Tag: fickle

Categories
fickle gratitude

Easy To Be Ungrateful

Newborough Beach, Anglesey, June 2024

I had a free day and it had been warm for a few days so I decided to set off for my favourite beach within an hour from my home. But when I got there the wind was blowing wildly and it was cold and overcast. So I still did a stamp along the beach scowling into the wind. Then on the way back I thought I’d check out a coffee shop we’d been meaning to go to. I’d checked its reviews and I was sure it was dog friendly. So in I trot with the dog and was told by the very nice owner that they were not dog friendly inside but I was welcome to sit outside. I was cold and fed up after not having a fun walk on the beach and so did not want to get blown away outside. They sent me to another cafe they were sure were dog friendly which wasn’t!

So there I am in my car grumbling about what a waste of a morning I had had, made worse by the sun then coming out and one of my closer beaches looking blissfully sunny. But of course by then the dog had walked enough and was dozing on the back seat. Also I was grumpy and sullen.

But of course then the revelation came as to what an ungrateful person I was being. Firstly I had been able to drive all the way to this beach, had the time to do it as well as the money. I could afford to stop for a coffee without having to worry about money. So many things to be grateful for – not just the time and the money, but my super little car, my super little dog for company, being safe on the road. And all those things were just for that morning. Lunchtime I was meeting a friend who is one of those true friends who encourages, supports, reprimands and challenges, is open and kind and sharing too. And that doesn’t include all the other great people I have in my life and the great things in my life.

It is so easy to dip down that slipper slope of moaning and complaining, of seeing the negative and not the possible rather than being grateful.

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! [or in other versions “Rejoice in all things”]

Philippians 4:4

It doesn’t say just rejoice when things are going well but “always/ in all things”. But we are a fickle and perverse people and we very quickly go into grumble or worry mode.

But there is no reason to feel guilty because the amazing thing with God is we can repent/say we’re sorry and turn the other way. So at that moment in the car, when I got that revelation that I was being a grumpy, ungrateful mare, I said I was sorry and turned around [repented] and moved into being grateful not just for that morning but actually for the revelation that I was being ungrateful. Sometimes the revelation is as brilliant as the change of behaviour, I think.

But of course, because I am perverse and fickle I have had a few more times when I have been unnecessarily ungrateful when actually I should have “rejoiced” and let deep joy fill my heart. But again I repent and move. Again it is interesting how looking at the world with different eyes makes the world look different. It doesn’t change but I do!

So much of the real deep healing I’ve done has been about turning around and going the other way, of seeing situations in a different light.

Categories
crisis Trust God

From Crisis to Crisis

This was my dog’s latest crisis – being trapped on the stair by the cat whilst I hoovered downstairs!!!

We seem to lurch from one media reported crisis to the next. All of which are pretty scary to say the least – whether it is the Russia/Ukraine war or what is going on with Hamas and the Israelites in Israel and Gaza, as well as our lurching UK NHS and education system crisis and the cost of living crisis. We are constantly being pulled to worry about things outside our control. I think this is why in my area at the moment there is so much focus on a local council threatening to ban dogs from its beaches all year round to the new 20 mile per hour speed limits. These are things we can control, things we can do something about.

I had been planning a post about how trivial these complaints are when so much else is going on but over this past week I “got it”. Yes we can send money to UNICEF for Ukraine, Gaza and Israel but we can’t do much to change the situation. But we can sign petitions for both the 20 mph changes and the dog ban on the beaches. We can moan to our local councils, who more often than not will listen to us and definitely will not shoot us. We are so lucky in this county to be able to do that. And, especially with local matters things often change because we could bump into our councilors in the park, in the pub, in the supermarket. And many of them are where they are because local matters are important. We can make a change

We cannot stop the atrocities in the Middle East, in Ukraine, with modern day slavery, with drugs, with all sorts of awfulness that actually we do forget about once it has moved away from the headlines. Even with our own health and education systems, if we are not affected personally we do forget about them.

The media encourages both that feeling of panic and of worry but once we “get used to” what is going on they find something else to cause us panic and worry. So we do then look to something, like dog bans or 20 mph speed changes, to vent that worry and panic on. It is all short term but it does sometimes help.

Prayer is one way to go. Although sometimes that can feel like God isn’t listening. How long does one pray for peace and watch people die? For people to stop abusing those more vulnerable than they are? For people to not need drugs and alcohol to find peace of mind and wholeness? It takes a certain type of person to keep hammering at God on those subjects when nothing seems to be happening.

So how do we trust that God is listening? This I cannot answer. I’m hoping when I get to heaven I will. But I have to have faith. Faith that my little, often half remembered prayers, get heard and thrown into the bigger pot.

He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden altar in front of the throne. 4 The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand.

Revelation 8:3-4

Though, like with much of the book of Revelation this is confusing because all these prayers get sent up and given to God then the angels cast down all sorts of nastiness on the earth. But I do have to have faith that God hears, that God listens and most importantly that God knows best.

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see

Hebrews 11:1

This isn’t easy in the small things – like the death of a fellow dog walker, the death of an acquaintance from stomach cancer and another acquaintance from secondary breast cancer in this last month. But if my hope and faith isn’t in God then where is it? It can’t be in the media because that is fickle, as are the politicians, the economists, the world leaders, the leaders of terrorist groups, even my employers, parents, etc. They are fickle all of them. All are searching for keeping themselves safe.

God on the other hand doesn’t care what we think of them. In fact God doesn’t care if we give them a gender or not. God made us all so that we can love them completely, love each other completely and unconditionally, and they can love us with relentless conditional love. When we don’t do our part because we are scared, wanting our own way, fickle, fearful, etc then we to often pray “my will be done because I’m scared if you don’t do it my way things will get worse” rather than “your will be done because you know best and I trust you”

So with all this madness of people hating each other, of people fearing each other, of money being the biggest goal, are you, am I, willing to trust handing things over to God? Whether our worries are the wars and poverty in the world or personal things like 20 mph speed limits can we tell God our worries without telling them how to sort it. And will we be able to trust they have heard and trust that they can sort it?

Categories
Focus priorities

Who Guides Our Priorities?

Photo taken by Diane Woodrow at end of Feb 2022 Taken whilst she was walking on a Saturday morning with her dog
Morfa Conwy Feb 2022

How often have you wondered who guides what you priorities? What you focus on? What you worry most about?

Today there is much talk across the Christian community of Ash Wednesday being a day of prayer for Ukraine, which is great. It really is. But what about the other things? But if I dig a bit on various news-feeds I read about ethnic inequalities, massive inflation across the world, there is still a climate crisis, there are still people being persecuted in Afghanistan, Nigeria, Myanmar, and still people dying from Covid across the world. But it is hard to find out any other news.

I remember back in September 2011 when the twin towers were destroyed and all focus on was on them. A friend who worked with orphans in Africa said more children had died of starvation and AIDS in one day than had died in the twin towers. Or when Princess Diana was killed in a car accident the pastor of the church I was attending at that time asking us to pray for all the other people who had died in car accidents that night who would be lost under the media coverage of her death.

Don’t get me wrong, I do think this situation in Ukraine is awful as was the Twin Towers disaster, but I do think too often we then forget other things. We forget had forgotten that there had been Russian oppression in parts of Ukraine for over 10 years because the media got bored and turned us to other things. We get bored of hearing the same thing day in day out.

We are fickle human beings and, I believe, more so now with 24 hour news, internet access, etc. I think too that if this conflict in Ukraine hits a point where there are no big headlines we will move on to something else.

Is it that we don’t care? I don’t believe that at all. But I do think it is because when we are bombarded with news and information day in day out our brains cannot cope so we shut off. And then the media needs to keep us watching the news, reading papers, scrolling through the internet, because they earn money that way. So they will find us the next thing to be drawn into, the next thing to worry about, the next thing that we give our money to.

This isn’t wrong but it is just the way it is. Can we change? Maybe this is about again looking at aligning with God, with the Universe and fixing on that and being willing to go for whatever we are called to for the long haul – which is hard.

Are you, am I, willing to take time out and find out what my true focus is or am I, are you, going to be swayed by the winds of the world?

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

James 1:5-7