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Matthew 23:26 NLT

'You blind Pharisee! First wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, too.'

For much of my early Christian life, I operated on a right/wrong axis. There was truth and there was error and I held a dualistic view of the world. I was enlightened and self-aware enough to know that an audit of my life would reveal that much of it sat under the error column. Yet, I hoped I might disguise that from church leaders and others who might advance my rise through the ranks of organised Christianity. Of course, this reveals another deadly deceit, regarding Christianity as a construct rather than a relationship.

Clearing my hedge revealed the death and decay lurking just beneath the surface, but it also revealed birds’ nests, symbols of hope and life. Here in the dark inner recesses, birds had found safety within a hostile garden environment to rear their young. Eggs hatched as symbols of redemption in both a dark space and a dangerous world. This impacted me and I reflected on the good there is so often hidden within the faults we can easily identify in both ourselves, yet perhaps more frequently in others.

Christianity that demands correctness to a set of external measures always falls foul of turning into a mechanistic expression of gospel life. At the very heart of Christianity is an organic reality that life emerges, grows and discovers for itself how to survive in a hostile environment.

Responding to love takes time. Until I feel secure in that love, I can never relinquish the fears that past wounds will be reopened. Married to Jayne, who was abandoned by her first husband, I experience the struggles she has had truly trusting that the love I offer is substantial and secure. My responses are themselves subject to my own experiences of life and may only go to exacerbate the situation, for sadly I am no ‘saint’. It is in the risk of working towards love and experiencing our insecurities that we can move closer to God who called and created us.

QUESTION: What helps you feel safe and secure in a relationship?

PRAYER: Loving heavenly Father, I thank you that you are good and that within your loving embrace I am secure.