All my posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551
or search for 'martin cadwell -caldwell' Take note of the position of the minus sign to eliminate caldwell returns or search for 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser.
I am not on YouTube or social media
I have you in my eye
But it is a good thing
[ 7 minute read ]
This is a temporary post until 6:30am today (Thursday 15th January 2026) when it will be replaced by another.
I wrote a post and published a post yesterday at 6am ( 06:00) but I felt compelled to write another that has much more strength to it.
I have noticed that Jim McCrory who normally likes to post on the Open University Personal Blog site every day, and often two or even three times a day, has not posted recently. I know he is not well, so I shall offer my time and energy to hopefully fill in for him today in his mission to guide lost people towards God.
Personally, I find his posts both intriguing and irritating. Perhaps I get nudged a little by his God, by my God, and everyone else's God or Gods; I hope so.
I cannot write as well as he, and I know he knows it. We have sometimes not seen eye to eye, but he has always been able to better me when it comes to patience and understanding. I don't mind, in disagreeing with Jim, I am taking on a far greater force who has his back whenever Jim is right. I like that. I like to talk to the organ grinder in my ordinary everyday life. God, your own God, is not the bored person at the other end of the phone when you call customer-service. God, your God, is not the ill-trained person who can't understand your problem and missed the customer-service training. God, your God, does not work for the company out to make themselves richer at your expense. God makes you richer at God's expense. But like things on Earth in the physical world, you have to pay a little into your account, to be able to expect God's help. We always have to take the first step and if it is the right thing to do, God will help us with the other nine-tenths of getting it done; but we cannot stop trying throughout the task or ordeal.
Jim knows his Bible so well, and I know The Bible almost not at all, and I am almost inclined to not reference any Bible, but Jim thinks it is important to qualify his words, so I will spend a little time seeking some quotes to try to match Jim's sentiment and his sense of righteousness.
Let's see. What have I written so far and what bits in the Bible does it remind me of. I know that Jim feels he is guided by God and his writing reflects God's Will, so I shall do as Jim does and pray for a short while for guidance.
My prayer was short and it is in God's inbox. I have a reply now. I know a piece in the New Testament that 'chimes' with me and matches my words so far. I don't have a fast-track open channel with any Gods; I think I caught the Christian God on a tea-break scrolling through his emails. You definitely shouldn't expect a quick response from God quite simply because in all likelihood. YOU are on a tea-break from reality. You are not ready to pay attention, or have not put in the groundwork that God can use to work with you. 'I pray my family would understand me.' simply won't work on its own; it is missing at least one essential ingredient. Open an avenue of conversation; maybe you need to swallow your pride and apologise, not for something you did, but for something that they think you did. Try to see things from their point of view. Even understanding that they feel bad or offended is essential. I got a quick reply to my prayer just now because I already knew the answer to my question. I won't read you God's email to me, but essentially it says. 'You already have it! Try harder!'
Just remember this if you pray: God is omnipresent and is the Alpha and the Omega; the beginning and the end. That doesn't only mean that God is everywhere, it also means God is every 'when'. It means that God can hear your past prayers, your ongoing prayers, and your future prayers before you even say them and because God is omnipotent can, if God chooses to, change the past, present and future. In this, there is hope. We can never know if the past changed because we change with it. We can never know that the future changed because we are not there to witness it. And the present is now the past, now the past, now the past....
Recognising these two concepts are fundamental in a relationship with God. Change will always start with you and God is on everyone's side in every time and every 'when', including the future.
Don't ever be afraid to talk to God, your God. The Christian God has a wonderful sense of humour and we have laughed many times at my failings, over a brandy and a cigar; but God doesn't drink or smoke so it was just me chilling while God watched and shook a wise head with a wry smile on it.
Anyone who is familiar with my posts would easily recognise that 1 Corinthians 13 v.1-13 is highly instrumental in my life. It doesn't matter if I am a Christian or not. It, however, is not possible for me to not believe in love, and it is not possible for me to not want to be understood.
From 1 Corinthians 13 verse 1 - 13 (Easy to remember where it is: 1, 13, Corinthians 1, 13)
Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth, now in modern Greece. It is West of Athens and is on the Peloponnese.
1 'If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophesy and can fathom all the mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love. I am nothing.
3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.
11 When I was a child, I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.'
The Holy Bible New International Version (NIV)
I didn't write about God today because I love Jim and want to help him do what he sees as his duty to his God; to tell people about God. I didn't write this because I follow God and make myself His instrument. I get to choose what I do with my life. I can listen to God or not. What I cannot do is intentionally ignore doing something I had a notion was, or is, the right thing to do. Christians might say that our conscience is a manifestation of our communication with our Gods; philosophers say otherwise.
If a man or woman struggles to cross the road for some reason, only the most callous and selfish person does not stop to help them. Perhaps though, God does not speak to them, or they simply cannot hear any God. But as Jim would, I think, say, God does not shout for attention. God is a comfort and is soothing. God is soft and firm as well. God provides a place to stand still and relax; a place where we can let things go and, refreshed and free from unwieldy burden, we can endure what our lives throw at us with patience and perseverance.
I hope I have carried some of Jim's burden today. The person in the paragraph above might be trying to cross the road to help someone who needs them. My efforts are paid forward to help the lost, with thanks to Jim for showing me both 'putting my shoulder to the plough' and perseverance.
- 'putting one's shoulder to the plough' is a largely archaic phrase that means to do the necessary work by assisting the ox or horse team pulling the plough in the days before farmers got tractors; literally pushing the plough when the terrain or 'going' got difficult.