Every Day with Jesus

T.S. Eliot wrote, ‘Remember the faith that took men from home at the call of a wandering preacher. Our age is an age of moderate virtue and of moderate vice, when men will not lay down the Cross because they will never assume it. Yet nothing is impossible, nothing, to men of faith and conviction.’

How comfortable do we feel describing ourselves as pilgrims? The word means foreigner, stranger and alien. The Romans used it to describe ‘non-citizens’ throughout its Empire. Scripture tells us that our citizenship is in heaven and not on earth. So, what are pilgrims’ hallmarks? The first is attentiveness, or giving our undivided attention to God.

We often reflect on previous chapters in our life. This can prove helpful, reminding us of God’s reality in various ways. With hindsight we can see how God has crafted, then set, the building blocks making us who we are today.

Each of us is engaged in our personal search for God. There are many approaches and lenses through which we can gaze on God, different aspects of the riches we enjoy by sharing with one another the insights we discover. God is infinite, whilst we’re finite, and He will always remain outside our understanding.

When life’s troubles hit, we instinctively run towards the emergency exit. On waking at the start of our day, despondency easily envelops us and we lose control of our emotions. God appears distant and unavailable. All our strategies, from venting to retreating beneath the duvet, fail to lift the cloud surrounding us.

Speeches are powerful and have moved the hearts of people throughout history, even changed its course. All existence begins with God. With words, He shaped creation from nothing, demonstrating power, the ability to do something.

When I think of creation I am in awe of the very scale, beauty and power revealed throughout nature. Yet, my greatest awe is reserved for the wonder that is me and you. God created us with all our complexity, something that is still so much of a mystery to science.

Rest requires that we take back control of our time. This demands honesty. We may have little choice over our employment, yet we can make decisions about what’s worth spending time on.* Often the depression brought on by work or by lack of money means we surrender control over our life. How can things possibly work out?

Each week has 168 hours. A friend, at their sixtieth birthday calculated they’d lived a total of 720 months, 3128 weeks and 21,900 days. I couldn’t help wondering how I’d managed to fill so many hours in my own life; a stark reminder of just how quickly time disappears.

A shelter offers temporary protection, from bad weather, for example.* Sometimes this offers the only way to avoid danger. Often, we instinctively rage against the danger rather than rest. The problem lies beyond my control and I become stressed.**

It’s said we work hard to earn money to buy things we don’t really need to impress people we don’t really like! Is our motivation for work wrong? Lack of rest is now a national epidemic. The NHS tells us that we take years off our life with too little sleep. This leads to eating the wrong things and poor mental and physical health. How might we find a good work/life balance?

The foundational message that runs through all of Scripture is that God is for each one of us. How we respond to that knowledge is a matter of personal choice, and any survey would reveal that individuals are at different stages of their acceptance of God, and in the degree to which they are comfortable entrusting God with their wellbeing, even with His many witnesses throughout our material world...

Researchers from the University of Nottingham in England set out to answer the question: Are people who practice gratitude more likely to help others, share, volunteer and donate? They found a clear link between gratitude and behaviour that helps society as a whole.

Our focus has been on pursuing God’s purpose in our lives. According to British researchers Andrew Steptoe and Daisy Fancourt, ‘Maintaining a sense that life is worthwhile may be particularly important at older ages when social and emotional ties often fragment, social engagement is reduced, and health problems may limit personal options.’

‘Our thoughts, emotions, and behaviours are all linked, so our thoughts impact how we feel and act. So, although we all have unhelpful thoughts from time to time, it’s important to know what to do when they appear so we don’t let them change the course of our day.’ This is the subtle way in which our thought patterns can shape our whole way of life.

The word ‘listen’ means both to hear and obey. Learning to discern God’s voice from amongst the myriad sounds that surround us today is challenging. Of course listening is not simply through our ears. What we observe we may choose to copy, realising we have listened to a pattern for life. What we read we may take as our truth and so choose to disregard alternative perspectives.

There are two ways to look at our life experience. The one is to see things as happening to us, the other is to take ownership of them and then navigate our way through them. We can identify them as either threats or opportunities. Scripture encourages us to take hold of all our experiences and treat them as an opportunity.

Confidence is complete trust. We think about confidence in God (Jer. 17:7–8), but it’s more challenging to place full confidence in ourselves. Jeremiah reminds us that confidence provides the roots to sustain us through uncertain seasons. Most often we act as our own harshest critic. God loves us despite knowing everything about us, but we never disillusion Him because He never had any illusions t...

Training as a mediator I was reminded that I had two ears, but only one mouth; the moral being, listen twice as much as you speak. Good advice, but like many I have an opinion on everything and this remains a challenge. A study of Jesus’ ministry reveals He asked many questions, and listened carefully to peoples’ answers.

Perseverance acts as a prime motivator driving us both to attain our defined goals and to improve our skills. This drive is sustained by the passion we have for our goals and helps us to persist in our efforts, despite opposition and obstacles. It draws upon our motivation – how much we want something, and our determination, what we’re prepared to spend on being successful.

One reason for bad decisions is the fact that we are often driven by our emotions. Someone once said, ‘When angry we make the best speech we’ll ever regret!’ All of us can identify with the fiery and emotional speech we have made before spinning on our heels, leaving the room and slamming the door behind us.

Maturity means developing our ability to make good choices. In our daily discipleship, we must beware of those factors that can slow, impede, even derail our commitment to God. This is not to raise our anxiety levels, for Paul makes it clear that we can draw reasonable assumptions from daily observations.

Waverley Abbey is built on Jesus’ summary of the Law and the Prophets, teaching us to see everyone through Jesus’ eyes. There’s no demand for anyone learning with us to have a faith- based approach to life. Only that they recognise our understanding grows from an ancient world view, evident throughout Scripture, offering a realistic and comprehensive understanding of who we are, why we’re here, wh...

A precept is a principle or rule, something that guarantees an outcome or a state of being. God’s precepts offer us refreshment, confidence, wisdom, truth, joy, vision, clarity all of which outlast time itself and ensure that we reflect God’s virtue, or so the psalmist declares!

It’s clear that Christian life is demanding, and we do well to avoid accepting Jesus’ call casually. Choosing Jesus is to subscribe to a worldview encompassing every aspect of reality, with helpful guidance on how best to select our own activities.