Tag: forgiveness

Categories
faith simple

Why Do We Have To Make It Hard?

St Monan’s, East Neuk, Scotland. Photographed by myself June 2025

A little rant!

I’ve just read two blog posts by two people who are big in the Christian mover/shaker scene. I rate both of them which is why I get their posts but in both of them they talk about how following the Christian faith is hard work, and you know that bugs me.

I’ve been a Christian over thirty years now and I wouldn’t change it for the world. Ok sometimes I forget how amazing it all is and get grouchy about it but really it is amazing and it underpins so much of life in general.

For instance – we all know, whether Christian or not, that forgiving others and ourselves is beneficial to ourselves, often more so than it is to the others, who often don’t know we’re mad at them. We all know that to let go of things is so much easier, even if, whether Christian or not, we struggle sometimes to do that. We all know its right.

In fact most of us know, whether Christian or not, that it helps to believe in something/someone that is bigger and more encompassing than we are. Those who attend Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous or other organisations like that say that things change when they give their addictions to something/someone bigger than them whoever they identify that or call it. The main difference for me from my reading of the Bible is that I call my bigger being God and believe they love me unconditionally.

It is this unconditional love bit that for me makes being a Christian easy. I don’t accept the rules and regulations that religious streams try to say one should do, say, act like, believe. I just know that I am loved by something so much more amazing than me, some being that created the whole universe.

So if the Creator of the Universe loves me unconditionally then why should pottering along making mistakes, forgiving myself, getting hurt by others and forgiving them, doing my best to be kind, supportive, encouraging to others be hard? Why should the whole thing of trusting that all will be well and all will be well and all manner of things will be well, to quote Julian of Norwich, be such an issue?

I remember going to one gathering and the leader said that he was the leader of the church there and that Christians were a broken people and he was more broken than any, and thinking to myself “well I’m not going there.” I want to go somewhere that’s led by people who are confident that their God loves them unconditionally, that they are forgiven and so can forgive others, that they can be generous with themselves, their time, money, hearts, because they have more than enough, that they have no fear of lack. I don’t want to go somewhere where leaders find it hard work, where they struggle with their faith, where they are “broken”.

I fully believe I have been made whole by Jesus, can write my life story and all the crap that’s in it knowing I am forgiven and I am forgiving those I write about, and knowing that, through God, I can trust my heart, enjoy being with myself.

If God thinks I am amazing and worth loving unconditionally then who am I to question them????

my dog chilling after being carried in his new old dog’s backpack knowing he is safe and loved just for being him. Photographed by myself June 2025

Sometimes we all need to be more like my little dog who is accepting his limitations, allowing himself to be carried when need be, and relaxing into the safety of being loved by his two humans.

Categories
change forgive

Allowing Changes?

waiting for the tide to change – Hornsea, May 2024

As you know we went to see del Amitri and Simple Minds in concert on Wednesday. The lines from del Amitri’s song “Nothing Ever Happens” keep buzzing in my head.

Nothing ever happens, Nothing happens at all

the needle returns to the start of the song and we all sing along like before

It is full of songs like “While American businessmen snap up Van Goghs for the price of a hospital wing” and more along this vein. Check out the link because it comes with the lyrics.

When singing it Wednesday and most of the day after I got to thinking, in the melancholic way of how passionate I was 35+ years ago to change the world. Then I got caught up in having children and that whole living thing that happens. And I have enjoyed it so it isn’t like I’m moaning. But I did wonder why things really hadn’t changed and we are still ruled by Prime Ministers and bankers and “captains of industry” who can still buy up paintings, sculptures, footballers, etc for more than it would cost to build and equip and staff a hospital or school or even a prison. Goodness what could happen if our prisons were not places of increased trauma but of true reformation. But that’s another post!!!

Then this morning my friend sent me through Matthew 18:18-20 to do with something else we’d been talking about. But it was verse 18 that seems to fit in with my ponders around why things haven’t changed. [Note too there is no condemnation – but this is an observation!]

[Jesus says] I promise you that God in heaven will allow whatever you allow on earth, but he will not allow anything you don’t allow

Matthew 18:18 Contemporary English Version

I wonder if this is not so much allow as to say “yes that’s ok” but we allow by not saying “No”, by not praying “this should end”. Or we moan about those who have got into leadership but we don’t pray for them or pray in people who would “get it” more.

So we meet, we walk, we eat together, and we moan the state of our government – local, national and international. We moan about the state of our health service, our education system, our justice system, our welfare system, our global care of others, of climate change, etc, etc, etc but we still, in a way, allow it but doing nothing.

Now I know I am as bad as anyone else on this. I get overwhelmed by it all and it is easier to moan about it. But I’m wondering, as I write this, if I’ve made things too hard – for myself and for others.

This verse goes on to say

I promise that when any two of you on earth agree on something you are praying for, my Father in heaven will do it for you. When two or three of you come together in my name I am there with you

Hey that is so easy. Only two of us have to agree and God will make it happen! Wow! do we find it so hard to agree with someone? Not in the surface things but deep in our hearts?

You know what is interesting with these three verses? They come between Jesus talking about dealing with how we should be forgiving each other and then how often we should forgive. I wonder if forgiving has something to do with praying in harmony and agreement with each other.

I’m thinking of situations where I know I “should be” praying for someone but I’m a bit grouchy that they’ve let themselves get into this situation again when if only they had listen to me they would be well/able to do x/in the “correct” situation, etc, etc. Bit of pride there!!!

Thinking back to the moaning scenario – I don’t think, now I’ve thought about this – that we can do, as I have done before, just go “oh let’s now pray about them/for them/for the situation.” I think we have to “release the fetters of fault that bind us as we let go of the guilt of others/loose the cords of mistakes that bind us, as we release the strands we hold of others’ guilt” [Two version of Aramaic translations of The Lord’s Prayer] In other words we need to forgive ourselves for moaning and bitching and we then need to forgive those we’ve been moaning about bitching about of the things that they have missed out and don’t see.

So I don’t just say “Oh it’s ok for someone to buy a painting for the price of a hospital wing” or whatever but after having a good moan I firstly need to say “God of Creation please forgive me for moaning about this person/situation and please forgive them for using their money in a way that seems selfish to me”.

I think we need to be careful, when we are looking deeper at something from the Bible to not just look at that verse but to look around it. It is put where it is to tell a whole story not part of one.

So Yes God will allow what we allow and not allow what we don’t allow but, I think, this will only come about when we forgive and pray with hearts in harmony with each other and with ourselves.

Categories
control shame

The Need For Control

St Asaph Monday 15th April 2024 Photgraphed by myself

What’s your default mode? What’s the place you go back to when you are feeling tired, stress, anxious, attacked?

In some of the Josh Luke Smith “Speak into the Chaos” stuff he talks about how our shame causes us to want to control our situations. And the more we let go of our shame, forgive ourselves and others, accept as Gabor Maté says that lots of what we do was programmed into us before we had logical thoughts, forgive into those situations and take agency with them, the more we change our belief systems about the world, the more we can let go of needing to control.

I’ve had a few interesting situations over the last couple of weeks where I have firstly felt myself wanting to take control but have ANSed, let gratitude roll through me and let go of the need to control. But then I have spoken something that rock the boat a bit, unintentionally. I was just saying how I saw the situation. I have then been met with a barrage of the other person regaining control in a quite forceful way.

For each of us, until we can let go of our shame and need for control we will all have a default method of dealing with that.

  • There is the person who goes tight lipped and says nothing
  • There is the one who comes out fighting – either with fist or with tongue
  • There is the explain it all away
  • There is the person who will suddenly change tact and agree with everything their supposed attacker is saying
  • There is the person who just walks away and won’t talk about the situation again.

For each, and the myriad of other types, it is a way of keeping control.

My default rolled between going in with words to fight my corner or cutting the person out of my life. I have now come to see that a lot of the time I don’t care. Like with a meeting recently where I’d voiced an issue and the other person was defending themselves way beyond what my concern had been and they gave no hint to the issue I had raised and whether it was valid to me.

Before QECing my default would have been to no longer have anything to do with this person and their organisation. I would have dismissed the whole lot, bad mouthed them to other people, and ignored emails etc from them or emailed to tell them exactly what I thought of them. Instead, no longer needing to have that control over the situation, I allowed myself to feel sad and disappointed that they did not hear my concern, allowed them to waffle on till they had finished, and then went on to the next point I had on my agenda that needed dealing with.

Because I did not go into my old default way of keeping control I could let things wash over me, decide what was important, forgive them for not hearing me, and move on.

Too often we lose the most important thing because we “throw the baby out with the bath water” because we need to keep control, because we refuse to give ground to the other person.

I think Jesus did that. When challenged he didn’t come out fighting but would tell a story to emphasis the point. He’d bring the energy of the encounter down a notch or two. But I think that’s because Jesus knew and trusted his own heart. Too often our hearts are full of shames and hurts and wounds that we ignore them, we don’t see them as important. We don’t see they are trying to communicate with us. So we shut them away. We hold on to our shame, our hurt, our wounds.

For those old enough do you remember the “What Would Jesus Do” [WWJD] bracelets, mugs, etc used to help us know what to do? Well I think in any and every given situation that arises Jesus would breath, not rush to an answer, would check his autonomic nervous system was in balance and regulation, know he carried no shame, guilt or hurts, and would be able to respond with a gentle, strong, clear heart.

If we want to get to be more like Jesus that is the place we need to get to.

Version 1.0.0

Categories
Holy Week Monday

Holy Monday

A wild sea has pulled a bouy from wherever it was attached. For me this is what Jesus does on “Holy Monday”. He causes a storm and pulls things that people were using for protection loose.

My two favourite stories happen on “Holy” Monday. One that no one can get their heads round where Jesus curses the fig tree and then when Jesus really lets loose in the temple and kicks arse.

The cursing of the fig tree is told in one go in Matthew 21:18-22 but in Mark it is split into two halves with the trashing of the temple put between the curse and the explanation, which I think is great story telling. {Mark 11:12-26]

Picture Mark’s storytelling. Get him sat with you in a room. You are gathered round waiting to hear all this. You also know that this is the week leading up to Jesus’ death.

So Mark tells of the glorious peaceful procession into Jerusalem. Then it is like Jesus has one of those blips like we all do when something wonderful has happened. We get grouchy at the deflation of things. How many times have you done something amazing, celebrated your success then felt like you could fight the world the following day? Or is that just me???

But remember Jesus knows that is going to happen in a couple of days time. Or maybe he doesn’t know it is this Passover but knows that his death has to come one a Passover soon and it could be this one.

This past week I’ve had a cough, been shivery and also felt just yuck, but I remembered it was the anniversary of both my sister and my friend’s deaths. Both of which were unexpected and traumatic. My body was reacting and going into fight/flight/freeze mode because it was remembering what was going to happen.

Jesus knew what was going to happen. And I suspect he knew it was going to be this Passover because it is said that this one was a long one [Might explain more in a later post]. The signs were right. I think, if Jesus was truly human then he was scared too.

Anyway he is going into Jerusalem on those days of preparation for this long Passover and sees a tree looking good but with nothing to feed anyone from. Then he turns up at the Temple and it is a mess of capitalism and corruption. Looking good but not feeding anyone. The temple laws are being obeyed – people having to have the right things for the right sacrifices – but it was not being obeyed with the loving heart of God.

Jesus needs things right before he dies. This is not how people should be called into worship and connect with God. They need to be free of rules and be able to come as they are. Jesus was preparing the temple for his death and resurrection. Like giving it a spring clean.

Slight detour but …. before I go on holiday I like to give my house a super clean, tidy, change the bed, having everything tidied, clean and in order. So that when I come back from holiday I come home to a lovely looking house. It is a reason why I don’t have house sitters. They might keep it clean but things won’t be as I’d like them. I do wonder if this is what Jesus wanted with the temple – for it to be spring cleaned and as it should be so that when he rose again the following week things were “in place”.

But also I wonder if he was setting things up so the leaders were angry enough to want to get rid of him. Was this another of those God-plots where God makes sure everything is in place for what they want to do?

I do love how Mark bookends the temple episode with the fig tree. It gets cursed on the way in and then on the way out Jesus use the dead tree as a metaphor to talk about having faith. It finishes with Jesus saying

Whenever you stand up to pray, you must forgive others for what they have done to you. Then your Father in heaven will forgive your sins.

Everything you ask for in prayer will be yours if you only have faith

Mark 11:25-26 and 24

It is great storytelling. Clear out the greed and need for order and to “get things right”. Stop looking good but not being nourishing to others. Then forgive those who’ve done you wrong [people and God] whether they are sorry or not. And then you can ask for anything in prayer with faith. And God will answer you as God knows best. Trusting in your heavenly Father and not in what you think is a good idea.

Categories
forgiveness sorry

Sorry/Forgiveness

My beautiful dipstick dog stuck under the throw
My beautiful dog after being released from captivity

Yes I know one picture is from the other day but I thought you’d like to see the sequence

I think the dog forgave the throw for capturing him but I’m not sure. As the “kind” dog-mummy I am I did make him wait for his release until I had taken the first photo.

This is a follow on from my post the other day looking at Sorry. Please, if you haven’t read Beth’s comments about what they get up to at her kindergarten with their children around forgiveness/sorry do go back to read them. They are awesome. I wish I’d done that with my children when they were little

As I’ve said before there are times when God/The Universe just keep highlighting things and this is what has happened with the Sorry/Forgiveness things. I was watching The Way on BBC iplayer the other day and there is a part towards the end where one character says to the other – “I forgive you” and the response is “But I didn’t say sorry”. [I won’t tell you who says what to who because you might want to watch it. Be warned the link has spoiler alerts!]

What stuck me in following on from that previous Sorry post is that it is the forgiving that releases us rather than the saying sorry. The forgiver is able to let go, to move on, and to find their own direction. It doesn’t need someone to say “Sorry” for each of us to be able to forgive.

As happened on the Cross Jesus says “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing” Luke 23:34 [which is actually quite similar to the thing the one character does to the other. She thinks she was doing a good thing but he did not see it that way] Jesus didn’t wait until the people who crucified him said they were sorry. And it is possible some of them never were sorry because they did not see what they had done was wrong.

As with Beth’s children it is not about saying Sorry and moving on but about the child who has been hurt being able to say what they need to make them feel better.

Within the context of the TV program she had said and done things along the way that had help restore his self-worth, had given him the things that made him feel better for the slight that had been committed.

As with all things we have to slow down, to understand what our hurts are and what would make us feel better. As I heard on Drew Jackson’s podcast about Poetry as a Spiritual Practice often anger can be the surface emotion to something much deeper. But we do have to slow down to be able to really find that – whether that be through poetry, free writing which is my go-to, prayer, long walks, or whatever – find that thing that helps us explore deeper what we are really feeling and what will make us feel restored.

Categories
forgiveness sorry

Say You’re Sorry

My dog on our local beach back in Feb 2018. When Google photos showed me this memory I had to say sorry for moaning about it being a wee bit windy and chilly today. Definitely not as cold as it was 6 years ago!

Not sure if you had it when you were a kid but I know I did and I know I did the same with my children – “Say sorry” and then “tell them you forgive them” followed by “now go and play together nicely”. As if the perpetrator saying sorry made things alright and the one who had had wrong done to them just had to accept that.

In a book I was reading recently this young couple go from hating each other to not being able to get enough of each other when both say sorry and accept the others apology and forgive them. But I also have a friend who was in a bad accident in which he over took three cars and then hit a tractor that was the lead vehicle which was turning right. Either the tractor was not indicating or my friend did not see the indicator. As he says the road was long and safe for the overtake he just did not think the tractor was going to turn. So yes he was in the wrong and has apologized but the person he hit, he feels, has been antagonised by his apology. The tractor driver’s response has upset my friend greatly.

My friend is very genuine in his apology but I think the person he ran into was so badly shaken by the accident that he is not yet in a place to accept the apology.

I do wonder if, especially as Christians, we think that if we say sorry that will ease the situation but sometimes it makes it worse. I don’t know the driver of the tractor but I wonder if he’s thinking “it might be ok for you to be sorry but I could have had your death on my conscious for the rest of my life. And also I’ve now got to wait for the insurance company to sort things out before I can carry on with my job” I don’t know if that is what he’s thinking of if it is just a “f**k you” response because he is still shaken by it, still dealing with his trauma.

Jesus says we should forgive seventy times seven [Matthew 18:21-22] and forgive us our sins as we forgive others who have sinned against us [Matthew 6:12-14] – these verses are about asking God to forgive us not another human being. God, I think, is amazing and forgives us all things if we are genuinely sorry, but that’s because God doesn’t have all sorts of issues lurking about in God’s psych that inhibit that. All of us human beings come with traumas, hurts, played out scenes that our primordial brain goes to first and we react from there. We run through scenarios that often we don’t even realise we are doing but our primordial brain [elephant brain] does not forget and then tells our conscious brain how to react. From there we go into fight, flight, fawn, freeze, etc [meerkat brain] and from there react.

Some people will respond to an innocent request with anger because it has trigger something deep inside that they don’t even know about. So when we say sorry for something we don’t know what we are triggering within the person we are speaking to.

So I think we need to yes ask for forgiveness but then leave it there and not get upset if the person doesn’t respond to how we would like. Almost like leaving it in their porch and they can decide if they want to open it or not. And then we go to God to ask them to forgive us and to search our hearts. And maybe we also need to then forgive the person who did not accept our apology as we would have liked.

So we clear everything away from our hearts, give it all to God, realise it is about forgiveness rather than just saying sorry then who knows how much calmer and more peaceful we will feel?

keeping the door ajar for forgiveness
Categories
repent Trust God

Natural Order

I’ve ponder the idea that there is a natural order to things on You Don’t Need To Do It and a bit in Trust Is The Key. And I think this is the same for repentance.

Before I met with God I did many things that were not good – out of survival, though my own wounds, through self-centeredness, fear. Probably fear was a lot of the reason. So when I had this big encounter with God – which really needs to be heard rather than read! – I wanted to dive into this whole repentance thing. I got a friend to show me all the verses in the Bible that mentioned sin so I could make sure I repented of everything. I was amazed at how many I needed to repent of one way or another.

Although this was before I found this lovely prayer in the Anglican service

we have left undone those things which we ought to
have done,
and we have done those things which we ought not to
have done

That really does cover most of our lives!

But I thought even then, even in my zeal for meeting with God, there was a natural order of how it worked for me.

Firstly I was accepted by this group of lovely human beings who had got together to evangelise the housing estate I was living on. I was accepted [belonged] to their coffee morning before I went to their Sunday church.

Secondly I had to meet with God and realise how much God loved me unconditionally. And boy was it an amazing encounter. Only then could I start on this journey of repentance. So I had to trust God, believe in and about God and Jesus, and feel I was important to God, special. If I’d been told on that first coffee morning I ever attended that I had to repent and believe I would have high tailed it out of there.

Thirdly though I had to believe and trust that God and Jesus had forgiven me. Actually that was the easiest bit of it. The hardest was going through the journey of forgiving myself because I had done things that had hurt others a lot. But I know I did it because I trusted in Jesus and God to walk with me and leave me high and dry.

Also the whole repentance/forgiveness thing is a totally ongoing thing, which is probably the fourth part. If I believed it was a one off thing and I couldn’t keep coming back to God again and again and again and again and saying sorry and forgiving other people then, I think, I would be a disappointed person.

So daily I ask forgiveness for “those things which I ought to have done, and I have done those things which we ought not to have done” and I am truly sorry. And I forgive those who hurt and upset me whether they did it on purpose or by accident.

But I cannot do those things if God and Jesus are central part of my life, if I don’t trust them moment by moment, don’t rely on them moment by moment.

I do think that repentance and forgiveness should be much a part of our lives that we don’t need to say it but it is in our actions. It is seen when we don’t bitch about people, don’t hold a grudge, don’t worry about things, aren’t fearful, etc. As I explored a while ago, looking at how sinning is really just missing God’s mark, just missing God’s best for us. And anything for holding a grudge and saying bad stuff about people to fit in with others through to worrying and being fearful are the “sins” most of us do. Very few of us murder or steal, but too many of us don’t trust.

I believe we shouldn’t need to tell people but we should be living it day by day – which is what I felt my youth group were trying to tell me and which I shared in Trust Is The Key

Natural order – Trust that God is there for you and loves you unconditionally then repentance and forgiveness will just flow naturally. Or at least I think so.

Categories
Encounter prayer

Cart Before The Horse

New Forest ponies photographed by myself June 2021

Too often we put the proverbial cart before the proverbial horse and wonder why nothing happens.

For instance we pray for world peace, for people groups to forgive each other, for people to consider the earth and the climate change issues, for people to stop abusing each other, yet I have realised that with the stories I read with my youth group Hagar and Gideon only changed when the had an encounter with God.

Hagar could only forgive Abraham and Sarah for their abuse of her and let go of her own anger and pride when she had met with the God who fully saw who she was. Gideon could only go and do what God asked of him calmly and without anger when he had met with the God who calmed his fears.

I think too often we expect ourselves and others to forgiven, to do just as God says and no more or less, to walk in peace and deep joy, when they had not had an encounter with God. I also think it often needs to be a regular different facet of God we encounter to fit with the things we are dealing with at the time.

So I am going to try to start praying for my friends, my family, world leaders, situations, and asking if these people will have an encounter with God. That sort of encounter that makes them feel fully known, as Hagar did, fully trusted as I think Gideon did, fully loved just as I am as I did and do regularly.

I also think that to be able to have those true encounters we need to be healed so we can truly see God when they come visiting. As you know I’m very pro QEC and also Sozo, but there are other ways of allowing those false beliefs of self-doubt, unworthiness, expectations of life, etc, changed and replaced by Godly freeing ways. For Gideon it was giving a sacrifice. For Hagar it was believing God say her.

So let’s get praying for people to have God encounters and then trusting God will change them, will speak to them, will be with them, in the way that is right for them and their situation rather than telling them and God what they should be doing.

Categories
Encounter forgiveness

Hagar

For me the beach alone early in the morning is a great place for me to encounter God.

The Bible version of the story of Hagar can be found in Genesis 16

At our last youth group we were looking at the names of God and by mistake I picked out the verses where Hagar runs away from Sarah but meets with God in a big way. She is the first person to say “God sees me” [Gen 16:13] Amazing.

Lots of this story we gloss over but it was horrendous and where I struggle to get my head round Abraham can be one of the founders of the Jewish, and subsequently Christian faith. Hagar was a slave. We don’t know her nationality so she could have been trafficked, stolen from her family, sold by her family. She has no past in the Bible. But she was there to be used to her mistress, Sarah. Hagar is probably very young, and probably a virgin. As we know in the story Sarah and Abraham couldn’t have any children so Sarah “gives” her maidservant to Abraham to have a child with. That is the line that is used. Do we ever think about it too much? Abraham had sex with Hagar, whether she wanted it or not. He raped her. I suspect he raped her more than once just to make sure she was pregnant. Hagar is loses her virginity to serve her owners. It is very similar to what went on in the slave plantations where the master would have sex with his slaves. Funny how we don’t often put this story in that context.

Anyway Hagar gives Sarah what she wanted and Sarah is angry that Hagar has a child and also we get the feeling that Abraham is fond of the child and possibly of this nubile young woman he has raped. Sarah is abusive to her maidservant, the mother of the child that would be classed as Sarah’s. In the end Hagar behaves like a lot of young girls I know would do, she runs away. And it says she leaves her baby some distance away to die. I wonder if she liked the boy? Can one love a child of rape? Some can. Some can’t. I am suspecting she would have been grateful if Ishmael had died. Maybe she believed that if he was no longer about she could get on with her life, forget she’d had a child. Thankfully God knew that she would always love that baby and it would always be apart of her. A baby once conceived is part of a woman forever whether it lives or dies, miscarries or is terminated, very few women every forget that baby.

So there is Hagar weeping under a tree hoping that her baby dies and she can then run away somewhere. And God appears. He reassures her. He shows unconditionally love. But here is what I find the most amazing – God tells Hagar to go back to her abusers. I know my reaction would have been to say “really! Like I love all the things you’ve said about my boy. I claim them. But to go back. I don’t think so”.

What struck me as I was doing a potted telling of this story to my youth group was that Hagar must have had to forgive Sarah and Abraham before she went back. Otherwise she would have gone back all full of anger and hate and resentment and that energy would have caused issues with her relationship with Sarah and Abraham. Hagar had to full forgive them. Then Ishmael could be a full son, could be fully loved, and could gain all that God has promised.

But I think I know how Hagar was able to forgive. Because she had had an encounter with God. Because she knew God loved her unconditionally. God loved her as a slave, a victim of rape, of abuse, of displacement. God saw her for all she really was and loved her unconditionally. I wonder if we can only fully forgive others once we know God fully sees us and all we are. God fully loves us and all we are.

Perhaps if each of us realised we were fully seen, fully loved by the Creator of the Universe then we would be able to fully see and fully love others and not be afraid of what they might do, say, take, react?

Categories
creation Love

God Made It With Love

As always the youth group I co-run blows me away every time. We haven’t met over the summer and I realised when we got together how much I’d missed them. The eldest is only 14 and yet their wisdom is amazing.

I’d decided we would do about the names of God. Unfortunately I hadn’t read the Bible verses I picked for them to read but they were so amazing and I learned so much. Firstly we read about where Hagar meets God [I’ll do a full piece on this in the next blog] which was complicated to explain but I got so much from it especially as it connected to the Forgiveness theme of the all-age service. But this was much more my revelation than the groups.

We then read Genesis 1:1 and I posed that old question of “what did God make the world with?”

One of the girls gave me an almost withering look and said “well God made the world with Love”. Wow! Of course! You know I had never thought of that before. All the world is connected with love and when we love each other and love the world all runs smoothly but when we fight, are greedy, want more, don’t trust and love each other, or when we abuse the natural resources of the world, then things are awful. Then there is suffering. It goes back to that “Why does God allow suffering?” Well God doesn’t. We do More to come on this soon.

This leads us to this bigger picture, to this need to be connected. To trusting and listening to God. God loves each of us unconditionally so that we can love each other unconditionally. Many of us haven’t received that unconditionally love from earthly sources so haven’t given it back. But if we get our heads round the God of the universe loving us unconditionally then we can love each other unconditionally. Or at least give it a try.

So with all this buzzing in my head I then read this blog by Dave Andrews. Someone I met many years ago in passing at Cross Rhythms festivals. Another connecting connection. In this post he talks about how as he has got older he has let go of doctrines and now just accepts that God is love, God loves unconditionally, and we are to do the same.

Well it seems to me, Dave, that at least some young Christians have reached that point in their teens rather than having to wait till we got into our 60s. To me this gives hope for the Church, as in big time Church with capital C, and God moving within and without.

As I was saying to someone the other day “something has to change and it has to come from those in their teens and 20’s”. Well maybe it is but I need to be connected and need to see the bigger picture so I don’t miss it?