This is my faith mustard seed grown. As you can see it has grown really fast but it is a bit limp. That, and a message I got from a friend asking for prayer this week, got me thinking about my little old mustard shoot.
Often we set off with great enthusiasm with our faith in what God can do with us, through us and for us. We plant that faith and it sprouts. But then instead of growing into a tree it goes a bit limp and wobbly. That’s because we can’t go it alone.
Look at these healthy mustard plants all crowded together
Lots of mustard plants on farm with cleared sky
They are all holding each other up, supporting each other. We cannot be a lone mustard seed. We need others to help and encourage our faith.
Like with my friend, not just the one who messaged by many other of my friends, we don’t need to go to the same church. We don’t even need to go to church at all – though that helps. But what we need, whether we attend a church or not, is faith-filled friends who will help us stand strong in God, stand strong in our faith. We need friends on a similar wavelength to us that we can share openly and honestly with, who won’t judge us, or label us, or box us, but who also know us as well as it is possible to know someone else.
Faith isn’t meant to stand alone. Yes it can and it will but it will get tired. Faith stands better and stronger in communities.
This Sunday was Harvest Festival at our church followed by a church lunch. I’m not sure if all churches do this but ours seems to be pudding filled. So one eats soup and a bread roll then overdoses of puddings and finishes up with a sugar headache later in the day. Or maybe that’s just me.
Anyway our vicar was talking about Harvest and its meanings and I was struck by the parts about how harvest is about bringing in mature crops, crops that were at the end of their growing seasons, and if they weren’t harvested they would go rotten in the fields. These then generate income for the farmer and nutrition/food for both the farmer and whoever they sell their produce to. Harvest is all part of our global economy. Without it we all die – literally. I think for so many of us that buy from shops and supermarkets we lose the importance of this. Even though who do have allotments or grow in their garden they still are not fully reliant on what they produce for their livelihoods or to feed themselves.
With those thoughts in mind it makes this verse seem slightly different –
Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
Matthew 9:37-38
Now I’ve always taken this, and probably heard it preached, that this meant we were to go out and evangelise the poor lost people, put them on the right track, and teach them about Jesus. But if you think about the crops being mature, being ready, important for the economy and likely to go rotten if not harvested I think it puts a different spin on it.
I wonder if Jesus meant for us to look at people and to see that they were more than ready to be harvested. They weren’t immature people needing us to treat them like they know nothing, but were/are people who know a lot, have a lot to offer and are able to feed us who are already in the church. It is a waste to just bring it into barns and store it for some unknown future. The harvest has to be inputting into the economy immediately. In fact it is integral to the ongoing life of the community.
I wonder too if Jesus’ disciples understood something more than we do when Jesus said this. Back in Jesus time the multitudes who were following Jesus would have believed in the One God who led them out of Israel and made them a people group and would have been looking for the Promised Messiah. Really, I think, what Jesus was saying was that his disciples was that they needed to take these mature crops/people and bring them fully into His Kingdom – which is what happened at Pentecost. When “those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day” [Acts 2:41] they didn’t have to them go on Bible study courses, discipleship courses, how to be part of our church courses. No. They were accepted as mature and ready and it was left to God the Holy Spirit to train and lead them. Yes it is said they did listen to the apostles teachings [though I wonder if that was just the disciples and those who had travelled regularly with Jesus just saying what had gone on and not a sermon of what had to/had not to be done] but it did not preclude them from being part of things.
I think we need to be looking at those we know, those we come into contact with, and realise which ones are mature and ready to be harvested. Then we need be willing to let them loose into the church and trust that God will do as God knows what’s best to do.
I know one of my biggest frustrations when I first was “harvested” was being held back and told I was not “mature”. According to the description of what harvest is and the Matthew 9 verse those who are harvested are mature and ready to contribute to the life of the Kingdom. Ok they will maybe mess things up a bit, make things a bit untidy because they don’t “know the rules” [which are often manmade anyway!] but is that really such a bad thing?
On Sunday our vicar gave us all a small packet with a mustard seed in and used it to expanded on the story Jesus said about having faith the size of a mustard seed.
He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
Matthew 17:20 and Luke 17:6
And we were all told to take this home, plant it and see how big it had grown by Christmas.
I worried the whole time I was going to lose it so as soon as we’d had lunch, and before taking the dog for a walk, I made sure mine was safely planted and watered.
When I pondered my attitude to this, it reminded me of when I first really met with God and how I knew from that moment on the The Creator of The Universe loved me unconditionally even though I was a single mum and not living the best life. The faith I got from that moment I was terrified of losing and so I did everything I could to water it, to grow it, to nurture it – reading my Bible, praying, going to Christian conferences, reading Christian books, going to church, being involved with church, going on mission, etc, etc. Ok there have been times when I haven’t done any of those things and have wombled on with God in a contented way still. I have never lost that faith, have seen it grow, have seen it tested, have seen it wobble, but, for the most part, have always trusted.
So I got to wondering what other people might have done with their mustard seed representing faith. [this is all speculation and not about anyone specific]
some left it at church – which is often where we can all leave our faith and do not take it home and use it at home.
some have it in their pockets still and will find it on and off when they put that coat on again – again a bit like we do with faith and find it and then forget it, then find it again but never really take it out.
some will keep it in their “going to church jacket” and will bring it out each time they are at church – which again we are all great at doing, of having great faith when we are with a company of other believers but struggle when we are on our own.
some will have lost it as they walked home – which again is what happens to faith often. The hassles of life get in the way and we lose our faith that God can.
some will have seen it as just another daft thing and won’t have engage with it – again that is what can happen when we talk about things like God working all things to the good of those who love him [Romans 8:28]. It can seem a daft thing and so we ignore it.
some will plant their seed but then will forget about it and it won’t grow, or it will grow a little bit but won’t be nurtured.
some might expect someone else to plant it for them, a spouse, friend or someone else they know – and again we all too often lean into someone else’s faith rather than our own. It is important to have friends with faith around us to hold us up but we cannot rely just on their faith. We do need our own too.
And some won’t have believed in it at all and found it all total nonsense.
Interestingly I was reading that the mustard seed is an easy seed to grow. It doesn’t need much to grow from this tiny seed to a plant that you can then use the leaves of in all sorts of cuisine. Though interestingly the article also says that economically there is no reason to grow mustard seeds, although the novelty value is good – being able to produce a jar of your own mustard to share with friends. Again this is an interesting point to take back to our mustard seed of faith. How many of us think what’s the point? Nothing will change, nothing will happen, or even “I can do it quicker myself”.
Maybe the “novelty value” has something to say to us about our faith, and about that inner feeling of connection with something higher than us.
Faith is the moving of those mountains of sickness, of poverty, of inequality, of war and aggression. But it is also that inner peace, inner, tranquillity, inner joy, inner trust, inner knowing that I am not alone, that I am love unconditionally by the Creator of The Universe. And that with that tiny bit of faith I can grow, I can flourish and maybe it is because of my faith that the birds can find shelter?
Then Jesus asked, “What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds perched in its branches.”
Luke 13:18-19
Or as David Marks says in Garden Focused – key reasons for growing mustard in the UK is to use it as a green manure on the soil. Now I’m all up for being a fertiliser for all things God!
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Looking across Red Wharf Bay May 2025 Photographed by myself
What do I miss since no longer being able to drive? It is the above that I miss most of all. I miss being able to drive to where I want to go on my own when I want. Actually it is that “being able to do what I want when I want” that I am finding hardest.
I’ve always struggled with being boxed in and needing the space to do what I want when I want. That is probably why I didn’t settle in office type jobs but went for hospitality or youth work because, even if the hours were set, what went on was so random. There is something for me about being tied in that makes me panic.
But during my QEC sessions and spending time journaling I’ve learned to work these issues through. Even with the not-being-able-to-drive thing I’m working out my own freedom with it. But then something happened and I realised how easily I [and probably you] can fall back into those old pathways, those known ways of being even if they didn’t fit back then and don’t fit now.
We’ve got a new vicar at our church. He called a meeting last week where he set out his vision for the church. There were lots of opportunities to volunteer for things and at the meeting I was really super enthusiastic and was frustrated that there were no sign up sheets. But then when I was on the bus I was really really tired, like exhausted tired. Then when I got to the beach and was pottering along with my dog enjoying the sea and that freedom I felt like I didn’t want to do anything and was moving into being cross. Yes even though one of the vicar’s main points was “don’t feel like you have to do anything” I was still cross at feeling like I “had to” do these things I was good at.
But this is where things have changed, where all that healing has come to pass. Or as an old YWAM leader once said – I’m learning to walk the new green pathways.
Somewhere in Scotland. May 2022. Photographed by myself
What he meant by this is that whenever we do something we create a known way of going and we stick to that whether it is right or wrong, helpful to us or not. When we get into healing we start to see how wrong those paths are for us, how they are not beneficial to us but we can only make the new paths by walking them. Too often, even when we’ve had healing of any kind we think it hasn’t worked because we are still doing the same old same old. Still walking those same old paths. We need to start walking across a new grass filled field and make new paths. We need to walk new ways. We need to mark out new pathways that fit with who we really are rather than who we think we should be. And we can only do that by walking them.
That first me after the meeting was the old “look at me and like me” me but I’ve changed and am now more willing to say “yes I could do that but I need time to write, to read, to walk alone [even if that is more complicated and needs more thinking about – and thus more time] and also to bump into friends and other random people to chat with as I feel God leads me. I can now be honest with myself and say I must be careful not to let myself take on too much as I’ll feel frustrated by it.
For each of us our new pathways are different, which is what can make it hard to walk them. We get so used to following the herd, of doing what makes others happy, of fitting in so we don’t have to think, that we often just following along. But then of course we either get tired, get resentful, get sickness and illnesses, get angry, and also don’t fulfil are full potential, are full who our Creator truly made us to.
I know The Creator of the Universe loves me just as I am and I believe my role in life is to know that fully and to share that fully. But I am beginning to realise that I can’t do that by being busy, by getting tired and resentful, etc. So I need to walk my new pathways – those I can choose and those, like with the driving, that have been foisted upon me – and trust what is really out there for me
Renly enjoying a “new path” April 2023 Photographed by myself
Interesting coincidence. This was the reading from Henri Nouwen on the day I wrote this blog piece.
Discerning God’s Will
Small, seemingly insignificant events, ideas, and life circumstances can become occasions to discern God’s will and calling in your life. Both inner and outer events and circumstances can be read and interpreted as signposts leading to a deeper understanding of the way the Spirit of God is working in our daily lives…. We have the freedom and responsibility to look at our lives with the eyes of faith and a heart of trust, believing that God cares and is active in our lives. https://henrinouwen.org/meditation/ 1st October 2025
The other day our vicar was saying how when we come to church we should pull out all the stops because we are meeting with the King of Kings and made us think about how we would react if King Charles [still can’t quite get used to that after all my life having a Queen] was coming to visit.
I totally get where he is coming from. I’ve got a friend coming today who doesn’t visit often so I’ve had a clean and tidy up. But I’ve realised when people come to my house regularly I clean less. So yes they still get a clean bathroom – but that’s a daily task anyway – and with my writing groups I make sure the post isn’t on the table but I don’t clean in the same way as when they first came. The more familiar I am with my friends the less I worry about what they will think of my house, or even notice how tidy it is. And I think that’s probably how I am with Jesus.
God is omnipresent – so all seeing, all knowing, etc etc – and I share my good times, bad times, angry times, frustrated times, joyful times, etc with them whether I do that consciously or not. If God is really omnipresent then God is always there but there are just times when I try not to acknowledge it, when I truly do forget, or when I truly want to not have God in the picture.
So if God is with me all the time, and loves me unconditionally just as I am, should I really be sprucing up? Should I really be acting like God is like King Charles?
I hate to say this but King Charles, or my vicar and many others, don’t love me unconditionally just as I am but God does. Jesus came to reconnect me with God not because I was good, did things right, was “clean and tidy”, but Jesus came to do this for me, for everyone, because. Yup just because.
So I get where the vicar is coming from but I also think that if I am hanging out with God all the time being me then I can just carry on being me whether I’m at church, at home, in the bathroom, watching Netflix, walking the dog, reading a book, or hoovering the living room.
I think we need to be careful of “pulling out all the stops” for God because then we are being on our best behaviour and not being real. It is like saying “fine thank you” when someone asks you how you are rather than telling the truth.
We need to be real with God and sometimes that will mean letting God, and others, see our dirty, untidy side, our real side, too.
Father Christmas gives the Pevensie children gifts which he says are gifts of “joy and truth” – which is interesting as they are weapons but I’m not going down that one. Though after reading Richard Rohr’s latest about how direct non-violent action is about
redistribut[ing] the tension that is already there and puts it back where it belongs—at the source.
maybe swords and arrows are a good representation of joy and truth but also of hope, peace and freedom?
But these gifts need to be used. Peter couldn’t kill the wolf if he kept his sword in his scabbard. Lucy couldn’t heal unless she used drops of her potion. In Prince Capsian the children couldn’t have come back if the horn had not been blown.
I believe all of us have been given gifts to make this world a freer, more peaceful, more joyful, safer place and yet too often there is the cry of “why don’t they do something” when it could be us.
Ok so I’m not going to be Prime Minister or anything major in business, in technology, on leadership worldwide, but I can via using my gifts of encouragement, of writing, of being able to chat to people, change one person at a time, who would then go on to change someone else and so on and so forth.
It is said there are only six degrees of separation between one person and the next – ie that each of us are only six people away from connecting with each other. And some of us are even closer. My next-door neighbour was telling me how when she was visiting a new friend she looked at her wedding photo and saw one of her close friends on that photo. Turns out my neighbour’s friend had been close to her new friend when her new friend got married.
So think this through – this means that each of us are six people or less, away from someone of influence. So if we are kind and helpful to the person in the park, they can take that kindness and encouragement to the next person in their sphere and so on. Very much the change the world one starfish at a time [this is an interesting read because it talks of the origins of this story too!]
So today I pledge to go out and use my gifts of chat, of encouragement and of words to help those in my sphere to know freedom from fear, know hope, know peace, know joy and trust. And from there to be able to fully live their lives as they are called to do so they can use their gifts for joy, trust, hope, peace and freedom.
A selection of pictures related me driving – perfect parallel park, Luton van, a couple of walks early in the morning just me and my dog, and then my writing retreat week
I went to a local opticians this past week and she did very through tests on my eyes and found that I might not have great peripheral vision. It is not confirmed as yet. I need some more tests. But for now I cannot drive which has come hard because I so love driving. But in the grand scheme of things it isn’t the end of the world.
What has amazed me is some people’s reactions. Most have been really kind and supportive but from one person I got that I needed to be positive and keep saying that there is nothing wrong with my eyes and get rid of all negative believes that my eyesight is bad. This is hard one because I have always been really shortsighted until 13 years ago when I had lens replacements and went from a minus 21 to minus 0.5 which was totally amazing. But my cornea are stretched and are the cornea of an almost blind person!
I sort of know that if I tell this that my eyes are still bad she will tell me that I didn’t do my statements correctly or didn’t believe enough. That somewhere along the way it will be my fault.
I remember my father-in-law saying that, after his major traffic accident where he suffered brain injuries, people would pray for him and, because he didn’t get better, they would say it was his fault for not believing, or that there was sin in his life. Not helpful at all.
Even though the person who told me to believe in the healing isn’t talking about prayer to me it feels like a similar idea, that there is that potential that if we wish it/believe it hard enough then it will all sort out. And then if it doesn’t sort out then it is our fault. It is all very ego-centric
I was very pleased to come across this phrase this morning in Richard Rohr’s daily meditations which seems very apt
….that the greatest enemy of ordinary daily goodness and joy is not imperfection, but the demand for some supposed perfection or order.
Ok there is more going in the meditation but this stood out to me. When one does some of these positive statements or healing prayers or whatever one can get into the trap of calling down what we see as perfection. Note the “we see as perfection.” For me personally, to have perfect peace with whatever the outcome of these eye tests in a fortnight are is the greatest thing I could get. Yes of course I would love to be driving again, would love that freedom of just taking off and being on a beach to watch the sun come up, to pop to the Farmer’s market without having to get a lift, etc, etc. But if that doesn’t happen I want to be able to be so at peace I can feel it in my bones.
So I will ask God for my eyesight to be ok and to be able to drive again because that would be silly not to check in with the Great Creator of the Universe and not ask. And if I wasn’t a Christian I would probably do those positive statements and hope for the best.
But what I want deep down is for this daily goodness, this joy, this peace that passes all understanding, to be settled in my heart no matter what happens.
I’ll post an update in after 28th August to let you know how I get on.
Looking across Loch Katrine to a lovely Scottish mountain. Photographed by myself September 2024
Jesus said, “… Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
Matthew 17:20
I was journaling around something the other day and was thinking of how one can let things on top you and then keep piling upwards – like fear, anxiety, uncertainty, worry, etc. This is sample of what I wrote
…you take today and yesterday and all your yesterdays and carry them into tomorrow allowing the pile to grow and morph, to cast shadows across your world
Each day the mountain grows, bigger, more substantial, more present
It seems immovable.
Then the above verse popped into my head and it was like a light bulb moment. Jesus wasn’t talking about physically rearranging the topography of the world, not trying to move literal mountains. I think he was talking of those mountains we all build within ourselves – sometimes called walls. Walls are like mountains but more regular in shape – and how we think they are immovable, or even that we should climb them to get to where we want or to be who we think we are meant to be.
How often do we hear “I need to get over my fear of …” or “I need to push myself to not worry about ….” Always that “I” word. Always that doing word.
Firstly I think we need to be aware of our mountains. Even though they are lots of them are big we have got used to them and think they are just “how we are” and that we need to just, now here’s an interesting word we use, “get over it” or those around us need to “get over it”. We think it is just the way we are whether due to personality, to upbringing, to present circumstance.
So many fears and anxieties course through me on any given day that I sometimes scarcely notice them. They’re just part of my blood.
But what if instead we slow down a bit and noticed we have an issue with, for example, fear of money, fear of the future, anxiety about what other people think, anxiety about the way the world is going, nervous about going into a new place, or asking for something. What if we were willing to acknowledge that we don’t want to live with this mountain that we have to keep climbing every day?
Jesus says we only need a tiny bit of faith to do that. A mustard seed is a very small seed but is really important in Middle Eastern cuisine, the plant reaches maturity very quickly and can grow almost anywhere. A great example of something that can take the place of that mountain we thought we had to live with, thought we had to “get over” any time we had to go beyond our safe space.
I ended my journaling by writing – that even though Jesus can dismantle any mountain and throw it into the sea he will always need our permission to do it. And this is why, too often, we have to keep climbing that self same mountain because we don’t trust Jesus/God/The Universe and so don’t give them that permission to get rid of our self build mountains.
Renly climbing a mountain near Aber Falls March 2025 photographed by myself.
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Not totally relevant to the post but it was the look Renly gave me as I went “yes I get it” – taken today – July 2025
So after posting yesterday’s post I was feeling a bit “blah!” and then a bit condemned. There I’d written this post about being filled with living water and I wasn’t feeling excited and joyous. So I did what always works for me and journaled around my thoughts.
Ok first off there were things about why I was feeling “blah!” which were good to acknowledged, moving on to handing them all over to God – which I try to do regularly. But then came the bit which made Renly sit up and look surprised/impressed.
Being filled with God’s living water doesn’t mean I will always feel happy, or even content. I won’t always feel joyous or wanting to be with people or even happy. It is ok to feel disappointed, upset, grieving, nervous, scared, generally pissed off with the world, with family, with the moment. All that is fine.
Christianity isn’t all happy clappy claptrap. It is sadness and sorrows, and being disappointed and things not working out as you’d like, and of being hurt, misunderstood, not listened to, of people you love dying, of putting yourself out and not getting anything back. But the deeper magic, the living water, is about accepting things as they are and of not looking to outside things, people, experiences, that do not really fill you no matter how good they way seem.
Oh we all see sleeping around, drink, drugs, overeating, etc as bad for you and of “not putting God first” but there are other things too – jobs, volunteering, hobbies, relationships, even ministry. All those things can be put before allowing God to hold, to fulfil and to love.
The “living water”, the inner healing and fulfilment, is a gift, an unearned gift, and we need to stop looking elsewhere for it. We need to stop trying to manufacture the gift.
So I have pondered the things that have made me feel how I feel today and I have let God hold those things with me. And you know, together we can make plans on this. Together, with God’s living water, I don’t need to go do anything else.
I’ve always related to the Woman at the well story in John chapter 4 because when I met Jesus I’d had a couple of husbands and the man I was living with wasn’t my husband. He wasn’t even the father of my child. And I met with God in this amazing powerfully tangible way that no amount of scepticism can ever take from me.
But the bit I struggled with was the “living water” thing. It was often preached that this living water would go stale if we didn’t keep giving it away and that, so long as we kept going to church, hearing sermons, doing stuff that needed doing in church and in mission, telling people about Jesus, etc then this living water was always going to be replaced. And that if we didn’t, well then the living water would go stale. It did appear that to keep this living water flowing there was a lot of stuff for us to do.
But I’ve just read Tim Keller’s book Encounters With Jesus and he thinks it isn’t quite like that. This living water is inner healing for us.
[Jesus] … is talking about deep soul satisfaction, about incredible satisfaction and contentment that doesn’t depend on what is happening outside of us
pp 26-7
The woman at the well wasn’t getting true inner satisfaction with her relationships. What made the change inside her was when she let God “quench her thirst,” let God fully fill her up in her inner most being, in that part of er heart, our hearts, that are longing for unconditional love, to be safe being ourselves, that place where total contentment comes from.
So doesn’t matter what our relationships are like, what are jobs are like, what our planet is like, etc etc, we feel this inner peace, this inner joy, this inner contentment. And we don’t need to do any of those things that church says to keep that inner healing, inner peace, that “living water”. It is a total free gift from God. In fact doing those things that some sermons tell us so that we keep that “living water”, so that we never thirst for deep contentment again, are actually us trying to sort out the outer situations when what Jesus promised is that inner deep place of our hearts; to be healed of the traumas and neglects of childhood, of other people, of misunderstanding something and so getting hurt by it, of a deep felt need for something. This is the living water, this place where we will never thirst or chase for it elsewhere.
I think the reason that the people of the town came rushing out to see Jesus is not just the words the woman said, but that they saw a change in the countenance of the woman. They saw something deep had change within her and now their husbands, sons, brothers, male relatives, were safe from her because she no longer needed a man, a relationship, to find her deep inner peace, her inner fulfilment.
Like many I do forget or am aware of that “living water” and might at times be looking to other things – relationship, a good writing session, being noticed and heard – to fill those spaces but really I need to stop. I need to remember where I was 34 years ago, remember the encounter I had with God, and allow the living water to touch that place within me again, to heal me again, to remind me again.
One definition of repentance is to turn 180 degrees and be facing the other way and whenever I’m feeling like I’m looking for something else to heal me, to give me fulfilment, to fill that hole, then I just need to turn around and stand in that living water again, that acceptance of Jesus just as I am. And remember I am loved unconditionally by the Creator of The Universe no matter what I do say or act.
Aspirational Adventures 
