Philippians 2:13-15 NLT

'For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people.'

The way we live has a large impact on the person we become. Choosing how we live is often seen as beyond our control. Job, family, home, the pressures build until we feel we have no room left for independent thought and action. We are on life’s hamster wheel, assuming (wrongly) that retirement, if affordable, will offer us back our lives. When Jayne was growing up, she wondered why adults never ran everywhere. For her, life was full with no time to pause; she had to run simply to express her joie de vivre. Yet, as time passed, she discovered that life offers sadness alongside joy, responsibilities alongside pleasure. Finding the energy to keep going proved increasingly challenging.

It’s one thing to know what makes me tick, quite another to find the time and energy to explore it. Life is demanding, yet God has given us our lives to express the fullness that is ours in him. Crawling home at the end of the working day, physically exhausted and with a negative frame of mind, it’s no wonder that life begins to manage us and not vice versa. Scripture reminds us that God is a sufficient resource for us to live wholesome, meaningful lives.

We need to acknowledge that God is sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9). Complaining and negative thinking drains us of energy. When life appears ‘catastrophic’, it's time to reframe how we look at the world. Then we need to stop complaining, which only creates bitterness and resentment. Instead, interrupt that pattern and replace it with a positive thought. One simple step is to take a ‘time out’ to gather your composure, a breath prayer, perhaps, and take back control of your life.

QUESTION: Do you have the energy to be able to explore the things God is calling out of you?

PRAYER: Lord, give me the grace not to grumble, but instead to cultivate gratitude and humility.

Proverbs 16:9 NLT

'We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.'

Listening as a young Christian to many talks on guidance, I was petrified of making the wrong decision. So I made none or, when temptation was too strong to resist, reluctantly made a choice which I swiftly regretted. I was unstable in all my ways (James 1:8). I couldn't make up my mind because I imagined there was a unique God decision I had to discern.

I also confused my search for guidance with my need to generate income. It was quite some time before I saw earning money had nothing to do with who I was. It was simply a means to secure a roof and bread. It was hard separating my identity, personal success, even fulfilment, from the scale of my income. I also had a fear of lack of money and of poverty in months and years to come, despite Jesus’ command not to worry about the future (Matthew 6:34).

At 13 I joined and campaigned for Young Oxfam. I followed the work of Dr Martin Luther King in the USA, raised concerns over the war in Biafra and supported Ravi Shankar and George Harrison’s concert for Bangladesh, the very first charity concert in 1971. I had a deep concern and compassion for humanity, and it is no surprise that once a Christian I worked with disadvantaged young people and then on human rights issues. I knew what made me tick, God breathed on that and guided my steps.

Our calling is seeded deep within us. It often gets buried and lost beneath the essential demands of life, yet will never leave us. I wonder today, looking back, if I was really meant to be a church leader or organiser of Christian events. I once again found my true sense of calling when required to care full-time for my first wife Katey. Very slowly I discovered where my calling lies, despite being besieged by uncertainty and even despair that I might have missed my true calling.

QUESTION: What makes you tick? What inner sense do you have of what you enjoy?

PRAYER: Lord, lead me to where you want me to go.

Proverbs 3:5-6 NLT

'Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.'

Making our way through life is quite different from [itals]finding[end itals] our way in life. Regardless of circumstance or feelings, I have to navigate each day, which is making my way through life.

Our minds are finite and cannot reach beyond our own logic. Yet, with God nothing is impossible (Luke 18:27), so we are invited to think, and think big.

From the moment of birth we are surrounded by sights and sounds that can lead us to conclude that there are barriers to self-expression and improvement. The material framework that we base contemporary Western life upon is of human construction with, at best, an element of God woven through it. In the life of Jesus, admittedly in a very different set of social and cultural norms, we see little evidence of a commitment to live constrained by such customs. So we can choose a life crafted from listening to the word of God in our heart. Here, heart is not the seat of the emotions but the very essence of who God created each of us to be.

Will we follow the guidance that is freely on offer and built upon the values and assumptions of contemporary social norms, or will we risk a different path crafted through conversation with God and born of obedience? This is the path chosen by Mary as a teenager. This was neither an easy path nor one on which she ever knew the consequences of her obedient decision-making. Instead, she left it to God to take responsibility for the outcomes for Mary and her fiancé.

QUESTION: What do you think your purpose in life is?

PRAYER: Lord, in all things, large or small, give me the courage to do your will.

Titus 3:2 NLT

'They must not slander anyone and must avoid quarreling. Instead, they should be gentle and show true humility to everyone.'

It was Anne Frank who said, “In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.” A remarkable girl who died of typhus age just 15 in a concentration camp in 1945, weeks before liberation. In a world of hatred and violence, where she recorded her own hope and despair when in hiding in Amsterdam for two years (1942-44), she recognised the power of love and the hidden depths within humanity for gentleness and kindness.

The power of living God’s way of gentleness can never be exaggerated. Scripture is clear. The choices I make in how I treat others is one distinct measure of the footprint I leave upon this earth.

I am volatile by nature and enjoy verbal confrontation. I want to argue my case and do so passionately. Others have fed back that this can come across as aggression. On first hearing this I naturally strongly disagreed, yet that disagreement itself was forceful and made me consider when passion can seem like aggression. On reflection I came to realise that the difference was that between standing up for an idea I believe in as opposed to going to war with someone else’s perspective.

The Church’s record through history is often a story of speaking against the opinions of others. This merely increases hostility and creates far more heat than light. As Jesus is the light of the world it is best that we, both individually and as a congregation, seek to enlighten with the life of God within. This is best done through adopting a practice of being gentle and humble. It is always less about me and more about God. As John the Baptist said, “He [Jesus] must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less” (John 3:30). Have the confidence to live as scripture instructs, and together we can reveal the character of God’s kingdom and its attraction in a conflicted world.

QUESTION: Are there any areas where you lack the confidence to live by God’s instruction because society has gone another way?

PRAYER: Lord, give me courage and give me humility to live for you in this current time.

James 3:17 NLT

'But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favouritism and is always sincere.'

In an age that has seen an explosion of ways to access media, we are increasingly absorbed with film, TV, social media and gaming. When many thought the age of TV was ending, the emergence of ‘TV talkers’, those who blog and tweet about their TV experience, has breathed new life into TV and a fresh opportunity for canny advertising campaigns. These TV talkers publish their observations on programmes and adverts across social media, to the extent that 61 per cent of them admit to watching more TV since discussing shows online. TV talkers are also highly engaged with celebrity and pop culture.

In tandem, psychologists are mapping the impact of the media’s psychological effect. This has both good and bad elements. However, it is a new influencer upon the way in which society orders itself. It is evident from research that what we subject ourselves to will influence the way we live. It was my privilege to work with Mary Whitehouse in her campaign against sex and violence on TV and she’s been proven right.

My learning has been that it is important what I feed my mind upon. It is also essential that I order my life to have the time to gaze on God, be it through contemplation, the lectionary readings from scripture or other Christian writers. God speaks to us in gentleness and understanding. God appreciates the challenges of the lives we live. We are transformed as we reflect upon the person and character of God.  What we feed the mind will shape who we are and who we shall become. We have all we need for life in its fullest expression in Christ, so let us become ‘God talkers’ alongside all the existing TV talkers and use social media as a means of expressing God’s love.

QUESTION: What diet does your mind have? With what is it being fed?

PRAYER: Lord, help me to think upon all that is good and praiseworthy, to think upon you.