Tag: Jesus

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taking initiative underserving

But Do They Deserve It?

Red Wharf Bay May 2025

I was reading some reflections about The Good Samaritan story in preparation for youth group tonight. One of the points I came across that struck me was that the guy that got beaten up shouldn’t have been travelling alone along that road with wealth. It served him right that he got beaten up because he should have been in a group or with guards.

Taking that on board this means that the two people who walk past were not walking alone. They would have been in groups. So it isn’t just a priest travelling on his own or a Levite travelling on his own. It is highly possible these people would have been part of a larger group who all just walked on past. Maybe the others in the group, whether fellow travellers or guards, looked to the religious people for guidance and so didn’t stop. The people listening to Jesus’s story would have known it wouldn’t have been a lone priest or a lone Levite. Perhaps another point Jesus was making, that we have lost in our age because we didn’t travel that road, was about how often we look at those we see as “in charge” and follow them even if we don’t think what they are doing is right.

But also it was this man’s fault. He should have had protection but he didn’t. He brought what happened to him on himself. Again Jesus’s original hearers would have known that.

So what, I think, Jesus was trying to get us to hear in this parable is not just “would you help someone who isn’t of your tribe?” but “would you help someone who brought their problems on themselves?” and “would you be willing to step out of the crowd and do something rather than wait for an authority figure to tell you to do something?”

Most of us are willing to help someone who is in a bad way threw no fault of their own but it is different if it is say they made a bad life call and life has beat up on them but if we think they could have stopped it but they didn’t.

So who is my neighbour? Not just the needy person but the undeserving person. Not just the person I am told to help but the person I can see needs help.

Somehow that has been fudged out of the story. I hope I can bring that in for my youth this afternoon. I also hope I can bring it into my life and not just say “well that serves you right” or as I remember being told once when I was in mess “well you made your bed now you can lie in it”.

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
Flexible interesting

Be Flexible

https://dailyverses.net/2025/6/3

I know I’ve written about being flexible before but I love it when a Bible verse pops up in my inbox that is so relevant to my day.

Today looked like being a full day so I journaled how best to fit everything in, had my plan ready, and then the day changed shape. Firstly those who come to the writing groups I run steadily cancelled one by one so that now it looks like there might be just one person but she hasn’t got back to me just to confirm. But even if she does running a writing group for just one person is very different to running it for 5-6.

Then I drove up to school where I’m doing some emotional support work with a lad to get told that someone was in from SEN to observe him and after some discussion between myself and the deputy head we decided that it would not be beneficial if I took him out of class.

Change! Change! Change!

I know at one time I’d have been really angry about things and also not sure what to do, but today yes I did have a little “oh my what shall I do?” moment but was able to ANS [realign my autonomic nervous system], breath, and thank God for this space in my day. Not that at the moment I need great spaces because life seems pretty chilled at the moment – with even a holiday approaching on Friday.

Again at one time I would have panicked that I have all this free time and I should be filling it but now I trust to God/The Universe that they know what’s going on and that it is ok to just be rather than do.

And to also remember this from Matt Kelland

So now today I’ve done this post. Then I will do some more major decluttering of my study because I bought 3 wooden crates on Sunday and am having a revamp. It looks good but there seems to have been an explosion of paperwork from somewhere, which probably needs recycling! Either that or I’ll sit in the garden and read a book!

Categories
others self

Do It For Yourself

A fascinating tree near Red Wharf Bay. Photographed by myself May 2025

Love your neighbour as yourself

Mark 12:31

I know I’ve mentioned this verse many times before but I had a new revelation today. And this is what I love about the Bible. It is the living word of God not a static set of rules. It has something new to say to us often if we are willing to listen.

I was doing some QEC work around writing my memoir novel and exploring why I’d stopped not just sharing on Substack but stopped writing almost completely.

What came from it was that I’d got into writing for submission, for sharing with the new writing support group I met whilst on the memoir writing course, and got into wanting to make it “right” – which is another word like “enough” which is not quantifiable.

What I had stopped doing was writing it for me; writing for the joy and love of writing. At the end of last year and the start of this I just let the words pour from my finger tips and learned loads about myself as I let it flow. Yes I do have a dream of publishing it but back then my first goal was to get it written for me; was to write for myself.

So where does the above bible verse come in? Well as I’ve said before it has been translated the wrong way round. The original read “love yourself so you can love your neighbour” and as I’ve said previously if we don’t love ourselves then we can’t love our neighbours, can’t love anyone else fully because too often we are trying to love people so they like us. If I love myself then I don’t need others to love and affirm me. I like it when they do but that isn’t my reason for befriending and hanging out with them.

So it struck me in the middle of this QECing was that I need to love and want to read my book, that I need to be writing it for me and no one else, that I am doing it for me not for publication, not for anyone else, but for me. Then I will be able to write my story my way which will then be the way it is meant to be [possibly the “right” way!!]

But that isn’t just for my story but for everything I do whether that be housework, running writing groups, speaking to others, when I’m on my dog walks, driving my car, cooking tea, being with my family. I must be doing it for me not for others and if I do that then it will flow and I will be at peace and I will be kind and generous, not fearful, not checking if it “works” or if I’ve “got it right” but will just flow, will just be me, will not be doing it to get a need met.

I think it is why I enjoyed my birthday this year because everything we did was what I wanted to do. Yes there were tweaks due to dogs not being able to walk as far as they use to and my children tired due to traveling up to us. But it was tweaks for me to enjoy it more not to make it “right” and trying to please others. And guess what? Yup everyone had a good time because I was going with my flow.

Too often we are taught that we are being selfish if we do what we want to do but I think that is a lie. Most of us, if we love and respect ourselves and are doing what gives us joy, will not do harm to others but actually will be nicer people and people others will enjoy being around because we flow with what we want rather than double checking what others might want.

So I would also write that verse as “do all you do with love, peace and flow, without worrying about what others might want, and then that will give others space so they can flow around with you in love and peace”

Renly by the fascinating tree. May 2025

Categories
acceptance humble

What Sort of Pride?

Photo by Alexander Grey on Pexels.com

A friend of mine was telling me how she wasn’t happy about the concept of Gay Pride. She said it wasn’t because she was anti gay but it was the word “pride” and the biblical “pride comes before a fall” [Proverbs 6:18] and of pride being one of the seven deadly sins. It got me thinking about the word and different meanings of pride especially as when I run writing groups with adults or children I encourage them to be proud of their work; to have pride in what they do. Then later on that same day someone was bemoaning trying to get a settlement with their estranged husband and said “typical male pride”.

The different meanings of the word PRIDE

  • take pride in something/someone

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/pride

I think the Proverbs verse means don’t think too highly of yourself; don’t be prideful. But that Gay pride is to know your own worth and respect yourself. Very different meanings to the same word.

This is one of the problems with the English language I think. Too often there is only one word but many meanings. It is also where things get mixed up when looking at the Bible, a book that was written in at least three very different languages and then translated into many others. Too often the translation comes via Latin which is too often limited in its wording – eg the word we use as Love as many different forms in the Hebrew and at least six in Greek, all with different connotations. A bit like the Eskimos having many words for snow and the Welsh have at least 26 words for rain.

So I agree that none of us should think we are any better than anyone else, prideful, but I think that we should all be content with who we are, be proud of our achievements, be proud when we see those we love and care for doing well. It isn’t this sort of pride that comes before a fall but the sort of pride that stops us asking for help, stops us helping others, stops us realising that we have faults too. The pride we need to live and walking is a humble pride of knowing our strengths and our weaknesses, knowing our wants and needs, and be open and caring to ourselves and each other. True pride [not pridefulness] means we can truly love ourselves and so truly love our neighbour because we know what we can and cannot do.

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Feet hands

Why Wash Feet Not Hands?

Photo by Yan Krukau on Pexels.com

I know why Jesus washed his disciples feet – because it was what servants did to everyone who entered the house. It was to wash the dirt of the streets off those sandaled [without socks] dirty, dusty, feet. It is something that is repeated across many churches on Maundy Thursday [yesterday] across the world, and sometimes used at other times of the year to signify someone, generally in leadership, desiring to serve others.

Back in Jesus’s day it was easy though to wash feet. I’m not sure if they did it with or without sandals but even if it was without then it was easy to slip off a sandal. I remember once being at a meeting where this woman wanted to wash all our feet. Great gesture I thought, but I was wearing long boots with buckles etc and I was worried my socks would be holey or something. For me it was a big hassle and I got grumpy about it. It would have been so much easier if she’d washed my hands instead. No faffing with taking boots off, no then having to get feet properly dry before putting socks and boots back on again. Easy!

Easy but actually doesn’t really signify anything.

I think the reason that it should still be feet is because it is more of a thing, more of a faff. And hands one should wash often.

Hands we wash ourselves on a regular basis – before eating, after the toilet, before preparing food, after craft activities, etc.

How often do you really wash your feet? Ok so you stand in the shower or lie in the bath and your feet get wet and hopefully cleaned off from the water around you. But do you really give your feet the attention that you give your hands?

Feet are really important to our daily health. Here’s a quote from the government’s Medline Plus website

Foot problems … can sometimes signal other health issues such as arthritis, diabetes, or nerve damage. Left untreated, they can even cause pain and dysfunction in other parts of your body, including your back, hips, and knees.

And this one

Our feet, containing a quarter of the bones in our body, bear the weight of our entire body daily!

Our feet, that so many of us take so little care of, look after us so much.

So I think, even though yes as I say again I know the Middle Eastern servant reason for Jesus washing his disciples’ feet but also I think whenever we are in a place that does the washing of feet Last Supper tradition that we keep it as feet and don’t turn it into the easier washing of hands. It is like remembering to say that we are going to care for those bits that get forgotten, that get hidden away and yet are so important to our whole well being.

Perhaps in this modern day when this is done as well as remembering backwards to Jesus we can also think about those people who get forgotten and often who are hidden but who are so important.

Duh that’s what servants were!

Look after your feet because they are your often forgotten servants. And look after those in your community who are hidden but important. And don’t try and skip to something easier.

Categories
Love sacrifice

Do you love me more than these? 

The Look of Love – photographed by myself March 2025

I was listening to these words from John 21:15-17 where Jesus asked Peter if he loves him more than “these”. If acted then Jesus is shown pointing to the other disciples on the beach. Often this has been taken as a counter to Peter saying before Jesus got arrested that even if the all the others denied Jesus he wouldn’t and then he goes and denies him three times, hence why Jesus asks if he loves him three times in the redemption part. So basically a “do you love me more than these other disciples do?”

But what if Jesus is asking “do you love me more than these earthly things that are important to you?” in the sense that does Peter love Jesus more than he loves his friends, more than he loves fitting in with everyone else, more than he loves being a part of this clique? Would that make a difference?

I think it can be easy to try to love/care for/honour/do better than/follow someone more than someone else. But also that is a judgement and is one of those things in self-care and mental health one is encouraged not to do – not to compare. Comparing comes with the word “enough” and then there’s some oughts and shoulds thrown in.

I could never know if I loved Jesus or even another human more than someone else because I don’t know what’s going on inside their heads. But to love someone more than loving fitting in/ being part of something/being in safe tribe now that is hard and sacrificial.

Interesting that often this is then used to encourage us to judge and compare rather than to sacrifice!

Categories
Holy Week Yr Wythnos Fawr

Yr Wythnos Fawr

[Literal translation from Welsh to English is The Great Week]

Photo by JINU JOSEPH on Pexels.com

I love the Christian Holy Week, or as the literal Welsh translation calls it “The Great Week”, that week from Palm Sunday through to Easter Sunday. I can see myself in so many of the characters – part of the crowd that gets excited because everyone else is excited on the Sunday. I often don’t need to know what’s going on to get emotionally involved – to cry at a single musical theatre song, to cheer when someone wins something even if I’m not sure of the event. People’s emotions connect with me, which means I could also see myself as part of the angry mob too because I could so easily get caught up with the moment.

I can understand why the disciples asked Jesus why he was curing the fig tree, why he trashed the temple, wonder what he was on about when he said the temple would be rebuild in three days; have traveled with him for so long and yet still not got the message.

I could so easily have been Judas, not so much betraying but trying to force Jesus’ hand in, what I saw was a safer or more effective way; could have been Peter who one day totally gets it and calls Jesus Messiah then later on denies him when he’s afraid of the consequences.

Knowing the end of the story I’d love to say that I would have just done the cheering, just done the Messiah acknowledging, not denied, not thought Jesus wasn’t sure what he was doing, would have totally got what was going on. But that’s because I know what happens next.

I realise, if I’m totally honest with myself, if I was there and didn’t know what came next I would be as fallible as the rest of those there. I would have slept when I should have been awake, would have run away when I should have stayed, would have hidden behind locked doors rather than have walked boldly.

So this year as I listen to the Bible Society read to me the The Great Week stories – I try to remember how fickle and fallible that I truly am. And then remember that God knows that anyway and loves me unconditionally anyway.

Categories
Temptations Wilderness

How Do We Know It Is True?

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I’m ploughing my way through The Bible Society’s Lent course Ploughing not because it isn’t great but because I’m not great at having to do things daily. But I love the way things get highlighted for me.

Yesterday was Jesus in the wilderness and what struck me, especially as a storyteller, and having read something about a new book about some Christian movement being accused of exaggerated over the top retelling of tales, is how do we know these things really happened???

Now Jesus doesn’t strike me as someone who would have boasted about his 40 days in the wilderness, or boasted about how he dissed the devil. So how did the writers of the three gospels it is featured in know?

It is a bit like the angel talking to Mary or Mary’s song to Elizabeth or many other things that happen with just the person concerned and a godly presence or in the Temptations a not-godly presence. We don’t know. Or we know because they probably told someone else.

I’m hoping that maybe when Jesus was walking all those many miles with his disciples, all those miles we are never told what goes on, and all those nights they spent sleeping under the stars, that it came out in bits and pieces, which the storytellers then put into something coherent.

I think in my God journey I am reaching that point where I agree with this quote

The Bible is a true story but not always factual. The truth of the Bible doesn’t come from the facts of the stories, but rather from the spiritual meaning of those stories. The true ideas the Bible teaches have little to do with history, geology, or any matters of the natural world, but have everything to do with the spiritual world and the things that really matter in our lives.

Amos Glenn, MINemergent: A Daily Communique (March 27, 2012)

Does it really matter how long Jesus was in the wilderness? Or whether the conversation between him and the devil was recorded verbatim? I don’t think so. I think instead of trying to decide if this really happened like this, whether it is the Temptation story or any of the other stories is that we need to ask God what the spiritual truth is behind this.

I do like the idea of Jesus’ follower one evening over supper saying “Go on tell us what really happened after you were baptised. Where did you? What happened?” And Jesus giving what he recalls of that time.

I would love it if he said things like “I was so hungry and knew what I could do but I knew it would be better if I carried on being hungry so I could hear God clearer.” “I know how this story pans out and I know I could make it easier but I know that if I go as the Father and I have planned then it will be better for you.”

I think Jesus responded to those temptations that are so common to us all in the way that is recorded to show he put humankind first and wanted what is best of for us all.

I binged watched “Zero Day”, a latest Netflix series, over the last two days because I was home alone. It is a great US conspiracy series but the bit that struck me, that I think is the truth of all that Jesus did, was when the President says something along the lines of “we were voted in not for what we wanted but for the good of the American people” [I’m not even going to go down the ‘is this happening now?’ route]

These temptations of Jesus, I believe, may or may not have happened, but the story is told to say that often we can do things easier, we can take short cuts, we can find a way that means we don’t get hurt, but in the long run would that really help those people we are called to serve, to be with, to witness to?

I’ll finish with another quote that says so succinctly what I’m saying here, I think,

“You prayed “use me Lord” and thought God was going to put you on a platform to speak or sing. What you didn’t know was that He was going to have you navigating through a bunch of trials so you could bless people with your testimony of resilience and not just your gifts.” -Nate Evans Jr.

Jesus was willing to go through those trials for each one of us and, I think, that is what the story of the Temptations is telling us. And is what we are meant to emulate.

Categories
fruit repentance

Produce Fruit In Keeping With Repentance

Photographed by myself in our local park December 2021

Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.

Matthew 3:8 – NIV

or as it says in the CEV version

Do something to show you have given up your sins

This is John the Baptist in full rant by the Jordan river.

Something happened last night that made me read this verse this morning in a different light. So I’ve always seen this verse to be about doing good things, about not breaking the 10 commandments and much more. I’ve thought it meant doing good deeds, of helping the poor, of being cheerful, etc, etc. But last night I was grappling with being put in a position I’m not comfortable with.

This is the uncomfortable position – I came up with an idea about a family event with music and food at a local park. I’ve since realised that I am being expected to coordinate and organise everything and last night that sent me into a tailspin and I was awake from about 3am. I am a visionary and an encourager but I am not great at going into places and asking people to do things. Ask me to get people together so they can do an event [which is what I do with the local areas different Messy Church leaders] and I’m great. But then someone else has to sort out the how, what, when, where, etc.

I did pray and what came to my head was to ask people to pray for someone to help me and to be open about my vulnerability. I sent the request to a group of ladies I’ve only just connected with, as well as to close friends.

Then this morning I read this verse.

I am sure I am not the only person who struggles to ask people to help.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who tries to push through when I’m not comfortable doing so.

I’m sure I’m not the only who doesn’t like to say “I can do this but cannot this”.

But if I am a new creation, if the Son of The Creator God has truly set me free, if I am truly repentant of my old life, then I should be able to be vulnerable, should be able to say “I can’t do that” and should be able to ask for help.

To me this is “producing fruit in keeping with repentance” or showing that I have given up my “sin” of self-reliance.

A friend mention about being a leaf and not tree [I’ve got a poem coming together around this] and I think this is part of repenting of being self-reliant, of producing the fruit of connectivity and community. It is repenting of “going it alone” and producing fruit of “needing others even if they hurt at times.”

After reading this verse this morning after my sleepless but revelatory night I am now going to have a ponder what other areas in my life I “miss God’s mark” and where I need to “turn around” and see what fruit is really there.

There’s more to producing the fruit of repentance than just going good things.