Tag: friends

Categories
Listen to my heart wedding anniversary

17th Wedding Anniversary

Photographed January 2020

This photograph was taken on our 14th wedding anniversary somewhere in Yorkshire [I think]. I’ve picked it because I think it symbolised marriage for me – a simple bridge over uncertain waters.

So we have made it to 17 years!! Neither of us has ever been a relationship this long, apart from with parents or me with my children. I am still amazed – not just that we are together but that we still do enjoy each other’s company on the whole.

We are very much not the people we married 17 years ago. I often thought, when I was younger, that when one reached middle age one’s personality and ways of being would become settled, etched in stone [I was 45 when I married my “toy boy” was only 38] but that’s not true. We have walked through many things since being married – untimely deaths of friends and family, my teenage children growing up and leaving home and all the stuff that went with that. We’ve moved house, got pets, learned things, got healed of things, made new friends and hung on to some older ones. Combined some of those friends so that they are “our friends” and kept some that are just our own. Our energy levels have changed too. We’ve changed inside and out. Sometimes in harmony and sometimes clashing. We’ve had times when I am surprised we are still together and times I couldn’t imagine us apart.

This year’s anniversary is different from the rest. Our plan, when we still had children living at home, was to take off on the nearest weekend to our anniversary and stay in a nice hotel, just the two of us, within a couple of hours to our home. Even when the children left home we kept up this tradition. Although last year we stayed at home. For me I think it was because I had just said goodbye to my dear friend Tessa, who died the day before our 16th anniversary. So the whole idea of going away when I’d just been away visiting her was a bit much for my heart. But we were at least spent it together.

But this year we saw each other briefly on the morning of our anniversary before my husband’s taxi came to take him off to the airport for a business trip and I took the dog out. It is not unusual now lockdown is a thing of the past for my husband to go away but it is the first anniversary we’ve spent apart.

It is strange because I often say that I don’t “do our anniversary” but with him not here I realise that I miss not being able to “not do” this time. It made me think of all those other anniversaries that sometimes our bodies react to but our minds forget. Those times of loss, of celebration, of trauma, of something unexpected. And as one grows older there are more and more of them – both grief and celebration, both sadness and celebration – and too often we try to just push through.

I’ve wondered why I kept yesterday’s Josh Luke Smith email but I think it fits with what I’m saying here. We need to take the time out to listen to our HEART, our BODY and our MIND so that we can “locate where we are, give ourselves all we need to be as truly ourselves as we could be in that moment” –

IN THAT MOMENT – not forever, not for tomorrow, but just for this moment when we feel what we feel, when we aren’t sure what’s going on because we are trying to push through things, push things down, push things away, push onwards and yet feel lost in and of ourselves. It only takes a moment to check in and only then can we know where we are, why we feel as we feel, accept it all and then be our true and authentic selves.

So a dog walking friend saying to me yesterday “you don’t seem yourself” made me check-in with my heart, body and mind and made me realise I miss my husband not being with me for an anniversary I didn’t realise I was that bothered about. But my heart, mind and body did.

After doing all this QEC I’m always amazed that I don’t tune in more often but being the complex creature that I am sometimes I need to hear it from another source. And God in God’s great wisdom knew exactly how to do that 🙂

Categories
Love truth

Service

Snowdrops hidden in the woods. Photographed by myself 26th Jan 2024. Spring is coming

What does Service mean? To you? To me?

In Josh Luke Smith’s latest email he says that we all want Meaning. Relationships. Service. I do agree but I think for years I got what service meant wrong. And I think I was encouraged to keep believing in the wrong either because other people had got it wrong or because it supported others.

Before meeting with God thirty+ years ago I pleased myself and I don’t think I really served others. Though I probably did. I worked in hospitality, had friends round for parties, meals, etc. But I thought I was just doing things that everyone did and that was it.

So when I met with God the church talked a lot about service and about serving God. Serving God seemed to mean doing something in church as a volunteer which for me was children or youth stuff. So I was always busy busy in church doing stuff and I would get fed up with it all and that, amongst other things, was what stopped me wanting to attend church. [Yes there are other reasons but I think this whole thing of feeling that to belong I had to be volunteering got me down]

But it wasn’t just church. Lots of places talk about serving which again seems to be doing things for nothing to further that organisation. But now I’m not so sure. And I would say as I read these daily emails I’m not the only one.

I’m not in regular paid work at the moment and will continue like that because I’m 62. That doesn’t mean I’m doing nothing though. But I have realised what I do day in day out is service. From walking my dog, looking after my home and feeding my husband, though to chatting with friends and acquaintances, to running the workshops I do, to reading books, to writing stories people may never read, to writing this blog. All these things are acts of service but, I think, because they are things I enjoy and they are not for some church or other organisation I don’t see them as service.

I am now thinking that service is actually me just being the truest me I am and allowing that to flow into the earth in the only way I can let it. So I clean up my act and get healed so my energy is purer, less polluted, less me expecting something from what I do – which I do wonder if a lot of our “serving” is actually serving our own ego! I listen to my heart, to God, to the Universe, to my gut, and only do what I am at peace with. And through that I am so much more than if I was serving for servings sake.

I believe again it comes back to that whole “Love your neighbour as you love yourself” [or as I like to see it “totally love yourself so you can then love others] and then you are serving in ways that others truly need with no agenda for yourself to be bless. But that does take some work to get to that place, some clearing away of traumas and other crap, and being fully free.

know the truth [about yourself and your motives] and the truth will set you free

John 8:32]
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
being Doing

Being Really Human

Photographed by me on Christmas Day 2023

This is a follow on from yesterday’s post on how Deborah and Jael were most powerful by being in situ and not trying to fill their day with many things. Yet this is so often what we do even as Christians.

We pray as an activity rather than as a just being. But often if we try the just being we then need to tell someone about that. Or to fill in time we read a book. It becomes another activity. We got to church. We join a club. We meet with others. We do things all the time. We rarely just sit about “wasting time”.

Like I said Jael could have been somewhere else being busy but instead I like to think she was at the entrance to her tent maybe watching the battle unfurl in the valley below. She wasn’t waiting for God to use her, which I think we can often be guilty of, but she was just being.

I have been amazed at how many fitness apps and organisational apps and books are being advertised as something to “fit into your busy life” as though being busy is the important bit. And not being busy is wasting time. When we see someone they are “what have you been up to?” and rarely ask “how are you?” And even if they do ask “how are you?” that is quickly followed by “what have you been doing?” And a young friend of mine once showed me how people ask younger people “What have you been up to?” and even “what have you done at school/college/exams are you taking/doing in your future?” and rarely ask them how they are leading to that conviction that doing nothing is not a good thing.

As you know I’ve been challenged on this recently and I decided to do some QEC around it. Turns out that, for me, and I suspect for others, I worry about what other people will think. I feel that to justify my existence I should be doing something., that I should not be wasting my time and that I should be productive. So I get busy busy busy and then don’t have time for what really matters – being me.

I am now in my 6th decade and there are those things that pull to say “time is running out” and that one should “do something with one’s life“. Now Jael was just being by her tent and because of that God could use her. She may have been young. She may have been old. But she was there. And I don’t think she was sitting there going “God use me” or even bargaining with God that if she learned how to be then God could use her.

Also I am learning if I am not busy doing then I have time to think. Not think about what I can do but just ponder life. I probably pray more as a chatting with God thing than an activity. It is a longer process. I also read a lot more which gives me more things to think about.

We live in a world, whether sacred or secular, that tells us we should be doing. And not just doing but being seen to be doing. We need to have something to tell people. But I am finding the more that I am just being the more I can listen to people because I’m not tired, not stressed, not wondering what I should be doing to fill my time. It means I have time to walk the extra round of the park to find out how someone is, time to go for coffee, time to listen to my husband, my children, my friends, to God.

I don’t know if I’ll even be expected to drive a metaphorical tent peg through someone’s head [whatever that means in 21st Century North Wales terms] but I do hope I am sitting by my tent to do whatever God wants of me if God ever does. And I also hope that if I spend the rest of my life hanging out by my tent and am never used I will also known and trust I have been in the right place.

Categories
Lord's Prayer Trust God Uncategorized

Whose Will?

So two posts in quick succession. This is because I’ve been enjoying my daughter’s company and not had time or headspace to blog.

But I have been praying. And again am stuck on working with The Lord’s Prayer. And especially the line “Your Will be done“.

It made me think of how often we mither [check out the link as it is a north of England expression] at God to do what we think is the right thing. With many situations, whether it is Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, getting things done in my home town, illnesses with people I know, there is much more going on under the surface, hidden histories, that we know little or nothing about, hurts and pains we don’t understand, and so often what we are “telling” God to do is ill-informed. I think this is why Jesus’s advise was telling us to say to God “look I see this situation. I’d love you to be involved in it. Your will be done within that.“

Now I had an interesting thing happen after I was praying for God’s will to be done about a certain person. As me and this person were walking and talking they said something that I could almost see God highlighting for me. It was something very deep with them and shared in a way that I felt led me to ask God if that was a way I was to pray about it. I believe now that God has given me their direction in praying for this person and that God and I are yoked together in this.

I also had another time when I did the “ok it’s your will not mine here” as I was finding certain things with another person difficult. I was also trying to avoid that person. But again God had other plans. There I was walking round my park on my own and they were walking the opposite direction. They greeted me warmly and we walked together. Again I could hear that still small voice saying “this is My will that you walk along side them.” And it was like there was nothing else I had to do but to walk with them.

I can be an organised, planning person. It is a family joke that I like my lists. Often of an evening I write a list of what I want to do the following day as part of my unwind before going to sleep routine. But I also find that I can get into doing this with praying for people; the list with an idea of what each person, situation, etc needs. But this takes away the “your will be done” part of the Lord’s Prayer. I wonder too if these things interfere with the “give me each day my daily bread” part.

So this year I am going to just let God’s will be done, not my will, in how I pray and who I pray for, and just trust and see what happens.

Categories
expectations family

Family

Cobwebs interconnected. Photographed by myself Sept 2023

Hands up who has been upset when a church you attend uses the phrase “we are family” and then you feel shut out? I’ve been there. One of the most recent times was when the large congregation we were attended kept going on and on about how we were all family and then announced a very messy divorce by someone in leadership that those of us in “the family” knew nothing about.

My first thought was that surely if we were family then we’d know before it was too late so we could be helping, supporting, praying, etc. But this morning on my dog walk, out of nowhere, because I wasn’t even thinking about church and family, though was pondering what I should be putting in blog post today as it had been ages since I’d done one, I got this revelation that I felt I had to share. And it was that my disappointments and hurts over this whole “church being family” thing was because of my expectations. [I have pondered expectations before]

As I have found that God is the perfect parent, beyond my wildest expectations of what a parent could be, so I expected when a congregations says that they are “family” I expected something way beyond what I knew of family, something I had hoped and dreamed of. But it isn’t that at all.

My family is small. I don’t remember ever meeting any of my dad’s wider family, apart from a cousin and his children, and that was for a short time only and I thought he was very rude anyway. On my mum’s side I knew my grandmother until she had a major stroke when I was about 6 and then my mum’s uncles who came to visit my grandmother, but then I never remember seeing them again. My mum talks about a cousin and his children but I’ve never met them. My sister and I drifted apart as we got older and of course now she’s died well …. And her son doesn’t keep in touch and really I don’t keep in touch with him. So family and the mechanics of it I really don’t quite understand.

But as I was walking God showed me that this whole “family” thing that the church talks about has nothing to do with being close but has to do with being “related to”. In fact it goes way beyond just a congregation. It goes way beyond those who profess to being Christians.

If God made the whole world and everyone in it, if we are all made in God’s image not just if/when we say we’re trying to follow Jesus, then we are all God’s children. Thus, whether we like it or not, we are all family. Some of this family we will be close to, will get on well with, will spend time with, will know each other’s deepest thoughts and feelings, but others we just won’t.

My husband’s family does a good example of this. The parent generation all knew each other well and the cousins all played together as children. Then the cousins all drifted apart and got on to doing their own thing and not communicating. But the parents kept hanging out, kept phoning each other, kept in touch with each others lives. But when something happens, when there is a need, the cousins appear and help out, or the siblings form different cliques to help and support depending on their schedules, their needs, their space in their lives. So sometimes it looks like they don’t get on, don’t spend time together but there is always that thread of “family” running through.

Once one starts seeing the whole of human kind as “family”, as God’s family, then one does start to realise how much time we do connect and we are part of something. Like my friend who bought a homeless man a pizza the other day, she was just feeding her brother when he was in need and when he came across her path. I was deeply affected by the death of a fellow dog walker, went to his funeral and have been grieving his loss, but that is because he was a brother I got close to.

My revelation was that I need to stop thinking small. Stop wanting to part of some small congregation, even large congregation, some clique where I can “fit”, and realise that I fit into this whole world and I need to be aware of the God prompts when I’m pushed to connected with a brother or sister. This isn’t always to give to them. Sometimes it can be to receive. Or in the case of the fellow dog walker, and with many of my friends, it is to give and to receive in mutual friendship. It is about being there for others but also realising there is a whole world of fellow “relatives” whether they say they are follow Jesus or not, who are there to support me too.

As I walked in the large open park, that is my special place each morning. I felt God was saying just look at the big because that’s what I’m part of, but then like with the spider web to also look at those small connections. Those small connections that make something strong.

Perhaps I need to be looking at connections rather than craving the impossible of some close knit family? Perhaps we all should?

Categories
connecting God

Connected

Connected cobwebs. Photographed by myself Sept 2023

I’ve been reading about the Red Crescent and the Red Cross lurching from disaster to disaster, appealing for donations and funding; Greek fires, Greek floods, dams bursting in Libya causing horrendous flooding, on-going strife in various African countries. And then there’s the fires in the West of the USA, floods in the South-East, on-going drug smuggling in various South American countries. Add in the migrant crisis – fear of those who leave whether from wars, famines, or for economic reasons and the fears of those who live in the countries the migrants are trying to reach. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But we live in a world that is connected. The whole chaos theory of if something happens in one part of the world it can majorly effect something in another part of the world. The migrant crisis is a prime example of this – wars and famines often in countries we have never heard of affect us here not just with people coming to try to find safety but with commodities too.

So we need to be seeing the bigger picture not just lurch from crisis to crisis, not just try to find resources for X which takes it way from Y, not just giving time this when that means we can’t give to that. We need to know what the big picture is. But, and I know I’ve said this before, we need to slow down. We need to listen, need to really listen – to our world, to God, to stop trying to logically rationalise.

But how?

I think it is by connecting. Connecting with others. Connecting with God. Connecting with the world. When we lurch from one thing to another, one crisis, one trauma, one anxiety, we lose connection. We lose how we fit into the bigger picture.

As I’ve often said I don’t go to regular church any more, but I do feel connected with God and a group of Christian friends, and with the online things that are out there. But last Sunday I went to a church service. It was the sort of thing I like; for all ages but not cheesy; a deep message; time to chat with others about the message and other things; even though it was led by the vicar he did not portray himself as the one with the answers. It did make me realise I do need, occasionally, to connect with others, to hear other people, to think. But also what happened within connecting there was that the things in the all-age service connected into what we were doing in the youth service which followed.

But I think the reason it “worked” was because I did not go along on a superficial level, did not think I was better/more spiritual/more knowledgeable than others – both in the service and in the youth group. But I went along want to connect, wanting to learn, wanting to grow, wanting more than. And because I wanted “more than” I got it.

Going back to thinking about the bigger picture and want to stop lurching from one thing to another – I wonder how often we really want to know more. Whether when we watch the news, see newsfeeds, or even read blogs about all sorts, do we really want to learn, to grow, to get “more than”, or whether we come with our ready made answers that we will then trot out to others whether they want to hear them or not?

I think to connect we need to go in with an attitude of wanting to gain from others as well as give. Then I think we might get a glimpse of the bigger picture of what God is up to in our world.

Categories
hope Mystery

Hope!

Conwy Beach, 7.10am 6th Sept 2023. Photographed by myself

[This is the first of some more following on from discussions with a friend who stayed with us over the last weekend. She is exploring her faith and asking those “awkward” questions]

I love a good sunrise. It always fills me with hope for the day ahead. Here on this deserted beach yesterday, even though there was a busy day ahead I was filled with hope.

Hope in what you may ask. Well just hope of a great big God, of a great big world, that all my needs would be provided for the day, that I would not walk alone, just hope

I was reading Creed: reexamined beliefs just now. In this Fiona talks about whether what we believe really does bring wholeness to us and to the world. The part that jumped out at me was the bit about Hope and I will requote her quote

“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.”

Barbarba Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

As Christians what do we hope for? I mean not what do we say we hope for but what do we really hope for? Does what come out of our mouths echo what is in our hearts?

Things like do we really believe in going to be with God when we die? Do we really believe God is with us in all that we do? Do we really know we can call on the Holy Spirit whenever and they will be there?

It seems to me that there are a lot of people who still would say they are Christians who don’t go to church but are exploring the things they were brought up with. Things just don’t “work” for them. For instance how can God be a God of love if certain denominations tell us to hate people who are not heterosexual, not living the lives from that denominations view point. How can the Holy Spirit be there to guide us if we look so glum, worry about death so much, are anxious, are fearful, greedy, don’t ask for help? Etc etc.

If we aren’t living the basics – God, as in the whole full Triune God, is love, loves us unconditionally, and is there for us always – do we really believe what we then try to tell others?

Categories
forgiveness magic

The Magic Of Forgiveness

Even though this is a beautiful landscape, when one reads the tales of a large part of not just North Wales, the UK, but the whole world, there are stories of fighting which come about due to lack of forgiveness.

I have written a few posts about forgiveness on and off, especially connected around my explorations of The Lord’s Prayer, but one thing that struck me recently is “the magic of forgiveness.”

What do I mean by that?

Well we get taught a lot about how forgiveness is important as it stops us having to hold on to the other person’s wrongs, how it helps us to see clearly, but I have noticed too that it clears the air.

Often those we have to forgive most of all are those who are closest to us – partners, children, parents, other family members, close friends – because they touch our buttons most often. But what I’ve noticed is if I can feel myself getting wound up by someone, whether friend or family, if I go straight into forgiveness mode then the atmosphere lightens, generally we can chat openly about what needs to be talked about, and even if we still disagree we are together in a lighter place. If on the other hand if I decide that I am angry with that person, that they don’t deserve to have my forgiveness then actually I finish up being grouchy, the atmosphere is heavy and the other person is more obnoxious, angry, and in fighting mode.

An example is of a job I acquired as if by magic. Things were taking a while to come together and it looked, to me, as though people were deliberately trying to curtail it so I was niggled by them. Then I believe God spoke to me and told me I was being pedantic and needed to forgive. So I did. Well an amazing thing happened. Within in a day or so I got an email which basically told me the job was mine. Magic! All those barriers that they had been saying needed to be dealt with suddenly vanished. I do now believe it was me standing in the way and once I got down of my high horse and forgave then God could move things along.

So when I feel myself not wanting to forgive I just ask myself if I want to see Forgiveness work its magic. And if I’m honest there are some days when I think “yes I do” and other days when I think “no I can’t be bothered.” But hopefully as I grow more in trusting the Creator of the Universe with things rather than thinking I know best I will be able to work more of that Forgiveness Magic.

Categories
forgiveness Lord's Prayer

Forgiveness Part Three

As Forgiveness parts one and two both started with a photo of my dog I felt that I had to start Forgiveness part three with the dog even though this picture has no relevance to the post 🙂

So Sunday we did Forgive us our Sins as we forgive those who Sin against us in youth group.

I used the “sin” translation because SIN, I was told years ago and it has stayed with me, comes from an archery term that means “missing the gold mark at the centre of the target.” So really sin/sinning is just missing God’s mark rather than trying to work out what we’ve done wrong. We “all have sinned and fallen short the glory of God.” We’re not bad people, we’re just human and cannot make God’s mark day in day out and I think God finds that ok.

Something I feel I was taught wrongly though was that Forgiveness is conditional. I was taught that God would only forgive me if I forgave others. Now I’m not so sure. Surely if that were the case then that makes God’s love conditional when in fact God’s love is unconditional. God’s love is not based on anything I do, say, don’t do, don’t say, think, don’t think, behave, etc. God thinks I am awesome no matter what. And if is from that basis that I am safe to forgive others.

I watch it with the children I now work with in after-school club. Those who are in a secure place, who trust that we as their play-leaders like them, or from homes where they know they are loved, are much quicker to say Sorry to a fellow after-school club friend than those who don’t feel so secure. It isn’t whether they are or not but how secure they feel in that.

We are all loved unconditionally by God but some of us believe that more than others. As Paul says though that shouldn’t make us want to do more wrong things. In fact that security makes it easier for us to say sorry and try to “hit God’s mark” more often. As one of the young people in the youth group said, because God forgives us it gives us a second chance to make mistakes. I love that. That assurance that we are free to make more mistakes, rather than fear that some adult Christians have that if God forgives them then they shouldn’t make that mistake again.

One of the amazing things that we see if we read the about the life of Jesus is how ready he was to forgive. Not to forgive when that person was sorry, when they forgave others, when they were even ready to be forgiven but to just forgive because that is what true love is.

Some of the last words Jesus says whilst dying horribly on the cross were

Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing

Luke 23:34

These people he was forgiving were jeering him, gambling for his clothes, generally pleased that he was gone. Not at all repentant and asking for forgiveness. Yet Jesus still forgave them with his dying breath.

There is a selfish reason why we should forgive. Not so God loves us more because that is a given. But we should forgive because it is better for us. It is a proven medical fact that people who truly forgive are healthy, happier, live longer, and are more open to the changes in the world around them. They are not fearful, not anxious, and are ready to let others into their lives. Check out what the Mayo clinic says about the power of forgiveness

And if you fancy reading more check out the book “The Body Keep The Score” to see more, which I’m sure I’ve mentioned before.

Neither of these things might be Christian per se but they seem to advocate very clearly the importance of what Jesus was teaching in that line in the Lord’s Prayer.