April Blog 2025

Changing Seasons

Life is a journey where we go through different seasons. When we started walking with Jesus will be different for each one of us. As we grow as Christians we seek to follow Christ throughout our daily lives, in our work, family and church life and all else that we do.

Last time I wrote our blog, I explained about being a self-supporting curate. Nine months in, and I am enjoying the variety, the being able to connect with people of all different ages and in different seasons of life. Being able to journey with those in church and those who come for baptisms, weddings or funerals. I’m still doing this alongside paid work with those with dementia, supporting them and their families, which can give me a different perspective again.

I have learnt new things about myself and things about other people. Sometimes we look back when we need to look forwards. We recently heard a sermon about running the race. Paul says,

I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us (Philippians 3:13-14).

There are similarities here with Isaiah 43, one of my favourite passages.

But forget all that – it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. For I am about to do something new. See I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in dry wasteland (Isaiah 43.18-19).

This passage gives me hope, not to forget to look for what God is already doing in my life and the lives of those around me. Sometimes we get so busy with what we are doing that we do not look to see what is happening around us.

I think that in ministry there are times when there are interruptions and that is good. Jesus did not have a diary, he knew that he had come to earth for a reason, but I don’t believe that he had every day planned out. We saw when he was asked to go and heal Jairus’ daughter, he was then interrupted again by the woman who touched his cloak because she wanted healing (Matt 9:18-25).

Lent is a time for waiting and thinking. Reevaluating our lives, seeing what we need to bring before God, and considering if we need to make changes. We need to check that we are still following God’s plans for us, and that we have not unintentionally wandered away. We cannot pray that God will be with us, and then go off in a different direction, hoping that because we have prayed, this will be the right thing, or God is going to come along and bless us anyway.

This cross struck me, when I was on a walk. Can we see Christ through the mess that we get ourselves into? Life can be messy, we are human, we can all try but we still mess up at times. Some things are out of our control. Maybe we think that we are good, that we would never intentionally do anything wrong, but are we truly living the life that Christ has called us to live? Are we open to being interrupted? Life can feel like a path, which changes in the seasons, sometimes it’s smooth and straight forward and at other times, it’s steep and rugged. If we are following Christ, we cannot expect it to be a smooth journey, after all, Jesus faced being tempted for 40 days (Matt 4); being denied by one of his closest friends (Matt 27); being flogged (Matt 27:26) and hung on a cross. If we look at Paul, he suffered greatly for Christ (2 Cor 10.25). Life does not have to be going smoothly for us to follow God’s will for our life. The journey is full of ups and downs but let us focus on Christ this Easter and celebrate his resurrection.

Can I suggest that this Easter you read the account of the resurrection from one of the Gospels, or if you can from all four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John). What do you notice? How does it speak to you afresh?

Bible verses are from the New Living Translation.

Photos are taken by me.