls. This was a side path so we took it. That’s what we were like back then when Renly was only 4 years old and could walk for miles and miles and miles. Interestingly we’ve not walked this path since that day. Some of that is because Natural Resources Wales have been doing a major replanting scheme so the fir trees that were beyond this path have been removed and new native to the area trees are being replanted.

This morning I was reading Psalm 37 as part of the Bible Society’s Lent readings for today and this verse jumped out at me

Take delight in the LORD,
     and he will give you the desires of your heart.

What struck me was – how many of us really know the desires of our hearts? And how many of us stick to a plan we got 10, 15, 20, 40, etc years ago and keep trying to get there even though we have changed massively since then? This is why I’ve used the above picture. Only ten years ago our dog could walk miles and now, much as he enjoys his walks, he is much slower and cannot walk as far. But also this piece of land looked like it was going to be conifer trees forever but now there are struggling beeches and ash, as a more native forest is re-established. The desires and plans have changed both for my dog and this piece of land.

We moved here 10 years ago. Back then my desire was to run our house as an Airbnb house, offering hospitality to low-budget travellers. Even before Covid the ethos of Airbnb travellers was changing and I was thinking of stopping. The desire of my heart had changed. Also a around that time I was doing lots of work with children and teens around Creative Writing but again my desires have changed.

Though in both my “desires” it was Covid and Lockdown that accentuated my need to relook at my heart and what it really wanted. And as my regular blog readers know I have done a lot of QEC healing since Covid too.

My heart has changed. My desires have changed. My circumstances have changed. My energy levels have changed. So much has changed that I cannot expect to keep slogging on with what I believed my heart wanted back then. I am always changing and always evolving.

I was emailing with someone the other day about relationships and of how hard marriage is because we are in to for a very very long time and yet we are not the same people who got married back then, and neither are our spouses. We have changed. We have evolved. Circumstances have changed us. Circumstances are often a driving force for changing the desires of our hearts.

So back to the verse – I think there is a connection too. I think the psalmist is saying that it is as we delight in the Lord that we learn what the desires of our heart are. Not what we think they ought to be, or what we think they should be, or what we think would please others, but what we really really really desire deep down inside. And I do think we need to do loads of healing to get beyond the “good girl/good boy” scenario and the people pleasing, or the “what would look good to others/friends/family”.

But I honestly believe as we hang out with God, delighting in God, delighting in the fact that we are forgiven, delighting that we are loved unconditionally, and that if we mess up on those desires we can pick ourselves up and start again and that the Creator of the Universe will still be by our side. But we have to give this time. We can’t fit it in around other things. It has to be a part of all that we do, all day, every day. Back to what the Apostle Paul calls “praying continuously”. That’s just hanging out with God and delighting in them, not mithering at them to change things. A bit like something I talk about with my writing group – of not striving but of allowing things to ponder, to touch those Alpha waves, those Eureka moments – all of which come when we are delighting in something not striving to get an answer.

This verse isn’t about telling God what we want them to do but is about being with them and enjoying them. Delighting in them.

It is ok for our desires to change and change and even change back again but if we delight in the Lord then we can step out with confidence and do what will make us glow with joy and peace.

Categories
forgiveness trust

It Should Be This Easy

I’ve just been reading Butter by Asako Yuzuki translated from the Japanese to English by Polly Barton. It is much more than a book about a serial killer and food. It is a book about misogyny supported by other women, about finding one’s true self, of breaking with the norm; a coming of age book but by someone in their 30s.

But the page I am going to share comes towards the end and it is when Rika’s best friend takes her to an end of Ramadam meal put on to help Japanese people learn about Turkish culture.

It is these two pages where the women read from the pamphlet that stuck me

I’m not sure how well you can read it – maybe photographing pages from a book and editing them with a small dog sleeping in the crook of my arm isn’t the best way of doing it but …. well here it is.

I wasn’t sure where to go with these when I thought of this post last night but knew I wanted to share but then this morning the Vicar I work with phoned me up for a chat about a couple of people we know but then we moved on it trusting God and the importance of knowing one is forgiven and how there are many Christians who don’t fully believe that. As we said this hinders them not just in their Christian walk but in how others perceive Christianity to be.

Now I know this pamphlet the women are reading is about Islam but I think this is what God is like in Christianity too. But like way too many religions how we out work the love of God become a rule rather than a love based.

I’ve missed it off that first page but it is when Rika says “…It is enough if the people who can do it do it ….”

And then on the following page Reiko says,

“… God … won’t take joy or satisfaction in the sight of suffering. Which means, you don’t have to go through everything alone. You don’t have to always be growing as a person. The far more important thing is to just get through every day.”

This is what, I feel, we need to keep remembering as Christians. Firstly that God loves and forgives us, that God doesn’t take joy in our suffering, that we need to remember that God is with us so we don’t have to go it alone. Also that God has put precious friends in our way too so it isn’t just us and God, but us and God and our friends, family, those who support and encourage us with no string attached.

Too often in Churches we see rules – of having to go, of having to be involved, of having to be a part of, of having to pray, of even having to be nice to people, and of having to “grow” in God – when, especially after reading this, I think God wants us just to get through every day – and if possible in peace and knowing we are loved and forgiven.

And as happened with the unexpected phone call, God so often has some unexpected plan to help us on our journey if we are willing to stop striving and be willing to let God lead us – which only comes through trusting and believing.

Categories
Esther Purim

Purim

If you don’t know the story then read the whole book of Esther, an amazing woman who stood up to a mighty king and saved her people.

Taken from the Velveteen Rabbi, a female rabbi I’ve been following for years who gives a great insight into my tradition and where its roots are. New Work for Purim

Yesterday at church we talked about the Temptations of Jesus but also talked a lot about things we’d given up, or taken up, for Lent – that Christian tradition which remembers Jesus time in wilderness and leads us up to Easter and used to be a time of fasting but now we cheat and do thinks like just give up chocolate, or going on Facebook, or drinking alcohol, or swearing, or take up something that seems noble!

As a child I used to get really confused that Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness and was only out for a week or so before he was crucified.

But whilst Christians are thinking of fast, or side-tracking real fasting and giving up something, the Jewish community has the festival of Purim where there is wild partying and celebrating because God saved his people from destruction via an obedient and very brave young woman who was chosen by the Persian despot Xerxes for sex purposes. The Persians ruled over the known world with a huge empire that, like the Romans, treated anyone outside the elite like they were subhuman. Xerxes has got rid of his Queen because she didn’t do as he said and then got all the beautiful virgins [teenage girls] from across his kingdom, who were then prepared for one night with him. One night where he would rape them and if he liked what he got he might have them back but if not they were defiled and put in his harem for the rest of their lives! Esther was raped by him but apparently he liked what he got and so she was invited back. She was so brave to go before him because she could have been killed but she is clever as well as beautiful and manages, though very clever means, to save the Jewish people from destruction. [Read the story]

Lots of this sounds very familiar to what we are hearing in the news at the moment – powerful rich men who choose innocent young women, rape them and then discard them, and also don’t own up to their wicked deeds.

But what I wanted to share – before I went off on a rant – was that we need to look at what Rachel says in the top image; of stepping out, of realising these are the only days we have and we need to do right in them, of showing our true colours.

I wonder if, as Christians, it might be time to use Lent to stand up and be counted, to stand before kings, before leaders, to stand up for the oppressed, to really shout “your kingdom come, your will be done” and stop all this shimmy shamming and pretence of “aren’t I good to give up chocolate/learn a psalm every day/etc”.

My prayer for myself today from the above is “strengthen in me the deep desire to stand up for what is right”.

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Categories
big three Temptations

Temptations

https://bible.art/gallery/matthew-11:15

I’ve been looking at the Temptations of Jesus for this week’s youth group. I know them off by heart but once again I got a revelation. I feel as if God has shown me what they mean to us all personally.

[The quotes are the bits I’m going to share with my youth group later]

First temptation – turning stones into bread. I think this is where we try to do good things for people that will feed and sustain them but we don’t acknowledge Jesus in what we do. The world is filled with people who do amazing things for other people but often don’t touch their spiritual needs, those deep heart felt things. They are “fed” but not nourished.

taking something hard, like a stone, making it palatable, making it something that will feed the body, but not making it something that will nourish the soul

The second one is about God rescuing no matter what. This got me thinking of things I read recently about how when we pray we expect God will heal, give us a what we have asked for, etc and yet when it doesn’t happen we often ask “where is God?” or “perhaps I didn’t pray enough” Yet Jesus says “Do not put the Lord your God to the test”.

Yes we should pray all the time. Yes we should cast our burdens on to Jesus at all times. Yes we should ask for things. But I do not think that we should expect all things. Too often I know I have thought “if I pray for this person and they get healed then they will want to follow God” or even I have not told them I’m praying for them in case God doesn’t heal them and then what!!! I now truly believe that more often than not God is doing things within our hearts rather than our circumstances.

Always ask God but do not expect God to do something that would make people follow God. Don’t test God!

And that third one about bowing down to worship the devil. I do love the audacity of the devil in this story. Fancy asking the Son of God, part of the whole Trinity/Godhead, to bow down and worship you. Remember the devil totally knows who Jesus is.

But how often do we try to get people to admire, like and maybe not worship us but look to us in a special way that they don’t to someone else; how we love it when someone picks us out. It is seen clearly in social media with celebrities, of that whole 5 minutes of fame, of wanting to be respected, set apart from others. I must be honest and say I get a buzz when the young people I work with call me their “youth leader” or the ones in my writing group say something amazing about me.

Yes people should be given the respect, honour, credence and admiration they deserve but that cannot come from short cuts but must from who they truly are. Too many of our world leaders, major and minor leaders, see themselves as beyond reproach and want to be served and worship without putting in the grunt work to get there.

This is also the temptation Jesus where gets sharp with the devil and banishes him. I wonder if that is because this one is the most subtle and the most appealing? I wonder if Jesus, especially as he knew what his own ending on earth would be, found this one the most tempting and so went for banishing rather than engaging in debate with? And also I wonder if that is why, after this temptation, the angels came down and ministered to him? They could have come at any other point – popped in, ministered a bit then popped out again – but no they wait until this final biggie. This final most subtle one!

know who you are and be wise and humble enough not to take short cuts

I also wonder if these are the BIG THREE that really contain all the other temptations – doing good thingsso we’re noticed and liked; trying to show God in a good light rather than trusting God to be God; and wanting to take short cuts to be honoured and admired? Perhaps that’s why no others are mentioned?

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[Sorry if this is a bit disjointed. Next door’s dogs keep barking in their hallway so the sound is like it is in our house and the wild Willow child is rampaging between leaping on my lap to tell me all about it and rushing round the house trying to find the dogs and fight them. Chaos this morning!!!!]

Willow in the park a few days ago tidying up the ducks and moorhens back into the pond. Thankfully she doesn’t jump in!!!

Categories
Advent joy

Joy

It was interesting on Sunday because our church’s “Joy” candle struggled to light. I think it was a prophetic sign that joy is one of the hardest things we can grasp this year. There’s so much going on – wars and rumours of wars – and has been really since 2020 [the year of perfect vision] things just seem to have been spiralling downwards, or so the media would have us believe.

Even if we don’t grasp it for ourselves I think we find praying for peace and love in the world is something we can and should be doing. I think even when we get to hope we can manage that. But joy when things like the Bondi beach shooting happens, when children are kidnapped to be child soldiers, when sea levels are rising that poorest are losing out, then Joy is a hard, and feels almost callous to pray.

Interesting too that it is a different colour. I wonder if that is because whoever picked the colours in the first place knew that Joy would be of a different nature?

But I do wonder if the reason we have to keep coming back to Love, Peace, Joy and Hope is that we keep forgetting it. And we keep thinking it is up to us to manufacture it. But it isn’t. It is by leaning on God that we find these things. And at this season we need to be leaning into the promised Joy that was promised with the birth of Jesus which gets hidden further and further from the actual Christmas.

Much as I do not agree with the things Tommy Robinson is saying around his slogan of bringing “the Christ back into Christmas” I do agree that we need to bring Christ back into Christmas. When I was young all you seemed to be able to buy were Christmas cards with some from the Nativity story on them. Now it is harder and harder to find anything remotely Nativity based. And it isn’t people of other religions, young people, etc who are shying away from this. I was at a local writing group, made up mainly of white middle class retired men and women and we had 3 writing exercises over a 2 hours workshop, all Christmas based, and yet, apart from one I did, there was not a single nativity based story came from it.

So I do wonder if, in and out of Church, we forget Jesus and we try to muster all these things in our own strength which is why that poor old Joy candle spluttered and went out and had to be relit a few times. I think maybe we need to put the Real Jesus – the one of love, of acceptance, of caring for the poor, the fatherless, the refugee, the one who loved the WHOLE world – back into Christmas.

I’m going to finish with a quote from Christine Sine that helped me make sense of what is being asked with Joy

Then I realized: Is the problem that my understanding of the joy of Advent is all wrong? This is not a joy of happiness or of fulfillment, but a joy of anticipation. It is best expressed in the middle of disaster and heartache and violence that destroys nature and people and cultures. In the midst of these things, our hearts long for the fulfillment promised in the birth of Christ. And in that longing we respond in whatever way we can

Meditation Monday – What’s All This About Joy?

So I will take joy in the anticipation that what was promised at Christ’s birth – the joy to the whole world, the Christ at the beginning, middle and end of Christmas – will come to pass and wars and hatred will cease. In that I place my joy this season.

Categories
let go Trust God

The Greatest Sin

for getting to put God and Jesus in the centre of all we are and all we do.

The sky on our drive home on Tuesday looking towards Eryri photographed by myself whilst in the car hence why it is a bit blurry.

When we go to the Anglican church there is always a prayer of confession which talks about repenting for things we’ve done and things we’ve not done but last week it stuck me that one of things we don’t repent of is not putting Jesus in the centre of things, of not trust that God has a plan through it all. Surely that is one of our main tenants of faith – that God works all things to good [Romans 8:28] – yet too often we don’t believe it. Instead we try to do it on our own, with our own skills, with our own strength. Ok so we might pray that prayer “Jesus help me with my work/family/this situation/this decision I have to make” but then we get back to working out the answer, of putting together pros and cons, putting together contingency plans, and worry and worry and worrying. And so we get stressed, grouchy, and of course that can lead to various health issues if we read Gabor Mate, etc.

Over the last month or so we’ve had loads of curveballs thrown our way from family issues to car issues to boiler issues to getting a rescue dog – something we wanted but maybe the timing was out? I found I was getting more and more stressed and so not being able to see through things and not being able to truly enjoy the new dog.

This is our something good – a new dog called Willow who our old dog Renly gets on well with

We all have deep-seated different motives for why we take on board what we take on board. For myself I wanted to “get it right”, to “please everyone”, and to “be a good girl”, and to “prove myself”. None of which are what God wants.

So how does one put God at the centre? It is really hard work but also really easy. For me it was to trust that God knew that all these things were going to happen at this time. God also knew I could handle them, but not in that way that I had to sort it all out by myself but that I was able to rest with God and let them deal with all the curveballs. I don’t even need to catch the curveballs. That is God’s job.

I do have to be willing to let go of controlling outcomes. Not that any of us can control outcomes anyway but, oh my goodness, we all do try very hard to keep control of all situations, which just leads to more stress. If God was willing to give each of us freewill surely we should let our family and friends have freewill, even if we think we know best or could do better.

So once I’d let go of it being my responsibility for sorting other people I could hear what God wanted me to do in those situations – to be able to leave my old and new dog peacefully with a friend as I went away, to leave relationships for God to sort and not see them as a reflection of me. And I do think we too often see the way our children, especially, behave as a reflection on ourselves and how we brought them up. Instead of being as gracious as God is with us and letting them have the freewill to do what they want. That doesn’t mean we don’t pray for them but it must be a freewill prayer filled with love and grace. I think we can pray “your kingdom come” in both personal and world situations but we cannot pray “your kingdom come and it looks like X,Y,Z” because, for one, that is controlling and, two, we really really do not know the whole situation but God does.

So for me with all that was going on I was able to turn my heart toward God, to trust them in all things, to let go of trying to control and to hear what I am to do. Interestingly this has made settling the new dog into the family much easier and has helped me sleep better. Has it sorted the other things out? No! But, even though I care, I know they are not mine to sort.

So I have put Jesus back into to the centre of my heart and my life – though of course have to keep turning back to doing that again and again and again – and my life becomes much simpler.

God is good when we acknowledge that they are.