Only Do What the Father Is Doing

 

“The Son can do nothing of Himself, but only what He sees the Father doing.” John 5:19

For a long time, I thought of peace as something that came after everything else was sorted. A feeling that arrived once the right decisions had been made, the tension resolved, the storm calmed. Peace, in my mind, was the reward for getting things right.

Lately, that understanding has begun to change.

I am starting to see that peace is not the outcome of God’s work, but often the sign that I am standing where He is already working. Peace arrives not at the end of the journey, but at the moment of alignment. It comes when I stop trying to manage the moment myself and instead pay attention to what God is doing here and now.

This has been a quiet but important shift for me. When I carry responsibility that does not belong to me, my mind becomes busy, my thoughts rush ahead, and peace drains away. I start making plans, weighing options, rehearsing outcomes. Nothing is obviously wrong, but something essential has slipped out of place. I am active, but not settled. Capable, but not at rest.

And then, almost without drama, peace returns when I pause and turn my attention back to the Lord. Not with a long prayer, or a clear answer, but with a simple recognition that He is present. Often I do not yet know what He is doing. I just know that He is here. And that, I am learning, is enough.

What surprises me is that peace usually comes before understanding. I had assumed I would see clearly first, and then feel peaceful. Instead, peace arrives while questions remain. The situation may not change. The outcome may still be uncertain. But something within settles, and with it comes a quiet confidence that I am not alone in the moment.

This peace is not passivity. It does not mean ignoring difficulty or avoiding truth. It is not pretending that things are easier than they are. It is a steady presence that allows truth to be spoken without fear and silence to be held without anxiety. It is the peace Jesus carried with Him into every room, every conversation, every storm.

I am beginning to recognise peace as a kind of spiritual bearing. When peace is present, I know I am facing the right direction, even if I cannot yet see the path ahead. When peace is absent, it often tells me that I have stepped back into carrying something by myself.

So now, rather than asking first what I should do, I find myself asking where peace is. Not peace as comfort, but peace as alignment. Peace as the atmosphere of God’s presence. Peace as the quiet confirmation that I am standing where the Father is at work.

And this has become a gentle guide for me. When peace is here, I stay. When peace leaves, I pause. Not to force it back, but to return my attention to the One who walks with me.

“Let the peace of God rule in your hearts.” Colossians 3:15

When the Yoke Pulls in Different Directions

 

“Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the         thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5, NKJV)

I found myself pondering Genesis 6 today, those mysterious verses about the sons of God and the daughters of men. Over the centuries, many interpretations have been suggested. Some see supernatural beings, others see tribal rulers, and others understand the passage as a spiritual picture of those who walked with God joining themselves to those who did not.

I am not trying to settle that debate. What struck me afresh was not about ancient giants or the world before the flood, but about a spiritual principle that still matters today. When lives moving toward God yoke themselves to lives moving away from Him, the result can become destructive.

This is not a statement about women, nor about gender at all. It applies equally to men and women, to husbands and wives, to friendships, partnerships, leadership teams, and any relationship where two people are joined in a shared direction.

Jesus spoke of a yoke, His yoke, as something that brings rest. A yoke assumes movement together, in the same direction, at the same pace, with a shared purpose. I often picture this as two people in the same boat. Disagreement about a detail can be uncomfortable, but when the disagreement runs deeper, touching worldview, values, or the understanding of the journey itself, the boat can begin to tear apart from the inside. Not every disagreement creates chaos, but an uneven yoke often does.

Genesis describes a world in which corruption spread until God brought judgment through the flood. However we understand the details, Scripture shows us a pattern that repeats itself. Misplaced yoking leads to distorted desire. Distorted desire gives rise to violence. Slowly, a world loses its way. While today’s storms look different, the spiritual reality remains the same. 

The enemy still seeks to weaken faith through misaligned attachments.

At this point, the reflection could easily be misunderstood if left unfinished, especially when marriage is in view. For friendships, business relationships, or ministry partnerships, the wisest response to an uneven yoke may be to end or redefine the relationship. Marriage is different. Marriage is covenant. We do not read Genesis 6 and conclude that if a spouse rows in another direction, departure is the answer.

Instead, a different question emerges. How does a believer row like Jesus, even when the yoke feels uneven?

In seasons of conflict, high emotion, or exhaustion, deep spiritual strategies can feel unreachable. In His kindness, Jesus does not burden us with complexity in such moments. He gives us ways of being that are simple, though never easy. He teaches us to forgive without keeping score, to examine our own hearts honestly, to choose costly kindness where resentment would feel justified, and to refuse escalation even when provoked. These ways do not deny pain, and they do not excuse harm. They do, however, keep the heart aligned with Christ.

These practices carry no guarantee that the other person will change. That outcome does not belong to us. What they do is anchor the believer to Jesus. Sometimes the deepest work God does in a marriage begins not with a solution, but with a different spirit entering the boat.

The flood wiped away corruption, but God preserved a family. He still does. The call is not to fear, nor to withdraw from relationship, but to discern what we yoke our hearts to and to keep walking with Jesus even when another pulls differently. His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

Sometimes the storm is not calmed when the waves stop, but when one person in the boat chooses the way of Jesus. That choice may not fix everything, but it keeps the ark within reach and the heart aligned with Christ.

“Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke                 upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your             souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28–30, NKJV)

Speak Little, Speak True

 “Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; Keep watch over the door of my lips.” — Psalm 141:3 (NKJV)

Over recent days I have been returning to a simple but demanding question. How do we know when to speak, and how do we know when to remain quiet. Not silence born of fear or withdrawal, but restraint shaped by obedience. As I look back now, I can see that this question did not suddenly appear. God was already speaking to me about it in mid-November, though I did not yet have the language to recognise it for what it was.

At that time, my understanding of congruence was shaping much of how I listened. I was attentive to alignment between words, actions, and inner truth, and that framework was helpful and faithful as far as it went. What I can now see, with the benefit of time and prayer, is that God was using that very framework to lead me somewhere deeper. He was already drawing me toward obedience that rests not only on inner alignment, but on trust in His voice even when that voice leads beyond my immediate understanding.

This has become clearer as I have been reading 1 Kings 13, the account of the man of God who was sent with a clear word from the Lord and a clear instruction about how to carry it. He obeyed faithfully until another prophet spoke to him, claiming spiritual authority and angelic confirmation, and persuaded him to do the very thing God had told him not to do. The story unsettles because the man of God was not ignorant. He already knew what the Lord had said. He chose to trust another voice over the word he had received himself.

What strikes me now is not only the danger of deception, but how easily obedience can be displaced by something that still sounds reasonable, spiritual, and even congruent. The older prophet’s words were coherent. They fit a narrative. They made sense relationally. Yet they did not come from God. This is where my earlier reflections on congruence now meet a deeper truth. Alignment within ourselves is important, but it is not the same as obedience to God’s revealed word.

Around the same period in November, two reflections emerged quietly in my work and reading. One grew out of a counselling session and later became the piece I called Tangled and Untangled. The other arose while reading Ecclesiastes again, wrestling with its honesty and its insistence that life only finds its meaning when lived before God. Both reflections came with peace. At the time, I received them as thoughtful, integrated insights. I can now see that they were also part of God teaching me to trust what He gives, even before I understood where He was leading.

What followed was subtle. I noticed an impulse to second guess myself, not because anything felt wrong, but because I wondered how others might receive what I had written. Would they object. Would they misunderstand. Would they criticise. Looking back, I can see that this was the very place God was already addressing. The correction that has become clear to me now was already present then. Trust the words I give you. If correction is needed, I will bring it. Do not surrender what I have given you to someone else’s reaction.

Alongside this, another instruction has continued to grow more distinct. Speak little. Not as avoidance, and not as fear, but as discipline. Not every truth needs voicing. Not every difference needs naming. Not every tension needs resolving. There is a maturity that comes from restraint, from learning to remain peaceful without managing outcomes. This too was present in November, though I can see it more clearly now.

These two movements belong together. Speak little, and speak only what is given. Do not rush to correct, and do not shrink back when the Lord has already spoken. Silence shaped by obedience is very different from silence shaped by hesitation, just as speaking from obedience is very different from speaking to fill space or defend position.

This has become especially alive for me in family life, where differences of view exist and old habits tempt us to manage conversations carefully. What I am learning is that peace does not come from careful control, but from presence. When we stop trying to align everything outwardly and instead remain anchored inwardly in God, words become fewer, listening becomes deeper, and love does its quiet work.

As this year draws to a close, I find myself grateful for the way God speaks ahead of our awareness. He was already teaching me in November what I am only now able to name. That gives me confidence. Not in my own clarity, but in His faithfulness.

May the Lord teach us when to speak, when to wait, and how to recognise the difference. May our words be few, and may they be true.

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer.” — Psalm 19:14 (NKJV)

When the Journey Makes Sense — Learning to See My Life Through Ecclesiastes

 

“Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all.”

Ecclesiastes 12:13 (NKJV)

I finished reading Ecclesiastes again this morning. Twelve chapters of Solomon wrestling honestly with life, meaning, frustration, uncertainty, repetition, injustice, and the limits of human understanding. As I reached the end, something unexpected happened. Rather than feeling unsettled by his questions, I found myself recognising my own story in his reflections, particularly in the light of my prayers earlier today.

This morning I thanked God for His hand over my life from the very beginning. I found myself reflecting on my early years, my stepfather adopting me, the tangled sense of identity I wrestled with as a young man, and the long season of life I lived without Christ. My thoughts then turned to the last thirty five years, and to the patient, gentle work of the Lord slowly untangling the knots I had created before I ever knew Him.

As I sat with Ecclesiastes, it became clear that Solomon was describing the same journey, simply from a different angle.

Throughout the book he strips away every illusion of meaning. Wealth, pleasure, work, success, legacy, and knowledge are all tested and found wanting. Everything lived “under the sun” runs in circles, fades with time, or ultimately fails. Everything we are tempted to use to define ourselves eventually slips through our fingers.

That was my story too.

For thirty five years I lived under the sun, doing life on my own terms, searching for meaning, and trying to build something solid out of things that could never truly hold it. Like Solomon, I attempted to understand identity without God at the centre. The result was much the same as his. Tension, confusion, and a tangled mess largely of my own making.

Yet the turning point in Ecclesiastes mirrors the turning point in my own life.

When I met Christ, the search ended. The centre returned. Meaning came back into focus. Not because I became a different person, but because the same life finally came under the hand of its Maker.

Solomon concludes his long and searching journey with a single, simple sentence. Fear God and keep His commandments. This is everything.

That is exactly what happened to me. Questions about identity, origin, purpose, and direction gradually fell into their proper place when Christ took His rightful place at the centre of my life.

Looking back now on my childhood, my youth, my tangled years, my conversion at thirty five, and now my seventieth year, I see the same truth Solomon discovered. Life only makes sense when God is placed above the sun, not merely beneath it.

Without God, my early years were shaped by uncertainty. With God, my later years have been shaped by clarity. Without God, I struggled to understand who I was. With God, I discovered that I had been His child all along. Without God, my choices tightened the knots in my life. With God, His grace has patiently untangled every one of them.

So this morning, on the day after my birthday, and having finished Ecclesiastes once again, I find myself grateful for something I never expected. Even the confusing parts of my story now make sense, and the older I grow, the more clearly I see the steady thread of God’s faithfulness running through it all.

Solomon was right. Nothing else truly holds. Nothing else ultimately lasts. Nothing else gives lasting meaning. But God does.

And at seventy years old, that truth has never felt clearer or more precious.

Lord, thank You that the search ends in You. Thank You for being the meaning of my life, past, present, and future.

Amen.

The Fleet, the Ocean, and the Four Kinds of Hearts

 

“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Matthew 13:9 (NKJV)

This morning’s reading from the Psalms set me thinking again about the difference between ignorance and wickedness. Scripture warns against arguing with the wicked, yet I often assume that people speak out of ignorance rather than malice. Most of the time, though, I can sense the difference. The Spirit gives a quiet discernment of the heart behind the words. Some people are searching. Others are resisting.

But it is not only a matter of two kinds of people. Jesus’ parable of the sower reveals four kinds of ground, and that has helped me understand the hearts I meet far better. The seed of truth falls everywhere, yet only one quarter of it bears fruit. Even so, three quarters receive something of the seed. There is often some hope, some glimpse, some chance to grow.

The Ocean and the Armada

I picture humanity as a great ocean where everyone sets sail. The ocean has its own laws, with currents, winds, and storms that cannot be ignored. Within that sea, God calls us to join His Armada, to sail under the command of Christ. Within the fleet there is real freedom in how we trim the sails and how we steer, yet the boundaries of the ocean itself remain God’s. When we sail within His course, the journey, though rarely calm, is purposeful.

Freedom without those boundaries would destroy us. Choice and responsibility are what keep us seaworthy. God does not force anyone to join His fleet, but He invites all who will to travel under His protection. Even beyond the Armada, the Captain’s voice still carries across the waves.

Four Responses to the Captain’s Call

Some hearts are hardened. The Pharisees and the leaders of the Sanhedrin were like ground packed down over time. They knew the Scriptures, yet resisted the living Word standing before them. Pride and fear had flattened their hearts. Jesus spoke truth to them plainly, but when they refused to hear, He often walked away. Truth was never shouted. It stood firm and calm.

Other hearts are shallow and impulsive. Judas may belong here, one who responded quickly but without root. The crowds who cried “Hosanna” one week and “Crucify” the next also stand on rocky soil. Jesus met these people not with argument, but with invitation. “Come and see.” He offered encounter rather than explanation, experience rather than debate.

Some hearts are crowded and distracted. The rich young ruler, Martha, and some of my clients live here. They believe, yet still try to steer their own boat. Jesus exposed their thorns gently, not to condemn but to free. He looked at them and loved them before speaking the hard truth. My calling with such people is not to yank out weeds, but to help them see what is choking growth.

Then there is the good ground. Simon Peter represents this heart. He stumbled, misunderstood, and wept bitterly, yet he always returned. Jesus taught him patiently, challenged him honestly, and restored him tenderly. This is the heart that hears, obeys, and bears fruit.

Speaking Truth Without Fighting the Wind

When Jesus encountered hardened hearts, He did not shout. He spoke once, clearly, and allowed silence to do its work. He refused to be drawn into battles of pride. He asked questions that revealed motives, and when hearts closed, He withdrew.

To speak truth without confrontation is to stand where He stood, firm, unflustered, and faithful. Truth carries its own weight. It does not need anger to make it heard. I am learning that walking away can sometimes be obedience rather than weakness.

So I will keep sowing the seed, watching the seas, and steering within His Armada. The Captain knows every current, every storm, every sailor. My task remains simple. To sail faithfully, to speak gently, and to let Him steer the rest.

“The Lord will guide you continually,

and satisfy your soul in drought.”

Isaiah 58:11 (NKJV)

Untangled, Not Replaced — Grace That Restores Responsibility

 

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

— 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV)

I was talking recently with a client whose son, a recovered addict, had been criticising his father for not “changing.” The son was trying hard to be a different person, believing that following Christ meant leaving the old version of himself behind completely. My client and I spoke about that, and I shared something that God has been showing me for a while, the difference between being tangled and untangled.

The truth is, I am the same person I was before Christ, but my life has been untangled in relationship with Him. The thread is the same, but the knots are being loosened by His patient, loving hands.

When Paul wrote that we are “a new creation,” he didn’t mean that God replaces us with a better model. He meant that our old state of separation, our guilt, alienation, and self-reliance, passes away, and our life is now reconnected to its source. We are the same person, but now we live in Christ instead of apart from Him.

So often, though, people hear new creation as new identity in the sense of new person, and they start striving to become someone else entirely. They try to erase their past and sometimes even reject who they’ve been. It sounds holy but ends up producing something false, a self that’s disowned rather than redeemed.

And here’s where another danger creeps in: when we believe that being renewed means the old self is gone, we may also stop taking responsibility for what that old self did. We can end up using grace as a kind of amnesty for reflection, avoiding our own story rather than letting Christ redeem it.

But forgiveness doesn’t erase accountability. It removes the shame that stops us facing it. Christ’s untangling doesn’t happen to us while we sit still; it happens with us as we begin to face the knots He puts His hand on. His grace removes fear, not responsibility.

My client saw this clearly as we talked. His son’s drive to be different was understandable, but the Father’s heart is for us to be restored. When we try to become someone new, we may avoid the work of reconciliation and confession that healing requires. But when we let the same thread be untangled, we honour both grace and truth, we face what’s ours to face and trust God to do what only He can.

In reality, it’s never about becoming a different person; it’s about becoming a redeemed version of the same person, the one God always intended us to be before sin, shame, and fear knotted us up.

Without grace, responsibility becomes crushing.

Without responsibility, grace becomes cheap.

But in Christ, the two meet perfectly, grace makes responsibility possible, and responsibility makes grace visible.

Lord Jesus, thank You that You never throw away the old thread. Thank You for Your patient untangling and for the courage to face what needs facing, knowing that we do not face it alone. Amen.

Watching Jesus – How a Child Learns to Walk Steady

 

“Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.”
Hebrews 12:2 (NKJV)

I was thinking this morning about what it means to be a well-balanced adult, the kind of person who stands steady in life and becomes a safe example for a child. It is easy to make a list of qualities we imagine we need: composure, wisdom, patience, consistency. But the older I become, the more I recognise that none of these qualities grow naturally in me. They slip through my fingers when I try to hold them by myself, and they fade when I focus on performing them rather than living honestly before God.

While I was reflecting on this, I had Christian country music playing in the background. A song came on, “Watching You” by Rodney Atkins, and it caught my attention in a way I did not expect. The song tells a simple story of a father realising that his little boy copies everything he does. The child was learning not from instruction but from observation. He became shaped by what he saw. And in that moment, I felt the Lord speak into my own thoughts with a clarity that settled everything I had been wrestling with.

A child becomes steady when the adult they are watching is steady. And an adult becomes steady when the One they are watching is Jesus. It was as simple and as direct as that. Suddenly so many threads from this past month came together: the desire to be a safe presence for the grandchildren, the reflections about generational influence, the longing to help adults care for their children in a way that honours God, and the quiet prayer to be more grounded, more balanced, more whole.

The answer had nothing to do with perfecting myself. It was not about tightening my self-control or trying to hold myself together. And it certainly was not about presenting myself as an unshakable father figure. The real answer was where I fix my eyes. If I watch myself, a child ends up watching instability. If I watch my worries, a child learns fear. If I watch my frustration, a child feels the weight of it. But if I watch Jesus, something in me settles. My steps slow. My reactions soften. My balance returns. And a child watching me begins to learn not just from my behaviour but from my direction. They see where my eyes are looking, and their gaze begins to turn the same way.

This is one of the quiet miracles of discipleship. We watch Him, and the next generation watches us, and somehow they learn to watch Him too. It is not complicated. It is not heavy. It is not another pressure to carry. It is simply the daily choice to look toward the One whose balance never falters and whose steadiness becomes our own. When I follow Him, the children who follow me find their footing on firmer ground.

I am not sure yet how this insight will unfold in my wider reflections on parenting, children, and the generations to come. It may become another thread woven through the themes God has been giving me recently. But for now, it is enough to hold this simple truth. A child becomes balanced by watching an adult. And an adult becomes balanced by watching Jesus. Sometimes the clearest guidance comes in the simplest way, and sometimes it arrives through a country song reminding us that little eyes are always noticing where we look.

“Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ.”

1 Corinthians 11:1 (NKJV)