Tag: The Way

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life The Jesus Way

I Am The Way, The Truth and The Life – Part Three

Small dog full of life in the snow. Photographed by myself January 2025

So yes as you would expect part three is looking at Jesus saying “… I am the Life”

I have come that you may have life, and have it to the full

John 10:10

I think this is another one that means different things to different people. What I see as having life to the full is not the same as others.

I’ve written a couple of pieces around thoughts of what doing life meant to me back in 2015 – here and here Just glancing back at them I would say my thoughts haven’t changed much, though I have because of the QEC work I’ve done, the clearing out of traumas rather than just regular counseling.

The Alpha booklet says Jesus came to deal with things that spoil our lives and deal with our guilt, and I would add that he also came so that we would know that The Creator of the Universe loves us unconditionally, which I think we can often only fully see when we have cleared out the detritus from our childhood.

So when I am feeling lonely I am not living the fullness of life. When I get angry about something someone said that hurts me then I am not living the fullness of life. When I am trying to people please because I want to be loved then I am not living the fullness of life. When I am doing things because I ought to or should do, whether that is a job, a hobby, a way of dressing, an acceptance of something, then I am not living the fullness of life.

I do think we can still be angry about somethings but then we need to check in with God to see if there is anything they want us to change, either with ourselves, with the other person, with the situation. I think we can still work and do hobbies and dress in a certain way so long as we are doing it because we get a feeling of contentment from doing it but not because we ought to. Even with loneliness we can still stop and ask God what it is that this feeling is saying to us.

Actually any feelings we get – whether those we label as positive or those we label as negative feeling – I think, we need to take them to God and ask what these are showing us about ourselves.

And as I wrote this last paragraph I realised that alwasys taking what we feel, think, say, back to the God who loves us Unconditionally then we start to walk in the truth.

Revelation – it is not Jesus is three different things – Way, Truth and Life – but that Jesus is all three of these rolled in together. Jesus is the WayTruthLife and if I can walk in going back to God to find out the Truth of my thoughts and actions then I can be fully alive and can then be walking in the way of God.

When I do this I realise that I am a writer and very often I think through my pen or the tips of my typing fingers, that truths become revealed as I write rather than beforehand. So for me that is my Way,Truth,Life. What is yours?

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The Jesus Way Way

I Am The Way, The Truth and The Life – Part One

Near Capel Currig, photographed by myself December 2024

I have the privilege to meet with two 15-16 year old girls in McDonalds on a regular basis to discuss things from the Bible. We’re using the Alpha guide “Why am I here?” as kick-starts to discussions.

We’re starting with the verse

Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life”

John 14:6

One of the sentences in the booklet is “Jesus is the lens through which we see God” but that got me thinking “how do we see Jesus?”

If you listen to the evangelical American right then Jesus is brutal, full of rules and knows best. If you listen to those who have left organised religions then you get a very different picture. But are either “correct2?

My mum sent through a reflection from her vicar for this Sunday and in that he talks of how we need to see God in creation and also in the troubles of the world; in the good, the bad and the inbetween; to see Jesus turning water in to wine and in gifts of the Holy Spirit, which he lists as

Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and
the Fear of the Lord.

Jesus is found in the miraculous and the ordinary, the individual and the community.

Interestingly another verse on the first page of the Alpha booklet was

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.”

John 6:35

And the immediate response from my girls was that Jesus is sustaining and filling.

So if we take their thoughts and other bits from our discussion then, I think, if following Jesus isn’t sustaining and filling is it really the Jesus Way? [and remember that the early followers were called “Followers of the Way” and the term Christian was used as an insult] If following Jesus doesn’t encompass the troubles and the joys of this world is it really the Jesus Way? If following Jesus can’t be done in a group and alone is it the Jesus Way?

So to me when Jesus says “I am the Way” he is talking about a life that is sustainable, filling, can be found in the troubles and the joys, and is something I love to do alone and also love to do with others. To me this is the The Way Jesus talks about here.

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forgiveness sorry

Sorry/Forgiveness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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