Tag: Jesus

Categories
Distractions enough peace

Distracted By Many Things

Single focus dog. Photographed by myself Cardiff April 2024

This week I have been distracted by many things. I’ve got 3 workshops I am running with funding from Creu Conwy which seemed to have taken ages to finalise but now are imminent. The first two are next week! Also they are in the evening – one from 5-7pm and the other from 6-8pm, times when I am usually in that downward curve energy-wise and just want to mooch about and watch TV. Though I have had a few nights where I have been functioning after my 6pm deadline – once with a new churchy-style group that we’ve started in my house and a couple of trips to the cinema with hubby. But I’m panicking about these workshops because I will have to be the one who is fully alert.

It has amazed me how quickly I get distracted. I’m also doing an online writing course which is great but again is making me worry about that old adage of “not having enough time”. How many times have I written about not having enough. Perhaps I need to be reading my writings not just writing them??

But it also means that, even though I have been reading my Bible meditations and thinking I’ve not been thinking deeply. Not letting things penetrate into my heart.

This week’s Henri Nouwen thoughts are about Celebrating and how one needs to be in that moment to really celebrate, how lots of what and when we celebrate is a going through the motions rather than actually celebrating. So the event is something that sits between the stress of planning and the anticlimax after the event, but that celebration should be a lifestyle thing. I need to remember that I am to enjoy running these workshops and not just caught up in the preparation and then the feedback.

So once again I am like Martha [Luke 10:38-42] where Jesus says “Martha you are worried about many thing but the better thing is to sit at my feet like your sister“.

I was worrying about things. Ok not little things. These things are quite big – running these writing workshops, not being too exhausted because of the time I am doing them, getting the work handed in for the writing workshop I have paid for, and the having enough sleep, time, ability!

Interestingly the other night I was awake worrying about, of all things, having enough energy and enough time, exasperated by being awake from 3.30-5.30am. I had a full day in front of me and a long list of planning not just for the workshop but other things that I had to do. But, as you’ve probably already guessed, I got everything that needed to be done on the list completed and even managed to stay up till 10pm with my husband watching TV as well has having walked my 10,000+ steps. It was as if God was saying “look you can do it. All will be well”.

Also I do know I have the ability to run these workshops. I do an amazing job every Tuesday fortnight with my regular group and can pull things from the depths of my brain when needed. I know I can do it but I get distracted and once I get distracted I move away from God and also move away from celebrating the joys of being alive.

As I’ve said before though, there is an order for how this comes about. To really be able to feel I have enough I need to be at Peace. From that place of Peace comes a deep Joy and only then do I believe I have Enough. And what has gone on this week is that I had to realign my autonomic nervous system back to a place of peace – which does just take a few moments of breathing and looking at the window, of remembering what I have to be grateful for, and forgiving myself and others. For me going through the Lord’s Prayer but an Aramaic translation, helps me.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/88875792626618323/

Only then do I start to remember that deeper joy that is a bedrock not a happy feeling. And it is then that I feel like I have enough. Today it means I can say “I have enough time to do a blog post – with many pictures – before going away for the weekend even though my first workshop is Tuesday”.

My whole thoughts have been consumed by these workshops to the point where a friend asked me for coffee and I said I was too busy!!! And also nearly didn’t go south with my husband to see his Mum which has now turned out to be a trip to see my Mum too. Goodness me! Fancy me thinking I don’t have enough time to see family or friends! As well as the Lord’s Prayer I did have to have a chat with my covid-bird to be reminded that friends and cups of tea are important.

Picture first shared on Relearning June 2023

Categories
beatitudes Praus

Be-Attitude

Conwy Beach photographed by myself May 2024

Little shell just doing its thing

Waiting for the tide to return

It doesn’t stress

It doesn’t strive

It just waits patiently

doing its thing

Lines written just after taking a photo of this little shell on the beach. It really struck me how it was just there, wide open, and just being. Then yesterday I read Josh Luke Smith’s latest Main Event email and felt somehow the two things smooch together. It is about our attitude – hence the beatitude/be-attitude title

Josh shares how the word “meek” in the verse “blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth” means “Praus”. Praus was a Greek word to mean

… an animal that had been trained and domesticated until it was entirely under control, such as a horse that responded to the slightest movement and direction from its rider when being ridden into battle. Likewise, the person who is praus is the one who has every instinct and every passion under perfect control …

www.joshualukesmith.com

It doesn’t mean, as I have heard preached and taken to believe – and seen people try to act out – that mild, subservient, wishy-washy type of person that none of us really wants to be or to be around. It means something strong. It means someone who has such deep inner strength that they can keep every instinct, every passion, every desire, every need under total control.

How often do we see this in our leaders? How often do we see it in ourselves?

I don’t know about you but I want that. I want to be able to hold every instinct and passion in perfect control. Not so it is bubbling under the surface. Not holding it there with resentment. Not holding it there to “be a good Christian”. But holding it there because I know that I can trust God in every thing.

Having ridden horses I know that even though every horse I’ve ridden has been properly trained and brought into “praus” I know that the ones I’ve ridden best on are those who trust my leading. When I am uncertain the horse hasn’t trusted me. Watch the dressage on the Horse of The Year show sometime. These horses are big beasts who could do anything but they are in “praus” and they trust their riders.

I think one of the reasons why it was so prophetic when those Horse Guard horses ran amok in London was because they exploded out of that place of having their instincts under total control of their rider, that when the loud bang happened they no longer trusted their riders, but also that, I think, the riders panic too. We have heard a lot from this about the horses but nothing about how those riders felt as the loud crash happened. Were they not so experienced? We don’t know. But there was a disconnect between horse and rider, a lost of trust, so that those horses responded to their base instinct and ran. Read Sue Sinclair’s prophecy here

So how do we get ourselves to that place of “praus” where all our instincts and passions are under control? How do we pray for our leaders so that they can led from that place?

I think, as with the teachings of Alcoholics Anonymous’ 12 steps program, we need to believe in something higher than ourselves and we need support from others. Even with the QEC healing, though my practitioner doesn’t believe in God she does hand things to the Universe. It isn’t all about “me” . Those horses don’t give up their natural instincts because they think it is a good idea. They do it because they trust in that higher power. The same with my dog. So much of his life is built on trust.

So when Jesus says “blessed are the meek” remember that to be meek is not to be weak but to be so strong you can let go of your own needs and trusts in a higher power to set you fully free.

I’ll finish with another quote from Josh’s Main Event email –

Jesus said to them, “If you live in submission to God, if you pursue reverence and become Praus, everything you long for, you’ll receive” In the words of Eugene Peterson, “You’ll become proud owners of everything that can’t be bought”. You may not have material goods, land and gold (that you’ll only fight to hold onto and own), but you will have your soul and a place in God’s new creation where everything that has been lost and stolen will be restored.

And pray that we can all be like that shell waiting, trusting, and knowing.

Renly wondering why I’m taking a photo of the shell but trusting that it is something he needs to be involved in too
Categories
carpenter fishermen

Jesus Was A Carpenter – Part Two

Hebrew Fishermen. Historic color print of Fishermans boat on the lake in i.e., Israel

Have you ever wondered what sort of boats the Peter, Andrew, James and John had? Do you imagine them as more primitive versions of modern boats? Above is a historic print of Hebrew fishermen so is probably similar to the boats the Biblical fishermen used. It isn’t that big! No wonder when the storm rose the seasoned fishermen were scared. They had probably lost friends and family in an Galilean storm.

So hold this in your head. These men are seasoned fishermen. They might not be very old but they have been fishing since they could stand, probably. And probably from generations of fishermen.

Read Luke 5 from the beginning because often when we hear Bible stories we start in the middle.

At this point Jesus is just a itinerant preacher. According to Luke’s account he’s been baptised, been tempted in the desert, has read scripture in his local synagogue and nearly killed for it, and has started healing. He turns up at Lake Galilee and starts teaching the people about God. It is all getting a bit crowded and probably unsafe so he gets into Peter’s boat and asks him to take him a bit away from the shore. Probably so he was he was just a bit too far out for people to wade out to meet him.

At this point, I think things were probably pretty normal. Itinerant preachers sharing God’s word were not unusual at this time. From what I’ve read even healing people was not unusual. Things going on God-wise in the region. But the next bit is where things get different.

Jesus the carpenter and itinerant preacher tells the seasoned experienced fishermen to go into the deeper water and put down their nets.

Now Peter and his crew have two choices – either tell Jesus that he’s being daft or do it. And this is where the miracle comes in for me. For me it isn’t that they then catch lots of fish after and unsuccessful night’s fishing but it is that they obey the carpenter!

Their success comes from believing the words of the carpenter/itinerant preacher/stranger.

We’re never told what Jesus was preaching when he was in the boat. Just that it was the Word of God. [Usual Bible stuff of details, which 2000 year on could be very important] But I don’t think it was just the quantity of fish caught that caused Peter to repent and for all the others to give up their livelihoods and follow Jesus. Preachers says it was the authority he spoke with or the words he used. But I’m left to wonder there if there was authority then how come the people in the synagogue turned on him? Where was the authority there?

There is something going on between these skilled and seasoned fishermen and this stranger which is not revealed fully. We can only guess why one group of people is willing to obey and another want to kill him.

In previous posts I’ve put about how we can often only reach people if we have been through similar things to them but this has made me think otherwise.

I wonder if we truly believed and trusted Jesus would we have that same power? Could we then help those whose journeys we don’t know or understand?

Jesus did support the fishermen by giving them something to support their families with but he didn’t put them right. I wonder if too often we barge in and think we know the answer when we haven’t checked with God “where the fish are” so to speak.

Categories
Bible imagining

Jesus Was A Carpenter

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Pexels.com

I often think when we read the Bible we don’t engage with it as we would a regular book. I do wonder if it is because we’ve heard the stories too often, or they are shared as a part of a sermon to show something else, or as children we’ve already seen the simplified pictures. When I read a book I am lost in it. I empathise with the characters, decide if I like them or not, create images in my head of what they look like. I am part of that book and, especially if it is a good book, I devour it. It is also why those of us who are intense readers find it hard to watch the film of the book because the director and producer’s ideas of what people look like, how they react to things, is often different to ours.

I do my best with many Bible story to engage with them though actually the Bible is written in a form that, even though I like writing it, I struggle to read – the short story. The Bible is a series of short stories or pontificatings. It is not a novel one that stays on a single story for 300+ pages.

I’ve just randomly opened my Bible in the gospel of John. In a double page spread there are 5 different stories or themes. If I want to make the most of it I have to spend 5 different periods of time really getting lost in that. Something I’m not good at but also something I think we all, in our instant McDonald’s culture, struggle with.

To make the most of these vignettes of not just Jesus’s life but lives of all those in the both the Old and New Testaments we need to fill in the backstory, the emotions, the “what comes next”, the whys, the scenery, who else was there, etc, etc, etc. We get this with a novel, and even a short story. The author does that for us. But in the Bible no one does that and then a preacher will pick out bits to make a point but will not often flesh out the story. But even if they do it isn’t ourselves doing that in our own imaginations for ourselves.

Though that word is often a frowned on word to use by some denominations when reading the Bible – Imagination! For some it is as if the words are set in stone. Though what stone can often be a challenge if you dared ask the question. [I have posted on this before in various places. Here’s one of them]

I’ve been told that The Chosen is a great series to watch which does flesh out the Bible stories. I have to be honest and say I haven’t yet seen it. Though I wonder if some of that is me just being reluctant to watch the film about a good book I’ve read in case the production disagrees with my interpretation? I’m sure there will come a point when I know it is the right time to watch it

Tomorrow I’m going to reveal why I picked the above as the title for this piece. I want to go no further with this thought at the moment.

Categories
leaders to boldly go

Zacchaeus

Trees over the road from my house. Were the people of Jericho lined up on a street siilar to mine? And did Zacchaeus climb a tree similar to one of these? Photographed by myself May 2024

As you can tell from previous posts I like to imagine myself in the Bible stories. For me it helps me to ask questions of what was really going on, which leads me to question many of the things that get taught from “up the front”.

The story of Zacchaeus [Luke 19:1-10] did this to me along with something my husband said about a talk that he’d heard on this story, amongst other things.

The story in a nutshell is about a greedy tax collector climbs a tree to see Jesus. Jesus sees him and invites himself to Zacchaeus’s house, which upsets the local people and then Zacchaeus repays the money he has exhorted from the people.

Note –

  • Zacchaeus was a Jew working for the Romans and not just taking taxes but ripping off his countrymen, some of whom would have been his relatives. That’s something we forget in our society where so many of us live so far from our parents, children, relatives.
  • When Jesus says “I want to stay with you today” or in some versions “eat with you today” it wasn’t just Jesus. It would have been his whole entourage. Imagine says the King coming to your town, noticing you and saying he was going to eat with you. You would then be having to provide food for about 20+ people not just a tete-a-tete with King Charles
  • Many sermons talk about how amazing Zacchaeus was to give back for times what he had taken. That wasn’t a revelation to Zacchaeus. That was him fulfilling the law. The giving half his wealth to the poor was the awesome bit. – Do you ever wonder what those people who were repaid did with the 4 times repayment? Did they then squirrel it away or were they generous with it?

As I pondered this story I wondered how much time Jesus and Zacchaeus actually spoke to each other. I got to wondering whether as the entourage of disciples, etc were settling into Zacchaeus’s house whether Matthew [an ex-tax collector] came along side Zacchaeus and had a chat about Jesus, forgiveness, a freer way of life, and all the other benefits he had discovered of letting go of that old life of cheating, of fear, of being ostracized, etc. I wondered if it was through that conversation with someone who had “walked the walk” that converted Zacchaeus?

By this point Jesus had sent out the 72 in groups of 12 [Luke 10:1-23] – 2 disciples and 10 others possibly – to “heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’” [Luke 10: 9] So all the disciples and at least 60 others from the group were evangelising and healing. So why would Jesus then take back the reins when he had already sent them off on their own?

Well I don’t think Jesus did take back the reins. I believe he was secure in his identity and his calling that he didn’t feel the need to always be in control. I really do believe that he allowed the conversation to flow and to see what happened. It was obvious Zacchaeus was starting on that journey of wanting to change when he climbed the tree to get a better look at Jesus and, I think, Jesus knew that.

But I also think too often we have church leaders who want not just be the one who says “wow that is awesome. This person has found freedom in Jesus” but they want to control the whole thing. They want to be the ones to take the credit and to make sure things are done “the right way”. I don’t think Jesus cared about “the right way” at all. I believe Jesus was all about the “heart way”

I think Jesus knew we can only fully change and fully come to know him and truly following him if we chat and get to know people who’ve been in our position. The reason that Alcoholics Anonymous is so successful in helping people be free of alcohol is that it is run by those who understand the problems that come with alcohol and how easy they found it to be addicted. It also works because there are no leaders. Each person is encouraged to lead a meeting after a certain period of being “dry” and all are always able to tell their story and their journey. And it is that which helps others in the group, no matter what stage they are at, to continue in their healing.

I can support friends who’ve been through similar journeys to myself and can be supported by friends who “get it”. All of us struggle when someone comes in to “put us right” or as Christine Sine says “to demolish rather than renovate” us

I also think we too often hide behind leaders and will say “they didn’t say to do it” rather than be led to do it. Sue Sinclair of Christian Watchmen Ministries says “An intercessor … actually a ministry for every one of us.” but how often do we bemoan that there’s “no one praying” or “no one telling us to pray”.

I don’t think Jesus told his disciples what to do. I think he showed them the way but let them outwork it within their own personalities and own recovery and own life experiences. But I do think he expected them to do. As I write this I wonder if when he picked “the 12 apostles” he picked them from a larger group who had been following him because they were the ones who didn’t wait to be told to do but just got on and started talking to people because they had picked up Jesus’s heart?

So from this I know I need to walk out in who I am and talk to those that I connect with, who understand me and I understand them, but also I need to always be connecting with Jesus so I know his heart for each and everyone of the lovely people that pass my way.

So let us all be bold and step and stop waiting for some leader to tell us what to do!

Categories
enough Mystery

There is Enough

Renly 12 years ago. He would only have been 5 months old. Photographed by myself April 2012

Renly, my little dog, has not been well the past few days. He had a bad stomach and didn’t eat much, had diarrhea, and had to sleep in the dining room because I was exhausted by taking him out in the night many times and decided it was better to clear the dining room floor and get some sleep. He seems to have slowed down with his illness. He is over 12 which actually puts him a similar age to me this year!!! But it got me thinking about his mortality and that thing about pets not living forever.

I’ve also been doing some journaling around questions from Speaking into the Chaos, a Josh Luke Smith course that I would highly recommend. From that came this

For the question “what one wound of humanity’s heart I would heal” I wrote –

“the one wound I would heal in humanity’s heart is the fear of not having enough – enough time/money/friends/health/food/space/resources. I believe if we believe we have enough then we actually appreciate, treasure and are generous with what we have rather than squander or horde it as we do now. We squander and horde in equal measure because we are afraid there is not enough. Fear makes us consume more than we need. Once humanity can truly believe there is enough to go round then there will be no  need to horde, squander or fear others will take it, take what we do not need. There will be no need to fight for it or over it.”

Then Friday afternoon I read The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom. which challenges thoughts about measuring time, worrying about time, trying to control time, not wasting time, etc. One of the characters wants to live forever, another wants not live any more and the main protagonist wanted to measure time. I want to give you this quote though from near the end

“Do you understand now?” he asked [Dor speaking to Victor who wanted to live forever] “With endless time, nothing is special. With no loss or sacrifice, we can’t appreciate what we have.”

p 218 The Time Keeper

I think these thoughts sit together and are something that I pondered in yesterday’s blog, and which, I think, Jesus’s followers on that first Pentecost were healed of. They didn’t need to control time, to worry that there wasn’t enough time or enough resources. They were at peace with what they had or maybe held each other accountable, reminding each other that there was enough.

And it that knowing there was “enough” time, money, resources, food, friends, space, etc that meant they could go off across the world taking what they knew of Jesus freely and without control to other nations. That let them be able to morph and adapt what they knew of Jesus not into a religion but into a way of life. They had no fear of there not being enough or of having to control things. They were free. And that freedom meant they were able to die wherever and whenever the Spirit led them

Sometimes I think we encourage each other to be afraid that there isn’t enough time, money, space, food, friends, etc, etc. Our accountability isn’t to be free of that fear but to make sure we do lots and keep busy because … well because God might catch us just hanging out and being!!!

We need to find that freedom of encouraging each other to accept and believe there is “enough”and that we do “enough”, to remind each other we are loved unconditionally and that all of life is special.

This is the Main Event

Categories
enjoying time

Enjoying Time

Photo by Jordan Benton on Pexels.com

I feel led to write this post today, Pentecost Sunday. A day when we remember the Holy Spirit landing in tongues like fire on Jesus’ follower gathered in Jerusalem. What we often fail to celebrate is the patience of these 120+ people. We don’t know for sure how long they had been in Jerusalem but they had all gathered. It was a special day in the Jewish calendar, so not unusual for them to be gathered. But they didn’t know what was going to happen. Jesus had told them to gather in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to fall but they didn’t know what would happen or how or what next.

Imagine this – they have all been gathered together, chatting, praying, eating, sharing their stories of the last 3 years or so and, I suspect they’d “got it” almost by now. I wonder if they thoughts “well life is short. There isn’t much time, we understand the whole thing Jesus was on about. We’re ready to go.” But they waited And to me that is the miracle. How often are we willing to wait? Wait until God really tells us it is time to go?

But this post isn’t just about waiting it is about accepting we have “enough” time, like we have “enough” of everything really.

The followers of Jesus knew their time was limited but, I hoping, that when they looked back on that time of waiting in Jerusalem that they saw it as special. A time of hanging out together. Of being together. Of, as well as hearing stories also hearing hearts.

So much at the moment is about not “wasting time”. We are brought up with it. How many of us have been told “go and do something useful. Don’t waste time.” Or as we’ve got older instead of being able to relax we are hold, or fear, that we “haven’t done ‘enough’ with our lives”, that we need to do things, “keep busy because we’ll be dead soon”.

We fit in “down time” but it is as an activity rather than a nothing time.

Many of today’s Pentecost sermons will point at how once the Holy Spirit fell all the followers were then busy and doing as if not doing that one isn’t being a “good Christian”. Yet I remember reading a book [can’t remember who it was by now] by an American charismatic preacher who was rushed to A&E with a heart attack. When he was asked his profession the medical staff said “we could have guessed. We get lots like you in here.” and went on to say how, from their experience Christians in ministry was that they were all overworked! Not a good look! Especially when you note that the early church was started by a large group of people waiting. Waiting till power came to them because they knew there was “enough”time to do all God wanted them to do

I’m going to finish with the the whole of Saturday 18th May’s post from Henri Nouwen because to me the whole of it says how hard it is for us to find 10 minutes minimum to just listen to God. Not as an activity but as a joy to be with the one you love and the one who loves you unconditionally

An aside before you read the quote – my husband and I spent yesterday afternoon and evening not doing anything other than hanging out chatting, drinking tea, drinking wine, eating, not planning anything but sharing thoughts and hearts and it was a wonderfully afternoon and evening. We need to be doing that more often with Jesus.

Listen to your heart. It’s there that Jesus speaks most intimately to you. Praying is first and foremost listening to Jesus who dwells in the very depths of your heart. He doesn’t shout. He doesn’t thrust himself upon you. His voice is an unassuming voice, very nearly a whisper, the voice of a gentle love. Whatever you do with your life, go on listening to the voice of Jesus in your heart. This listening must be an active and very attentive listening, for in our restless and noisy world God’s so loving voice is easily drowned out. You need to set aside some time every day for this active listening to God if only for ten minutes. Ten minutes each day for Jesus alone can bring about a radical change in your life.

You’ll find it isn’t easy to be still for ten minutes at a time. You’ll discover straightaway that many other voices, voices that are very noisy and distracting, voices that do not come from God, demand your attention. But if you stick to your daily prayer time, then slowly but surely you’ll come to hear the gentle voice of love and will long more and more to listen to it.

Listen to the Voice of Gentle Love
Categories
cat God Space

God Space

Damson, my cat. Photographed by myself July 2019

We got our cat, Damson, on 1st January 2010. She was a rescue cat and the rescue centre said they thought she was about 6-8 years old. The vet says she has a juvenile personality which is why she still plays like a kitten rather than the old lady she should be. So she is between 20-22 years old, roughly! She can’t jump like she used to so she climbs on to the furniture with her claws out sounding like someone climbing with crampons. It also means her claws get caught occasionally and she is just left hanging!!!

Because she is an indoor cat in our three story house she has lots of fun and exercise and when we go away someone pops in to feed her and empty her litter tray.

She misses us when we’re away and, instead of like cats I’ve owned before who will ignore you for a few days when you’ve been away, Damson charges at us meowing loudly and wants so much attention.

Well it also means that instead of sleeping at the foot of the bed she has decided over the last four nights she needs to be close to me. So she claw-climbs up on to the bed and then presses herself as close to me as she can. For the first two nights she was sleeping under my chin. Temperatures have risen in the UK so this is not a good place for me to get a good night’s sleep. Also if I turn over so I’ve got my back to her she climbs across my back and chest so she is back curled close to me.

So whilst I was not sleeping the other night I got to thinking. We often talk about there being a God shaped hole in our hearts that we fill when we let Jesus in but I got to pondering as to whether God has a “me” spaced hole in them that needs to me to snuggle close to. That God’s desire is for me and you and all of us to snuggle up under their chin, close to their heart, in the warmth of their body and rest there.

Once Damson is tucked up close to me she purrs away loudly and contentedly. Perhaps that is God’s desire for each and everyone of us. Maybe too we would feel like my cat – safe, loved and content and would not feel like we have to do anything to claim that love of God apart from to be close?

Categories
control shame

The Need For Control

St Asaph Monday 15th April 2024 Photgraphed by myself

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Genesis youth group

Genesis 3:15 – I Get It!!

No connection to the post but a cute picture of my dog taken Saturday 13th April 2024 exploring the storm swept beach close to our house

I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will bruise his heel

Genesis 3:15

I have been a follower of Jesus for 32 years now and I’ve never understood this verse until Sunday night a youth group. I’d sort of knowing it was Jesus crushing the serpent’s head and brutally destroying sin – though of course the brutal bit hadn’t occurred to me until Sunday night.

I might be telling you something you already know but if I am humour me. For me this was an awesomely exciting moment.

My lovely vicar friend pointed out to me, as I openly struggled with this verse and slowly gained realisation, that Jesus’s heel was bruised by mankind’s sin which of course the serpent represents here.

I’d often wondered if it had been the serpent/sin having a nip at Jesus as he was on the cross which is why he said some of the things he said. But know it was my sin, your sin, the world’s sin, that was causing the bruising to Jesus. And … now here’s the really exciting bit that I knew anyway …. Jesus took all that sin – mine, yours, the worlds – all those bits where we had missed God’s mark, gone our own way, done hurtful things to others and ourselves. He had taken that. But he was hurt by it.

It was not a blase-this-is-my-role sort of thing. And it wasn’t just the nails and the beatings etc that hurt. It was taking those things that came in through the serpent, thought the deceiver, that have then caused our world to be filled with wars and pollution and greed and selfishness and fear and [add your own because there are so many more]

So Sunday night I went from “that’s an odd verse and I don’t get it” to “oh my I can understand now why we need to memorise this verse”. The Six Beats One Story even suggests the young people colour in the verse to help them remember. Well now I can understand why they suggest that.

And again Sunday’s youth group just showed me that the Bible always has new things to reveal to us!