Lent 2026: Present hope

Yesterday I wrote about what I call candle theory; the idea that some things, when shared, do not leave us with less but instead increase what exists. Like light in a dark room. One candle lights another, and suddenly there is more light than before.

That reflection reminded me of a Bible passage I preached on just over a year ago: Mark 4:35–41, when Jesus and his disciples cross the Sea of Galilee. At least four of the disciples were experienced fishermen, people who had grown up on that lake and knew how quickly conditions could change. While they were sailing, a violent storm arose. Waves crashed into the boat, and panic set in. They knew exactly how dangerous this situation was.

And where was Jesus? Asleep at the stern.

Terrified, the disciples woke him, crying out, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” Jesus wakes, speaks first to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” and then turns to the storm itself. “Be still.”

The wind dies. The waves settle. The disciples are left amazed and slightly afraid, asking one another, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

When we look at the world today, storms are not hard to find. Some are caused by human choices: war, injustice, greed. Others come through the forces of nature itself. Hurricanes, floods, droughts and wildfires devastate communities and take lives. If Jesus could calm a storm then, why doesn’t he calm storms now?

I found myself becoming quite tangled in that question when preparing my sermon. I didn’t want anyone leaving church thinking that Jesus once intervened but no longer does. The question felt heavy and unresolved, a private wrestle rather than a public sermon. I felt I had a duty to the congregation to resolve it.

However, while praying over the passage, a quieter question seemed to surface instead: Why are you so focused on the storm?

Without ever setting foot in the boat, I had fallen into the same trap as the disciples. My attention was fixed entirely on the wind and the waves, on their power and their danger. I had forgotten to notice who was in the boat. In our own lives, the storms are often metaphorical rather than meteorological. Illness or bereavement. Job loss or financial pressure. Expectations that feel impossible to meet. Anxiety, fear, exhaustion.

There are many things that can fill our vision until fear becomes the loudest voice we hear. And like the disciples, we may find ourselves crying out, “Don’t you care?”

The striking thing about this passage is not simply that Jesus calms the storm. It is that he was present in it all along. The disciples were not abandoned. Jesus shared the same fragile boat, the same rising waves, the same danger. Before the storm was stilled, before fear subsided, Jesus was already there.

Faith does not promise a life without storms. Lent certainly does not pretend otherwise. Instead, it invites us to recognise where hope truly lies. Not in calm seas, but in presence.

Sometimes storms pass quickly. Sometimes they rage far longer than we would choose. But the Christian story tells us that we are never left to face them alone. Hope is not confidence that every storm will cease on command. Hope is trusting that, whatever comes, Jesus remains with us in the boat.

The wind may rage. The waves may rise. But we are not abandoned to them. Hope is present with us.

Thanks to Axel  Antas-Bergkvist @aabergkvist for making this photo available on Unsplash 🎁 https://unsplash.com/photos/ocean-waves-under-cloudy-sky-during-daytime-zrSzqDnfkQ8

Lent 2026: Stubborn Hope

It seems to me that there is a lot of darkness in the world. The headlines are full of violence and injustice, of powerful people taking advantage, of greed and cruelty. And in smaller, everyday ways too: unexpected illness, the breakdown of relationships, disappointments that arrive uninvited.

I won’t lie, there are days when hoping feels hard.

Despite having a public blog, I’m not someone who waves banners or shouts the loudest. I’m more likely to sit quietly alongside someone, offering support. To share skills or knowledge, and then step back so someone else can shine. I don’t mind the spotlight, but I don’t need to hold it.

I think of it as the candle effect. If I hold a candle in a dark room, it gives only a pinprick of light. Someone else may stand nearby with an unlit candle. I can guard my flame, afraid of losing it, or I can share it. And when another candle is lit, mine does not grow dim. Instead, the whole room becomes brighter. Not everyone seems convinced of this. Sometimes it feels as though light is scarce, something to be protected or hoarded.

During Lent, we are invited to look honestly at the darkness, both in the world and within ourselves. Christianity has never asked us to pretend that suffering or evil are illusions. The story we follow moves deliberately toward the cross, not away from it.

And yet, at the heart of our faith is this strange and persistent claim: the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Recently, I found myself wondering whether small acts like this really matter. When power and influence are concentrated in the hands of a few, when darkness feels overwhelming, can quiet candle-sharing possibly make a difference?

In conversation, this thought emerged:
Hope is not the belief that the powerful will change. It’s the certainty that they are not the whole story.

The Christian story has always insisted this is true. Again and again, God works not through domination or spectacle, but through what appears small: a child in a borrowed stable, bread broken at an ordinary table, faithfulness that looks powerless beside empire.

When darkness dominates our attention, it can become all we see. Like someone hoarding candles in one corner of the room, the glare draws our eyes until we forget to look elsewhere. But the presence of great darkness does not mean there is no light. It simply means we must learn where to look.

Hope is not pretending everything is fine. Nor is it naively insisting that everything will work out. Hope is more stubborn than that. Hope is choosing, again and again, to live as people of the light. To share what we have been given. To trust that kindness multiplies, that encouragement spreads, that love offered freely reflects something of Jesus himself.

Perhaps hope begins not with changing the world all at once, but with lighting the candle in front of us and trusting that God is already at work in the growing light.

Lent 2026: There is love and there is fire in his eyes

There seems to be a theme to this week’s posts: music. I am always listening out for new songs to add to my ever-growing playlists. Some now stretch well beyond twelve hours, which means I often forget what is on them until something resurfaces unexpectedly when shuffle takes over!

One such song is Look to the Lamb. A fairly recent discovery for me, buried near the bottom of the playlist. The first time I heard it, a line in the chorus practically knocked me flat: There is love and there is fire in his eyes.

Just sit with that for a moment.

Despite everything I know about God, I think a small part of me still expects anger. Or perhaps worse, disappointment. Human experience quietly teaches us to expect judgement. We learn to brace ourselves for disapproval, to assume that when our flaws are fully seen, love might falter.

But what if, when we looked into his eyes, we saw love instead?

Hearing or singing this song still gives me chills. It makes me stop and wonder how often I assume God will behave as humans do. How often I expect criticism where God offers compassion, distance where God offers welcome, rejection where God offers belonging.

The line speaks not only of love, but of fire. And perhaps that matters just as much. Because fire can feel frightening. Fire consumes, it exposes. Fire refuses to stay comfortably contained. Yet throughout scripture, fire so often marks the presence of God. The burning bush that was not destroyed. The pillar of fire guiding God’s people through the wilderness. Tongues of flame resting gently at Pentecost.

This is not a safe or indifferent love. It is fierce. Passionate. Alive. A love that fights for us rather than against us. A love that burns away shame, fear, and every lie that tells us we are unwanted or beyond redemption. God is not tame, but he is for us. His fire does not exist to tear us down, but to refine, to protect, to lead.

John 3:16 reminds us that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

There is love in his eyes. And there is fire too. And maybe, little by little, we learn to believe what we see there.

Love.

And fire.

Both turned towards us.

Lent 2026: The importance of community

I have heard a lot of teaching on how humans were made for relationship. Right back in Genesis, God creates Adam and says, “It is not good for man to be alone.” When no suitable companion is found among the animals, God creates Eve. From the very beginning, aloneness was not part of the design.

That truth has been driven home for me over the last couple of years. God has brought some really amazing people into my life. I now have a strong network of people I can call on when I am struggling which, let’s be honest, is not a rare occurrence. There are people who pray, people who listen, people who sit with me in silence, and people who gently challenge me when I need it.

If we were to wind the clock back ten years, I never would have imagined I would have this kind of community around me. I was more of a lone wolf. I helped others readily, but I rarely reached out for help myself. Somewhere along the way I had convinced myself that strength meant self sufficiency. In reality, it was fear. Fear of being known too well. Fear of being a burden. Fear of what might happen if I let people see the cracks.

Now, it feels less like I am walking a tightrope alone and more like there is a strong safety net beneath me. People who notice when I wobble. People who pray. People who listen. People who sometimes hold faith for me when mine feels fragile.

Last year I moved, leaving friends and family behind for a new adventure. It was exciting, but it was also tough. I had come to rely on those people, on their love and support, sometimes even on their faith when mine felt uncertain. Starting again risking being vulnerabe. To open up. To trust. New friendships have formed. New names have been added to my support network. And I hope, in some small way, I have become part of that network for others too.

It is hard to walk through this world. It is almost impossible to do it alone. But we were never meant to.

One of my favourite stories from Jesus’ ministry, recorded in the Gospel of Luke, tells of a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. That meant she was considered unclean. She was cut off from normal community life. Isolated. On the outside. Doctors had been unable to heal her. Human solutions had run out.

Her only hope lay in reaching for Jesus. What I love about this story is that Jesus does not let her slip away unnoticed. He stops. He searches for her. And when she explains, he says, “Daughter, your faith has healed you.”

Daughter.

She is the only person Jesus addresses in that way. In a single word, he restores more than her body. He restores her identity. He restores her belonging. He draws her back into relationship. She is no longer an outcast reaching from the margins. She is family.

I think that is what community does at its best. It reminds us who we are. It calls us back from the edges. It gives us somewhere to stand when our legs are shaking.

If I have learned anything over the last decade, it is this: strength is not found in standing alone. It is found in letting yourself be known. In reaching out when every instinct says withdraw. In allowing others to carry hope for you when yours flickers low, and in being willing to do the same for them.

Letting people in can be frightening. Vulnerability always carries risk. But isolation carries a cost too. And in my experience, the gift of being known, supported and loved has been far greater than the fear.

I would not be where I am today without the people God has woven into my story. And I am deeply, deeply grateful.

Lent 2026: The wonder of love and the power of grace

I’ve often written about music and its place in my faith. The way harmonies and melodies can reach deep into my heart. But sometimes it isn’t the notes that break through. Sometimes it’s the words.

A few years ago, a friend introduced me to the song Vagabonds by Stuart Townend. I quickly fell in love with it and added it to a couple of playlists. I have a lot of songs on those playlists, though, so sometimes I can go a while without hearing it.

I was driving home recently when it came on. It’s a song about how all are welcome at the Lord’s table. The chorus goes like this:

Come to the feast, there is room at the table,
Come let us meet in this place.
With the King of all kindness who welcomes us in,
With the wonder of love and the power of grace.

It was that last phrase that stopped me. The wonder of love and the power of grace.

We are all welcomed at the table. No shame or guilt blocks our way. And it’s not because we have earned it, or have a right to be there. It’s because God’s love for us is so much greater than we can fully grasp, and because his grace means those things we have done wrong do not have the final word.

I don’t know who needs to hear this tonight, but please know the truth of these words:
Come to the feast, there is room at the table.
Come let us meet in this place.
With the King of all kindness who welcomes us in,
With the wonder of love and the power of grace.

Tonight, if you need reminding, there is room at the table. You are welcomed by the King of all kindness, held in the wonder of love and the power of grace.

Lent 2026: It just washes over you

It always interests me to see how different Christians worship. Some traditions are richly structured, with set liturgy and familiar rhythms. For many, that predictability is a gift. Others are more spacious, leaving room for spontaneity and silence. That freedom can be a gift too.

The Church has always found different languages for worship. None of them are wrong. They simply help different hearts find their way.

Today I was talking to someone about Eastern Orthodox worship. They had been to a service of Vespers, an evening office of prayer filled with incense and chanting, where the congregation stood throughout. They said, “It just kind of washes over you.”

That phrase struck a chord. A couple of weeks ago, I was at choral evensong, another evening service shaped by prayer and song. Over the years it has been a comfort to me, though it often takes discipline to stay present. My mind is quite capable of drafting essays while the choir sings. On this particular evening, it was trying to do exactly that. Then the choir began God So Loved the World by John Stainer.

The harmonies are glorious, the melodies soaring. It is both calming and uplifting at the same time, which feels like a small miracle in itself. And the words, taken straight from Gospel of John 3.16, begin so simply: “God so loved the world…”

Just that first phrase was enough. It caught my wandering mind and drew it gently back. God so loved the world. Fully. Unconditionally. Loved.

The music didn’t demand anything from me. I didn’t have to analyse it or respond in any visible way. It simply surrounded me. It washed over me like a musical hug, warming my heart.

I find that music has a unique ability to draw me closer to God. It seems to bypass the overthinking part of my brain and go straight to the deeper places. I don’t need to articulate anything. I don’t need to construct careful prayers. It engages directly with my emotions and, somehow, elicits the most honest version of me.

Perhaps it helps that I am musically trained. But it is more than familiarity. It is what music does to my heart. Music is the place where my faith breathes most naturally.

And I wonder if that is part of what my friend experienced at Vespers too. Worship sometimes works not because we strive harder, but because we stop striving altogether. It becomes something to receive rather than achieve. Something to enter with open hands instead of clenched effort.

There are many ways to worship, and each offers its own doorway. But I know this: music brings me closer to God than any other style of worship.

Lent 2026: A good silence

When I woke this morning, the sun was streaming through my window. It feels as though it has been hiding for most of this year. Rain. Cold wind. Grey skies that never quite lift. So to open my eyes to blue was an uplifting start to the day.

I walked to college for morning prayer, taking time to hear the birds. On the way back I ambled along the river, watching light catch on trees and bridges. There was no rush. I wanted to savour the tranquillity.

Back home, it became a solitary kind of day. Books open. Notes taken. A couple of deadlines quietly looming. I got my head down and worked. It felt good to have the time and space to do exactly that.

There was a time when I loved silence. Found it life-giving. Restoring.  Then there was a season when I dreaded it. Silence amplified everything I was trying not to hear. It felt suffocating. Disconcerting. Like being left alone with thoughts that would not behave.

Today was not that kind of silence. Today was a good silence. It did not feel threatening or lonely. It felt necessary. Like a gift I hadn’t realised I needed. Even with deadlines hovering at the edge of my mind, there was peace in the quiet. A steadiness. A sense that I did not need to fill every moment with noise or productivity.

We all need days like these. Even Jesus did.

More than once in the Gospels, he withdrew to a quiet place to be alone. Before decisions. After crowds. In the midst of relentless need. Solitude was not weakness. It was sustenance. I suspect it was part of what anchored and sustained his ministry.

In a society that urges us to be visible, busy, always available, always striving, there is something quietly rebellious about stepping aside. About enjoying birdsong. About walking slowly by a river.

If Jesus needed stillness, then so do we.
Perhaps silence is not something to fear or fill, but a gift. Not every day will feel like this. I know that. But today did.

And today, that was enough.

Lent 2026: When the dice don’t roll…

Just a short post today. I’m sure there’s much more Catan could open my eyes to, but just one more for this little series.

This time, I’m moving away from strategy. I’ve said before that Catan is a game of luck made to look like a game of strategy. That’s a little unfair, of course. Strategy has its place. But if the dice don’t roll the right numbers, even the best planning goes out the window.

The thing is, the dice don’t always realise which numbers they’re supposed to roll. In my last game, I’m fairly sure 5 and 3 appeared far more often than 6 and 8. I’ll leave you to work out the probabilities.

Here’s the thing: when your numbers aren’t rolled, you sit there watching the dice land.

Three.
Five.
Nine.

Someone else collects. Roads extend. Settlements grow. You glance at your cards and realise you’re still holding the same hand you had two rounds ago, and there’s still no wood in the game.

At one point someone asks, “Does anyone have wood to trade?”
“Roll a 6 and I will!”
We laugh or roll our eyes. But there is truth in it. The willingness is there. The ability is not.

You aren’t doing anything wrong. You just aren’t receiving anything new.
There’s a particular frustration in that kind of waiting. You’re ready. If an 8 rolled, you could build. If a 6 appeared, the resource you need might finally be up for trade. But readiness does not create results.

You cannot force a roll.

You can only play on, taking your turn and watching others get ahead.

I wonder how much of the spiritual life feels like that. We prepare. We pray. We try to live faithfully. And sometimes growth feels tangible and visible. Other times it feels as though everyone else is building while we sit with the same small handful of resources. I know there have been seasons of my life that felt like that, like I was stuck in limbo while others moved forward.

Scripture is surprisingly honest about waiting. Abraham waited. Hannah waited. The disciples waited between promise and Pentecost. Even resurrection had a silent Saturday. All of them living between what had been promised and what had not yet arrived.

Waiting is not absence. It is a space where trust grows roots instead of branches. You can’t always see it, but by choosing to stay present, to keep praying, something steadier is being formed.

In Catan, the wise player doesn’t storm off when the dice misbehave. They stay attentive. They watch the board. They keep track of what others are building. They prepare for when the number finally does roll.

Perhaps faith is something like that. Not frantic striving. Not giving up. Just staying at the table.

Sometimes the number comes quickly. Sometimes it doesn’t. But the story isn’t over just because your turn was quiet.

Lent 2026: Does anyone have a brick?

Apparently the game isn’t done teaching me yet…

If you read yesterday’s post, you’ll know Catan has become a popular game with some of my family. It’s also turning out to be a goldmine for theological thinking, so here’s a second reflection inspired by the board game.

Our games of Catan have a particular rhythm. Not the dice. The conversation. The board fills with roads and settlements, but the real activity happens in the air above it.

“Does anyone have sheep?”
“What areyou offering?”
“I can trade wheat.”
“Two wheat?”
“For one sheep? No way!”
“…fine, one wheat”

There’s a cautious generosity to it all. Trades are rarely pure kindness and rarely pure self-interest. Both players are hoping to move forward. Sometimes several people want the deal and there’s a friendly rivalry as players bid for the resource. Sometimes nobody can help and the question just hangs there for a moment before the turn continues.

Occasionally someone gets left out without anyone intending to exclude them (see yesterday’s post). Mostly, though, the game moves because people keep talking.

You can try to play silently, building only from what the dice give you, but I’ll stick my neck out and say that never works. You stall. The board grows around you. The game carries on elsewhere.

Catan, for all its strategy, probability and luck, runs on conversation. And I think many parts of life do too. We often imagine independence as strength, as though maturity means needing less from others. It certainly felt like that was what society tried to teach me growing up. Yet a surprising amount of human flourishing begins with a sentence that feels slightly uncomfortable to say out loud:

Does anyone have…?

Not a demand. Not even a plan. Just an admission that we cannot progress alone.

It makes me think of Bartimaeus, sitting beside the road while the crowd moved past him. He didn’t wait to be noticed. He called out. Loudly enough to irritate people. Loudly enough that others tried to quiet him. Yet he persisted, because he needed help and believed Jesus could give it. Conversation replaced distance. Attention replaced assumption. His healing began not with sight restored but with a request voiced.

There’s vulnerability in that question. You are telling the table what you lack. You are giving others the ability to refuse you. You are trusting that someone might want your progress as well as their own.

Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes it is no. But the asking itself changes the shape of the game.

The communities I’ve seen work best aren’t the ones where everyone agrees or everyone gives everything away. They’re the ones where people keep speaking, keep asking, keep responding. Mutual benefit becomes the normal pattern of life rather than a special act of generosity.

Jesus didn’t only teach people what to believe; he formed a group that needed each other. Meals, requests, shared resources, ordinary interactions. The early church is described as a place where people shared what they had so that no one was in need. They talked, they shared, and that made space for mutual flourishing.

Catan is a game, and everyone is trying to win. But if even a game with only one winner teaches us to communicate and ask for help, how much more important is that in the real world? Perhaps love often looks less like heroic sacrifice and more like ongoing conversation.

A quiet table rarely becomes a community. But a table where people keep asking and answering just might.

So I’m learning not to be embarrassed by small requests, and not to overlook them in others. Sometimes belonging begins with nothing more profound than this:

“Does anyone have brick?”

Lent 2026: Starting Tiles

Do you like games? I do, especially board games that pretend to reward strategy while quietly smuggling in chaos.

Recently our family favourite has been Catan. The idea is simple: the board is made of different resources, wood, wheat, sheep, brick and ore. Each tile has a number, and when that number is rolled on the dice, anyone settled there collects the resource. You use those to build roads and settlements, trade with other players, and the first to ten victory points wins.

In theory it’s a strategy game. In practice it is a strategy game wrapped carefully around luck.

Take our latest game: I began well. Brick with an 8, one of the most frequently rolled numbers, and soon I had access to wheat, sheep and ore too. Theoretically, a dream start to my game. Except the dice had their own ideas and favoured 3 and 5 instead. My careful planning sat there waiting while probability went elsewhere.
Still, I shouldn’t complain. Of the five of us playing, one player had an awful start. No brick, no sheep, very little wheat, and a 10 on one of her tiles. She spent most of the game trying to trade just to get moving, often without success.

Near the end I realised how stuck she’d been and tried to help, but by then the board was already established. My help didn’t really change much.

I wasn’t being cruel. I wasn’t deliberately refusing. I simply hadn’t noticed.

It sparked a thought: how often life looks exactly like that?

From inside our own story, things feel earned. We made sensible decisions. We worked hard. We planned ahead. Sometimes that’s true. But sometimes we also happened to begin on better tiles.

I realised how easy it is to see only the middle of someone’s story and quietly assume it began like mine. Some people are building cities. Some people are still trying to place their first road. Some generate what they need naturally. Others must constantly ask, negotiate, and depend on kindness just to participate at all. It’s easy to call one success and the other failure when we never saw the starting position.

But what unsettled me most wasn’t that I refused to help. It was that I just didn’t notice. I was fully occupied with my own perfectly reasonable plans. Watching my numbers. Waiting for my resources. Thinking about my next move. The opposite of love is rarely cruelty. More often it is preoccupation.

Jesus consistently noticed people stuck at the edges of the system, the ones unable to move forward without someone else choosing to see them. He did not begin by asking whether they had played wisely. He began by paying attention.

Perhaps generosity starts earlier than we think. Not when we give, but when we look up.

At the end of the evening we packed the pieces away, laughed about improbable dice rolls, and congratulated a gracious winner. But I kept thinking about those starting tiles.

In Catan, helping late rarely changes the outcome. In life, looking up and noticing might.