It means you don’t have to treat your life as something separate from God anymore. Not something you dip in and out of when you have time or feel spiritual enough. If love lives, then Jesus is not confined to certain places or moments. He’s not waiting for you to get your life together or show up in the right environment. He is present in the middle of your actual life – the conversations, the work, the tiredness, the ordinary routines you repeat every day.

You might be making a drink, replying to a message, walking somewhere you’ve walked a hundred times before and nothing about it feels significant. And yet, if Jesus is alive, then even that moment is not empty. Not separate. Not unnoticed.

It also means you won’t always recognise what He’s doing straight away. That’s normal. The people closest to Jesus didn’t. They saw Him and still missed it at first because they were expecting something clearer, more obvious. So if you find yourself unsure, or not quite seeing where God is, that’s not failure. It might just mean you’re looking for something different to how He’s actually showing up.

In practice, it means paying attention becomes more important than having answers. Instead of trying to work everything out, you begin to notice what’s already happening. A conversation that feels more significant than it should. A moment of peace that doesn’t quite match your circumstances. A sense that you’re being drawn towards something, even if you can’t explain it. None of these things prove anything on their own, but together they start to point to presence.

It means your ordinary day carries more weight than you thought. Not because you have to make it meaningful, but because it already is. If Jesus is alive, then there isn’t a divide between “spiritual life” and “real life.” The way you respond to people, the way you carry yourself, the way you notice or ignore what’s in front of you – these are all part of how you live within His story.

It also means you’re not stuck in the same patterns forever. Resurrection isn’t about going back to how things were. It’s about something new being possible. So the parts of your life that feel fixed – habits, struggles, ways of thinking – are not as final as they seem. Change doesn’t usually happen quickly or dramatically, but it is possible in a way it wasn’t before.

And maybe most simply, it means you’re not on your own in any of it. Not in the big decisions, not in the small moments, not in the confusion or the clarity. Even when nothing feels particularly different, the reality underneath is that Jesus is present. Not distant, not watching from afar, but involved in ways you might only recognise over time.

So the shift is this: you stop waiting for life to become something else before God is part of it. You start to assume He is already here. And perhaps, slowly, that begins to change how you see things. Not all at once. Not dramatically. But you notice a little more. You pause a little longer. You begin to realise that what looked ordinary might not be as empty as it seemed. Because if love lives, then this – what you’re living right now – is already part of something more.

Josh | A Curious Follower

If this resonated, you might want to stay with it a little longer. You can subscribe to A Curious Follower to receive future reflections like this, sent occasionally and without pressure. Or simply carry this with you today and see what you begin to notice.

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A love that does not pull away. A love that stays. A love that suffers. But today – it feels as though that love has gone quiet. Today is the day we often pass over too quickly. Not as heavy as Friday. Not as bright as Sunday. Just…this. The in-between.

And strangely, for many, it would have felt like an ordinary day. People waking up. Preparing meals. Continuing routines. Some observing what had to be observed. Some carrying on almost…automatically.

Have you ever felt that?

That quiet, disorienting gap where something significant has just happened – something heavy, something personal – and yet everything around you keeps moving as though nothing has changed?

Cars still pass. Shops still open. People still laugh.

And you find yourself wondering, even if only for a moment – why doesn’t it stop?

Because part of us wants it to. Wants the world to pause long enough to acknowledge the weight of what we’re carrying. To recognise the grief. To notice the pain. To say, somehow, this matters.

I’ve felt that.

Moments where something has shifted – not loudly, not publicly – but deeply. And all you want, even if you don’t say it out loud, is for everything else to pause. For the noise to quieten. For the world to notice. But it doesn’t. It carries on.

Grief is strange like that – the world keeps moving, and you’re left trying to catch up.

I wonder if the disciples felt something like that. Confused. Scattered. Trying to make sense of what had just unfolded. And outside – out there in the world – life continued. He had spoken of life. Of kingdom. Of something coming. And now?

Silence.

There’s a way of looking back on moments like this and making sense of them. Seeing how things might have been leading somewhere. But when you’re actually in it – it doesn’t feel like that.

For the people closest to him, this didn’t feel like part of a bigger story. It felt like something had ended. Not paused. Ended. It was an ending they could not yet understand.

Maybe that’s why this day matters more than we notice. Because most of life doesn’t feel like Friday or Sunday. It feels like this. The prayer that lingers without response. The situation that doesn’t resolve. The quiet sense that something once felt clear has become…distant. Not gone, necessarily. Just…quiet.

And if Friday asks us what kind of love is this? Saturday asks something harder: where is love now?

It’s not a question we like to sit with. We would rather move quickly – towards clarity, towards resolution, towards Sunday. But Holy Saturday, sad Saturday, silent Saturday resists that. It does not rush. It does not explain. It simply stays.

Because even here – when love feels distant, when God feels silent, when the world carries on as normal – we are left holding the question.

Where is love now?

And maybe that is the invitation of this day.

Not to force meaning too soon. Not to tidy the tension. But to remain. To notice what this kind of silence does within us. What it reveals. What it unsettles. What it gently invites us to trust.

Because love has not gone anywhere. It has not withdrawn. It has not failed. It is simply working in ways we cannot yet see. The roots of resurrection are working in the dark. And so we wait. Not with easy confidence. Not with neat answers. But with a quieter, more fragile trust – that the love we saw yesterday has not disappeared today. Even if it feels like it has.

Tomorrow will say more. But not yet.

Today we stay here.

Josh | A Curious Follower

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Not there. Not like that. It’s easy to say we would – from a distance, from comfort, from knowing how the story ends. But, if I’m honest, if I let the moment come close enough to feel it…I think I would have stepped back. Found a reason. Created space.

Been anywhere but there.

Do anything but stay.

For years I have wrestled with what to do with myself on this day. I have wanted it to rush by. I have wanted to ignore it. I have wanted to fall asleep and wake up on Sunday, where the story feels more comfortable, clearer, resolved.

Be anywhere but here.

Do anything but stay.

And yet, this is where the story asks us to remain. Not at the empty tomb. Not at the celebration. But here. Because Good Friday does not resolve. It doesn’t explain itself. It doesn’t soften the edges. It doesn’t rush to meaning. It simply shows us something.

A friend betrays.

Another denies.

The rest leave.

Power wins – or at least, it looks like it does. And at the centre of it all…Jesus stays.

What kind of love is this?

A love that does not walk away when it would be easier to.

A love that does not defend itself when it is misunderstood.

A love that does not force its way out when it still could.

A love that stays.

I don’t recognise that kind of love easily. Not in myself. I notice how quickly I move past things. How instinctively I reach for what’s next. How uncomfortable it feels to remain where nothing is resolved. To stay, without fixing.

And yet, a man hangs on a cross. Not symbolically. Not abstractly. Actually. Literally. Breathing becomes effort. Time slows. Words come in fragments. “My God, my God…” This is not distant. This is not neat. This is not easy to explain. And still…

He stays.

What kind of love is this?

This is not just a man staying.

This is God refusing to leave.

There is a word for it – Emmanuel. God with us. Not only in the light. But even here. In the confusion. In the pain. In the not-yet-resolved. Not distant. Not absent. Present.

Even on this day.

What kind of love is this?

Not the kind that keeps its distance. Not the kind that only stays when things make sense. Not the kind that waits for everything to be fixed. But a love that comes close.

A love that remains.

A love that does not leave, even when everything else does.

And maybe that is the quiet truth of this day. God has not gone anywhere. Even here. So perhaps today is not about understanding everything. Not about having the right answers. Not about rushing ahead to what comes next.

Just staying.

Maybe that looks like a few quiet minutes. No answers. No fixing. No moving on too quickly.

Just staying.

Staying with the question. Staying with what feels unresolved. Staying long enough to notice…that even here in the confusion, in the pain, in the not-yet-finished – God is present.

What kind of love is this?

A love that stays, even here.

Josh | A Curious Follower

This is the first of three reflections over the coming days. If you’re choosing to stay with this, you’re not alone.

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I watched La La Land again the other day.

I’ve watched it plenty of times before – especially when it first came out – but somewhere along the way I realised it’s nearly ten years old now. Ten years. That surprised me enough to press play again.

And honestly…I hadn’t remembered just how colourful it is.

Not polished for effect, but unapologetically vibrant. Yellows that feel warm. Blues that linger. Reds that don’t seem concerned about subtlety. The whole film feels as though it believes colour still matters.

It left me with a question I haven’t quite shaken:

Have we lost something since then?

Maybe that sounds nostalgic. Perhaps it is. Looking through rose-tinted glasses. But I don’t think this is only about films.

Later that week I was standing in the supermarket car park. Rows and rows of cars – black, silver, white, grey. Including my own. Entirely sensible. Entirely practical. Entirely…neutral.

Grey works. It doesn’t stand out. It doesn’t demand attention.

And somewhere along the way, it feels like we’ve grown comfortable with that. Blending in. Keeping things manageable. Choosing what feels safe.

No one sets out hoping for a dull life. And yet dullness rarely arrives dramatically. It slips in slowly. Routine after routine. Rush after rush. Days filled but barely noticed.

And yet, perhaps the ordinary isn’t colourless at all.

Perhaps colour keeps breaking through if we slow down enough to see it. Evening light falling differently on a familiar street. A bright coat on a grey morning. Steam rising from a takeaway coffee in cold air.

Small moments. Easily missed. The kind of colour that waits rather than shouts.

When I was younger, I loved old films from the Golden Age of cinema – the moment movies suddenly moved into colour. Everything felt brighter than life itself. Almost exaggerated. As if filmmakers were simply delighted that colour could finally be seen. Today our cameras are far better. They capture the world almost exactly as it is. Strangely though, as our technology has improved, much of life can feel flatter.

Communities feel more fragile. Attention more scattered. Presence harder to hold. We move quickly between things. Conversations shorten. Notifications interrupt. We adapt because we have to. We cope. We keep going. Sometimes without really noticing where we are. And settling like that often looks a bit like choosing grey.

The natural world, though, refuses neutrality. Colour persists whether we pay attention or not – moss against stone, sudden sunsets, birds brighter than seems necessary.

Creation carries on in technicolour.

Jesus once described his followers as salt and light – small things that quietly change their surroundings. Light doesn’t create colour; it reveals what was already there. Maybe faith looks less like escaping ordinary life and more like learning to notice it again. Not adding more noise. Not forcing brightness. Just paying attention.

There’s a line from an old Disney attraction that has stayed with me since childhood: the world is a carousel of colour.

I remember hearing it long before I understood what it meant. As a child it simply sounded joyful – a celebration of brightness and movement and possibility. The idea that the world itself was alive and turning, full of things worth looking at.

Perhaps that’s why it has stayed with me.

A carousel doesn’t create anything new. It simply turns, bringing what was already there back into view again and again. The same colours passing before your eyes – familiar, ordinary, easily missed – unless you choose to notice them.

And maybe that’s closer to reality than we realise.

The world has not become colourless. Life has not lost its depth. Much of what we long for may still be there, slowly coming back into view again and again, like a carousel turning – waiting for us to look up long enough to see it.

I still drive a grey car.

But I’m beginning to wonder whether following Jesus might sometimes mean resisting the slow drift into monochrome living, and rediscovering – in God, in creation, in one another – the colour that was never actually lost.

Only unnoticed.

Josh | A Curious Follower

A Curious Follower is a space for anyone who’s learning to slow down, live with intention, and follow the quiet tug of something deeper.

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Slowly, the world begins to adapt and schools open, cars get moved (even if they are pushed), roads become clearer. And then, as the snow began to melt, things somehow got worse.

Ice everywhere.

It was in these, not-so-snowy-very-icy conditions that I was walking home – and thinking.

Snow forces you to slow down.

Your steps shorten. Your weight shifts more carefully. You pay attention in ways you don’t usually have to. And, come to think of it, heat does something similar. When the day is heavy and warm, urgency drains away. You linger in the shade. You accept that not everything will get done.

Different seasons. Different sensations. The same interruption.

I was mid-thought – enjoying where my mind was wandering – when my foot slipped and jarred me back into the moment.

Right. Pay attention to the road ahead.

So I adjusted. I stepped into the road where the snow had been cleared, where I thought it would be safer. Just a few metres from home now. Nearly there.

And then – in the blink of an eye – wham.

Feet out in front of me. Arm down to break the fall. Whack. My head hit the ground.

How could I be so stupid?!

There was the shock first. That strange, hollow pause where everything feels distant. Then the temporary loss of sensation in my arm. Then the pain. Then – once I realised I could stand – the embarrassment. A quick look around. I thought no one was watching. Good.

I took a few sheepish steps back towards home, trying to walk it off, trying to convince myself it wasn’t as bad as it felt.

And then a voice. “You alright, mate?” A neighbour had seen the whole thing. And with that, the embarrassment arrived properly – like a wave. “I’m fine, mate – thanks!” I shouted back. Which was, quite obviously, a lie. Just an instinctive attempt to save face. To pretend I was more in control than I actually was. To move past the moment as quickly as possible.

What struck me later was how automatic it had been.

I hadn’t paused to check whether I was fine. I hadn’t noticed the pain properly, or the shock, or the way my arm felt strangely heavy. I’d simply reached for the line I always seem to reach for when something goes wrong.

I’m fine.

It’s such an ordinary phrase. Almost meaningless. And yet it does so much work for us. It keeps things moving. It closes conversations before they open. It protects us from awkwardness, from sympathy, from being seen when we don’t quite have ourselves together. And in that moment, lying on an icy road, surrounded by the evidence of my own clumsiness, I realised how deeply practiced I am at it.

Not at lying, exactly.

At performing.

At presenting a version of myself that looks a little more capable, a little more in control, a little less in need than the truth.

What made it stranger still was how unnecessary it all was. I wasn’t the only one slipping that week. Half the country seemed to be walking more carefully, laughing at themselves, helping strangers up from pavements. Falling over had briefly become…normal.

There was no judgement in his voice. No rush to fix me. Just a simple human question.

Are you alright?

And still, my instinct wasn’t honesty. It was control. It was “I’m fine” when there was absolutely nothing wrong with saying, “Actually, I’m not.”

The snow and ice had already slowed the world down. Now my body was insisting on a slower pace still. And perhaps – I’m beginning to wonder – it wasn’t only my walking that needed to change. There is something about moments like this – when movement is interrupted, when control slips away – that invites us into a different way of being.

Stillness.

Not the chosen kind. Not the sort we plan for with candles and quiet music and good intentions.

The kind that arrives without asking.

Once I got home, once the adrenaline wore off and the pain settled in, I realised that my day had quietly changed shape. Everything took longer. Getting dressed. Making a cup of tea. Sitting down. Standing up again. Even resting required attention.

The world outside had slowed because of the weather. Now my own body was insisting on its own version of the same thing. And in that enforced stillness, I began to notice things I usually hurry past.

How quickly I want to move on from discomfort. How instinctively I hide weakness. How rarely I allow myself to simply be where I am.

Stillness, I’m learning, is not always peaceful. Sometimes it’s awkward. Sometimes it’s frustrating. Sometimes it is the place where the stories we tell ourselves – about being capable, composed, in control – begin to loosen their grip.

Limits have a way of doing that too.

The body is an honest teacher. It doesn’t negotiate. It doesn’t respond well to being ignored. An injured arm names a boundary you can’t pretend isn’t there. It reminds you – quite firmly – that you are not endless. That you live within edges. That you are made with limits, not in spite of them.

And yet so much of the way we live seems to suggest otherwise.

We push through tiredness. We override seasons. We flatten the year into one long stretch of output and expectation. Even winter, for a long time, barely counted. The Roman calendar once ran for ten months – spring through autumn – leaving the colder, quieter months simply…unnamed. Uncounted time. Time without harvest, without campaigns, without visible productivity.

And still, winter kept doing its work.

Quietly. Beneath the surface. In rest and preparation. Perhaps limits are not interruptions to the journey after all. Perhaps they are part of the way.

There is something annoyingly wise in the rhythms we cannot control.

Winter slowing the world down. Heat insisting we rest. Bodies that need sleep, seasons that refuse to hurry, days that will not stretch as far as we want them to. Perhaps stillness and limits are not problems to solve, but gifts we are meant to receive.

I’ve been wondering whether part of our difficulty with faith comes from the way we separate things out. Following Jesus over here. Ordinary life over there. God on certain days and quiet moments, the rest of the week given over to getting on with things. And yet, if the call of Jesus really is to love God and love others, all the time, then surely there is no neat line between the two. There is no “spiritual life” and “real life”.

There is just life.

Which raises a gentler, harder question.

How do we love – truly love – in a way that lasts?

How do we keep paying attention, keep offering patience, keep choosing kindness, when we are tired, hurried, overwhelmed, or pretending we are fine?

I’m beginning to suspect that the answer is not found in trying harder, or moving faster, or learning better techniques. It may be found in learning to live within the rhythms we were given. Stillness that teaches us to notice. Limits that remind us we are human. Seasons that insist we cannot be productive all the time, or strong all the time, or generous all the time without first being cared for.

Perhaps this is how a sustainable journey is shaped.

Not by separating faith from the rest of life, but by allowing the pace of life itself – the weather, the body, the year – to form us into people who can love more gently, more honestly, and for longer than we otherwise could.

As this year begins, more slowly than I expected, I’m trying to stay with what this pace might be teaching me. Paying attention to the weather. To my body. To the annoying wisdom of limits.

I didn’t choose this pace.

But for now, I’m learning to keep it.

And I find myself wondering – without answers – whether stillness, and limits, and the rhythms of the year might be some of the ways God is teaching us how to walk this journey well.

Josh | A Curious Follower

A Curious Follower is a space for anyone who’s learning to slow down, live with intention, and follow the quiet tug of something deeper.

You can subscribe to stay connected, share this with someone who might need it, or simply leave a thought below. I’d love to hear from you.

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This is less “here’s what’s coming” and more “here’s what I’m staying with – for now.”

What Is Continuing

Some things aren’t changing – and that feels important to say.

The writing here will continue. The blog posts. The reflections. The emails that arrive in your inbox.

The Radical Recall to Rest is still out there too – still being read, shared, and finding its way into people’s hands. If you’d like to explore or pass it on, you can find it here.

The conversations will continue. One-to-one listening spaces. Emails that turn into something deeper. Honest chats about faith, tiredness, questions, and what it means to keep going.

And Growing with God will continue – creating simple, reflective spaces where people can slow down, notice, and breathe again.

I’m not trying to reinvent things this year. I’m choosing to stay with what has already proved meaningful. I find myself returning to three simple questions. Not questions I’m trying to answer quickly, or resolve neatly – but ones I’m learning to live with.

What feels worth protecting? What seems to be emerging? And what keeps me coming back, even when the answers aren’t clear yet?

I’m holding these questions lightly as I move into the months ahead, and you’re welcome to hold them too – not as a framework to follow, but as a way of paying attention to your own life, at your own pace.

What Feels Worth Protecting? – Writing.

A few weeks ago, after some proper time at my desk, I felt joy in a way I hadn’t for a while. It caught me off guard. Writing doesn’t solve everything for me, but in a world that often feels dark and demanding, it’s one of the things that helps me keep going.

It’s one of the ways I slow myself down enough to notice what’s really going on. It helps me stay connected – to my own inner life, to God, and to the questions that I take pleasure (mostly) in pondering.

Some of this writing will be shared. A lot of it won’t be. Both feel necessary.

So one of my intentions this year is simply to protect time and space to write – without needing everything to become content, or justify its usefulness.

You might find yourself asking similar questions:

• What can I do, or where can I be to help me stay grounded?

• What is worth protecting, even if no one else ever sees it?

What Seems To Be Emerging? – Spaces.

Alongside the writing, I keep noticing how much life happens in small, ordinary spaces. Conversations that aren’t hurried. Rooms where people can show up as they are. Moments where silence is allowed to do some of the work.

Growing with God continues to grow in this way – not as something to scale or systemise, but as a way of holding space carefully and attentively.

I’m paying attention to where these spaces already seem to be forming, rather than trying to force new ones into existence.

It makes me wonder:

• Where do I feel able to breathe?

• What kinds of spaces help me feel more human, not less?

What Keeps Me Coming Back? – Encounter.

At the heart of all of this is encounter.

Encounter with myself – noticing limits, tiredness, hope, and desire without trying to fix or explain them away.

Encounter with God – not manufactured or dramatic, but found in slowness, stillness, and ordinary moments.

Encounter with others – listening without agenda, being present without needing to solve anything.

These moments are often quiet. Easy to miss. Rarely impressive. And yet, they’re what keep drawing me back – what continue to feel most sustaining. As this year unfolds, I want to keep making myself available to encounter in these simple ways, and to keep noticing where it’s already happening.

Beyond these things, I’m holding the rest of the year lightly.

I’m open to what may emerge – including the possibility of returning more intentionally to photography. If last year was about rediscovering writing, perhaps this year will be about rediscovering photography. Who knows?

There’s no firm plan. Just a willingness to pay attention. And then, do the next right thing.

Josh | A Curious Follower

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Welcome to a new year. I hope you have been able to have the entrance into 2026 that you wanted. Whether that is with family, friends, parties, meals, or something more simple, quieter perhaps? However this finds you, I hope you are well and welcome to a new year with A Curious Follower.

There’s something about a new year, that tempts us towards certainty, clarity, and renewed determination. Bold declarations, and even bolder resolutions.

In 2026 I will be…
In 2026 I will do…
In 2026 I will have…

But as we step into 2026, the image that keeps returning for me, isn’t a polished plan, a perfect resolution, or even a completed picture for what 2026 will look like. The image that keeps returning for me - it’s clay.

The temptation as we cross this threshold is to think we have to have fully sculpted, kiln-fired, perfect piece of pottery to show off to the world. But as we start this new year, it is okay to start with a lump of clay. Unfinished. Still being shaped. Not yet there. Not a finished product, but something in the making.

Clay

I don’t know about you but often I feel like the first day of a new year has to be perfectly co-ordinated – what do I mean by that? I feel like we have to present to the world a kiln-fired plan for the year. An impressive piece of pottery ready to go and impress the world with its audacity. But the more I think about this and the older I get (I will only be 26 this year) I think that clay fits much better as a metaphor for the first day of the new year.

Clay is ordinary. Earthy. Unimpressive at first glance. It resists being rushed. It responds to pressure slowly. Go too fast and the clay will crumble. The design disappears. And what are you left with? Still a lump of clay.

Perhaps it is the same with life – go too fast and the design disappears. Things crumble. And we are left with what we began with – a life designed to be lived in fruitfulness, fullness, and connection.

As I enter this year, I’m increasingly aware of the gap between knowing what matters and living it. Between believing that encounter with God is vital, and intentionally slowing down enough to notice that God is already here, already among us.

If God is not distant but present – not waiting to be invited but already at work – then perhaps the invitation is not to strive harder, but to slow enough to join in.

And maybe that’s the point of a new year.

Curiosity

As I step into a new year, I am finding my curiosity off-the-charts.

I think this is part of what resolutions offer despite that over time for many they have become over-used rituals of meaningless intention. Resolutions offer an often optimistic view of what the coming year could hold. More healthy. Better job. More social. Better house. More fun. Better car. The list could go on.

But as I write this list, I notice that all of the things are focused on “better” or “more”. And yet, often we miss what needs to be less – in the rush for the more. But curiosity requires us to consider the less as well as the more. Curiosity requires us to be less interested in answers and more attentive to questions. Questions that seem to invite presence rather than demand solutions.

I’m noticing a gap between knowing that encounter with God matters, and the lived reality of intentionally making space for it. Between believing that God is already here, already among us, and actually slowing down enough to notice and join in with what God is already doing.

I keep noticing how much of life – even spiritual life – rewards speed, clarity, and output. Curiosity gently resists that. It asks us to linger a little longer. To stay with what we don’t yet understand. To trust that paying attention might be more faithful than rushing ahead.

I’m also becoming curious about what genuinely nourishes faith, and what simply adds to the noise. What resources deepen attention and connection, and which ones quietly distract us from the very presence we’re seeking. What helps the holy and the human flourish together – not as competing forces, but as intertwined realities.

I’m also holding a more vulnerable curiosity – one shaped by lived reality.

I wonder whether I’ve been living in a season of “just enough” for a while. Grateful, yes – deeply so – and yet aware of the quiet cost of always scraping by. I find myself wondering what it might look like to move from survival towards stewardship.

Not abundance for its own sake. Not excess. Just enough margin to breathe. Enough to repair what’s worn. Enough to create without constant anxiety. I don’t have answers for that yet. But I’m paying attention to the question, rather than dismissing it.

Curiosity, I’m learning, is not the opposite of faith. It’s often the doorway into it.

Courage

Of course, curiosity comes at a cost.

It takes courage to admit we don’t yet know. Courage to resist the pressure to present a finished piece of pottery when we’re still being formed. Courage to live with questions without rushing them towards conclusions.

It takes courage to trust that following God in the unknown is not foolishness – even when clarity is slow to arrive. Courage to resist jumping ship too quickly, or choosing security simply to quiet the discomfort of not knowing what’s next.

Choosing a slower pace. Choosing depth over output. Choosing faithfulness over visibility. These choices don’t always look brave from the outside. But they require courage all the same. Especially in a world – and sometimes even in Christian spaces – that rewards decisiveness, speed, and visible success.

Still In The Making

So what could this year hold?

I’m not sure.

What I do know is that I want to remain attentive. Open-handed. Willing to be shaped rather than rushed to completion. Clay teaches patience. Curiosity keeps the heart open. Courage allows us to keep going without pretending we know the end of the story. As 2026 begins, this feels like enough.

If you’re entering this year with clarity, I’m glad. And if you’re entering it unfinished, uncertain, still in the making – you’re welcome here too.

This space remains one of listening rather than declaring, of exploration rather than arrival, as we learn – together – what it might mean to follow with curiosity, honesty, and courage.

Josh | A Curious Follower

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This isn’t a typical highlights reel of 2025. It isn’t a list of what happened. It isn’t another New Year post encouraging resolutions and unachievable goals.

This is a space. A space to breathe. A space to pause before the calendar rolls into a New Year. A space to consider what has been. To ponder. To be honest. And to be grateful.

So before we go any further, I just want to say – thank you for being here. It means a lot that you are here and journeying with me. Whether this is your first time interacting with A Curious Follower or you have been here since the start – you are welcome here.

Building Foundations

This year, A Curious Follower found its way into the world.

Earlier this year, the first blog post went public. The writing I had often been doing in private, becoming public.

The project I had been working on, Growing with God began breathing a life of its own. The SPACE – EXPLORE – PRACTICE model used in group settings to give breathing space for weary and tired people. And, who isn’t tired these days? But this space was and is for more than just weariness, it is for breathing new life into the dreams long forgotten or pushed aside. The very dreams that God was and is using to breathe curiosity, attention, vulnerability, invitation, and wonder back into this world.

The book I had been working on long before A Curious Follower was conceived – The Radical Recall to Rest found its way into the hands of people around this country and the world. A book that breathes the SPACE – EXPLORE – PRACTICE model, that reclaims Sabbath, rediscovers rest, and reimagines rest for our Christian communities.

But those moments, important as they are, don’t really capture the heart of the year.

What has mattered most has been the conversations. Emails that lingered. Messages that arrived quietly. Long, honest chats about tiredness, faith, questions, and the longing for something slower and more grounded.

Again and again, I’ve been struck by how, in a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence and automation, people seem to be yearning for something deeply and unmistakably human – presence, attention, spaces where they don’t have to perform or keep up.

Without much planning, A Curious Follower has slowly become that kind of place for some. That has felt both humbling and surprising.

But all of this, has felt like the start of something good. I can hold my hands up and say that I may be biased. But the conversations, the writing, the spaces – all feel like they are building good foundations. We are on an unknown journey, drawn towards a destination we cannot yet fully see. The path remains unclear, and yet the direction of travel feels, somehow, right.

Reconnecting

I have used writing to help me understand the world around me, to make sense of what is happening, what I am feeling, where I might be noticing God, where I might be noticing other things. And for the longest time I ran from this.

It connected me to God – yes – but it connected me to God in one of the most vulnerable ways. There is no hiding behind pretence or wilful ignorance here. That is scary.

So often I found myself fearful, not of meeting with God but of what that meant – often uncomfortable truths, uncomfortable paths, uncomfortable answers, more uncomfortable questions. This vulnerability, I am learning, is worth pushing through. This discomfort is worth pushing through.

Having space to write freely has allowed room for excitement, sadness, questions, and hope to sit together without needing to be resolved. In those moments, I’ve sensed God doing something new – not always dramatic or obvious, but alive and gentle, growing beneath the surface.

That noticing has sustained me more than I expected. So in many ways, writing has been the gift of the year. It has helped me reconnect with my own soul, and return – again and again – to God.

Unexpected Journeys

This year has had its fair share of unexpected journeys. As I’m sure there has been for you too. Life is full of unpredictability. The Holy Spirit is wild and interrupts. With or without God there is chaos. With God, that chaos becomes something closer to “chaordic” – chaos and order held in tension. Peace is possible without all the answers. Forgiveness is possible without reconciliation. Love is possible without any logical reason.

One of the on-going unexpected journeys of the year has been learning – and re-learning – that I don’t get to decide what resonates. Some writing I assumed would land well drifted past practically unnoticed. Other pieces, which I wasn’t sure about at all, found their way into people’s lives and stayed there.

It’s reminded me that this work isn’t about ‘cleverness’ or control. It’s about honesty and release – offering what feels true, and trusting it to go where it needs to go. That trust, hasn’t always come easily, but it is so necessary.

Another unexpected journey this year has been the conversations I’ve found myself in – where we know, academically and theologically, that rest matters, and yet living it has been far slower and more demanding than expected. I’ve had many conversations where the desire for rest is clear, but the reality feels just out of reach. Moments where the pull towards busyness, productivity, and constant output has been strong – especially when the world seems to reward exactly that.

Choosing to rest on Jesus rather than on visibility, momentum, or success has felt deeply countercultural. And choosing a slower pace has meant sitting with tension rather than escaping it.

Ending Well

So as this calendar year comes to an end, I find myself drawn back to one of the quiet calls at the heart of A Curious Follower – words from a song that never stays on repeat, but always seems to arrive when I need it most:

So this is where things stand as the year draws to a close.

No resolutions. No neat conclusions. Just an honest naming of the ground beneath our feet.

As one year becomes the next, you’re welcome to stay – to read, to listen, to keep noticing. If all that you are is not all you desire, then come. You don’t have to arrive with answers. Just come as you are.

For now, I’m setting this year down with thanks – noticing what has been, the contours of the journey, the blessings and the challenges of a year where everything and nothing has changed at the same time.

May you have a restful and blessed New Year.

Josh | A Curious Follower

If this stirred something in you – if you, too, want to follow with curiosity – you can subscribe, share, or simply keep coming back. There’s no pressure. You’re welcome just as you are.

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The waiting gives way to morning.
The build-up loosens its grip.
Wrapping paper gathers in corners.
Plates stack up.
The day settles into itself.

And still, life carries on.

That’s what strikes me most this morning.
Christmas doesn’t tidy everything up.
It doesn’t wrap the world into something simple or complete.

It meets us where we are.

The story we tell at Christmas is small and ordinary at heart –
a baby, a family, a night like many others.
Nothing polished.
Nothing finished.

I think we expect Christmas to feel a certain way.
Peaceful. Joyful. Whole.

But maybe it’s allowed to feel mixed.
Tender in places.
Uneven.
True.

Because the gift at the centre of the story
isn’t a solution,
it’s closeness.

Not answers,
but presence.

Not a promise that everything will change at once,
but the assurance that we’re not alone in what hasn’t.

That’s what remains for me today.

Not certainty.
Not clarity.
Just the quiet realisation that love shows up in ordinary places –
around tables, in tired bodies, in moments that pass by too quickly.

This is where A Curious Christmas comes to rest.
Not with conclusions,
but with gratitude
for what we’ve noticed along the way.

The waiting.
The wonder.
The small acts of giving.
And now, the simple gift of today.

A small invitation

Let Christmas be what it is. Not what it’s meant to be.

Notice one moment today, however ordinary, and let it be enough.

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Loose ends multiply.
Voices get louder.
Attention scatters.

Even anticipation
can feel noisy.

I keep catching myself
thinking in thresholds –
once this is finished,
after that’s done,
when we finally arrive.

As if meaning lives just
beyond the next thing.

But the Christmas story
doesn’t really work like that.

Nothing resolves neatly before it begins.
There’s no sense of arrival, only interruption.
God doesn’t wait for space to be made –
God arrives into what already is.

A crowded town.
A borrowed place.
A night like any other.

Sometimes I forget that.

I forget that nearness
doesn’t announce itself.
That presence isn’t dramatic.
That what we’re waiting for may
already be closer than we think.

The shepherds weren’t searching for holiness.
They were watching for danger.
Doing their jobs.
Staying awake.

And it’s there
in the ordinary act of staying
that the story opens.

This week, I’m resisting the urge to rush toward Christmas.
Trying instead to recognise where I already am.
To trust that nearness isn’t something to achieve,
but something to recognise.

That maybe the miracle isn’t
ahead of us, but alongside us.

Unassuming.
Unfinished.
Close enough to miss.

A small invitation

Before Christmas arrives, notice one moment where you’re tempted to rush past what’s in front of you.

Pause.

Stay a little longer than you planned. See what changes when you don’t hurry away.

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The lists are longer.
The days feel tighter.
Even good things can start to feel like too much.

It’s the season of giving –
and yet, somehow, also the season of exhaustion.

I’ve been noticing how easily generosity
becomes another task.
Something to organise.
Afford.
Get right.

But there are other kinds of giving.
Quieter ones.
The kind that don’t require
planning or wrapping or receipts.

A pause before replying.
A door held open.
Listening without trying to fix.

These are the gifts that rarely get named.
They don’t travel far.
They don’t announce themselves.

And yet, they change the feel of a room.

I think of how the Christmas story unfolds –
not through grand gestures,
but through availability.

People showing up without certainty.
Staying close when it would be easier to step away.
Offering what they have,
rather than what they wish they had.

Time.
Attention.
Presence.

This week, I’ve been wondering
whether generosity might be less
about what we give,
and more about how we give ourselves.

Not from excess.
Not from pressure.
Just from where we already are.

It turns out, some of the most meaningful things we can offer
don’t cost anything at all.

A small invitation

Notice one moment this week where you could give without spending –
a little patience, a bit of attention, a softer response.

No need to make it significant.
Just see what shifts when you offer it freely.

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A patch of sunlight that moves across the floor.
The way your breath clouds the cold air.
A stranger holding a door open without a word.

These things would have happened anyway –
but waiting teaches us to see them.

I used to think wonder was rare,
something reserved for mountaintops and miracles.
Now I think it’s ordinary –
woven into the fabric of every unremarkable day.

It’s just that most of the time,
we’re moving too fast to notice.

Maybe that’s part of what Advent is for.
Not more effort or more doing,
but the slow rediscovery of a world already alive with God.

Nothing spectacular.
Just the familiar made strange again.
The ordinary made radiant by attention.

This week, I’m trying to stay curious enough to see it.
To look at what’s in front of me until it becomes beautiful again.

A small invitation

When something ordinary catches your attention this week –
a sound, a smell, a passing moment –
don’t rush to explain it.
Just stay with it a little longer than usual,
and see what you notice.

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There are already more of those than stars in our December sky.

This is more like an artists sketchbook – a few ideas, scribbled down and shared. A few pages torn from the middle of a messy, unfinished story. A story about curiosity, incarnation, and cups of tea that go cold while I try to make sense of it all.

I’m calling it A Curious Christmas, not because I have something clever to say,
but because I don’t want to miss what’s odd and holy and human about this season.

Each post will be small. Possibly strange. Probably late.

You can think of them as thoughts from the edge of wonder – not answers, not instructions, just moments noticed, questions asked, truths half-seen in the frost and the song.

Week One: The Waiting We Don’t Choose

Advent is full of planned waiting.
We light candles, mark weeks, open doors on calendars.
But much of life’s waiting isn’t planned.
It happens between appointments, in traffic,
in the ache for news that hasn’t come.

I’ve noticed lately,
how uncomfortable I am with that kind of waiting –
the unchosen kind.
The kind that stretches out
without telling you what it’s for.

And yet,
that’s where most of this story,
the story of Christmas seems to unfold.
Mary waiting.
Joseph wondering.
Shepherds watching the night not for God, but for danger.
All of them caught in the long pause before glory.

Maybe curiosity is what keeps the waiting from turning to despair.
Not “when will this end?” but “what might be being born?”

That’s where I want to begin this Advent –
in the waiting I didn’t sign up for,
trying to listen,
trying to notice.

A small invitation
Before next week’s post, notice one moment of waiting –
in a queue, in a pause, in a breath –
and ask, what’s alive here?
Not what’s next. Just what is.

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It’s not that I don’t care. It’s that I can’t seem to stay with anything for very long. I skim-read words I once would have savoured. I start tasks with good intentions, then find myself drifting – clicking between tabs, scrolling through feeds, picking up my phone to check something and forgetting what it was the moment it unlocks.

I tell myself I’m just tired. But it’s deeper than that. It feels like something has splintered in the way I pay attention – as though my mind has started to mirror the world around me: loud, flashing, constantly shifting, hungry for the next small hit of something.

We call it “distraction,” but that word feels too soft for what’s really happening. This isn’t just a wandering mind. It’s a battle for attention.

The Battle For Attention

Every notification, every headline, every flash of light outside the window, is a small tug on the threads that hold us together. The modern world has learned that attention is currency – and it’s competing for every coin we have.

And I feel it.

It’s strange, isn’t it – how we crave something real but keep reaching for replicas?
The dopamine hit of a notification; the brief sparkle of a like or comment; the endless carousel of adverts showing us everything we didn’t know we needed. It’s addictive because it’s designed to be. And somewhere in the process, our attention – that deep, inner capacity to notice – becomes thinned.

A Tired Mind In A Bright World

I’ve noticed that the more tired I am, the brighter the world seems to get. Not the real world – the digital one. The lights of my phone, the glow of my laptop, the early Christmas adverts bursting across every platform. They shout, look here, stay here, keep watching.

Even the physical world joins in – streets already lined with fairy lights, shop windows shimmering with the promise of joy if you just buy the right thing.

And I love fairy lights. I really do. They make dark evenings feel softer, warmer. They remind me of home and comfort. But there’s a different kind of light I keep forgetting to notice – one that doesn’t compete for my attention, but quietly waits for it.

The kind of light you almost miss.

Advent Before Advent

It’s not even December, but already the air feels charged with expectation. Fireworks echo in the distance. Supermarkets hum with Christmas songs. The adverts are choreographed to tug heartstrings.

And yet, somewhere behind the noise, Advent is waiting.

That small, slow, quiet stretch of time between the chaos of now and the quiet miracle of Christmas. A season that doesn’t demand anything shiny or loud – just space. Waiting. Attention.

But who has space anymore?

Our minds are full, our calendars crowded, our feeds endless. Even faith can become one more thing to scroll through, one more notification to open and close. I wonder if Advent, this year, might be calling us back – not to more light, but to less. To the dim, flickering kind that doesn’t impress anyone but somehow steadies the soul.

The First Christmas

The first Christmas wasn’t floodlit. It wasn’t broadcast live or shared on a story. It was candlelight and starlight and don’t forget the noises of animals. The kind of scene that would barely catch your eye if you walked past it. The kind of moment that could only be found by those who were paying attention.

Shepherds who looked up instead of down. Magi who followed a single light through the dark. A young woman who said yes to the impossible. Each of them noticed what others might have missed.

That’s the tension I keep feeling – between the bright lights of the world and the softer, subtler glow of something more special, more real, more holy. One which overwhelms; the other which invites.

It’s no wonder we’re exhausted. We’re living under floodlights when our souls were made for candlelight.

The Slow Light

There’s a different kind of brightness to Advent. It’s not dazzling or dramatic. It’s the kind that grows slowly, candle by candle, week by week.

I sometimes think that’s how God still works – not through the sudden spotlight, but through the slow accumulation of small light: a conversation that stirs something; a walk where peace returns; a verse or phrase that lingers long after the page is turned.

It’s the light that flickers, not the one that blinds.

But it’s hard to notice when we’re overstimulated. Hard to notice when there’s so much light pollution. Harder still when we’re tired or low. And yet, the miracle is that even when our attention falters, the light doesn’t.

It keeps flickering – patient, gentle, waiting to be seen.

The Digital Star

Sometimes I catch my reflection in the dark screen of my phone – the faint outline of my face framed by unread notifications – and I wonder if this has become our modern sky: full of tiny lights, none of which lead anywhere.

The shepherds looked up and saw a star. We look down and see a screen.

And I don’t say that to shame myself or anyone else. It’s just the truth of our time. We’re searching for connection in places that promise it but rarely deliver it. We crave wonder, but we settle for stimulation.

Still, I believe grace meets us here too – in the midst of it all. God doesn’t wait for us to delete our apps before drawing near. He meets us right where we are – distracted, tired, and half-present – and whispers:

Look up.

The Attention Of Love

To love someone is to pay attention to them.

That’s what I keep coming back to. In the end, our attention reveals what we worship.
Advent invites us to re-learn attention as an act of love – to turn our gaze from the floodlights to the flicker, from what demands us to what delights us.

The light of Christ doesn’t compete. It doesn’t shout. It shines where we least expect it – in the manger, in the margins, in the moment we almost scroll past.

A Small Experiment

So maybe, in these final days before Advent begins, we could each try a small, countercultural practice:

• Close the laptop a little earlier.

• Leave the phone in another room for an evening.

• Stand outside and watch the real lights – the ones no algorithm can control.

• Notice how the air feels against your skin.

• Notice how quiet sounds when you give it space.

You might find, like me, that silence isn’t empty after all. It’s full of presence.

The Light We Almost Miss

There’s a dirty, candlelit stable somewhere in this season – hidden behind the bright shop windows and Christmas playlists. You might have to squint to see it. You might have to slow down.

But that’s where the real light lives. Not in the spectacle, but in the stillness. Not in the noise, but in the nearness.

It’s the light we almost miss – unless we’re looking differently.

And maybe that’s what this whole season is really about: learning to notice again.

Towards A Curious Christmas

As the nights draw in and the world grows louder, A Curious Follower will be slowing down for a few weeks – into something I’m calling A Curious Christmas.

A series of short reflections to help us pause, breathe, and pay attention to the light that still flickers – in our homes, our hearts, our world.

Before the rush begins, I hope you’ll join me there – not to escape the brightness, but to find beauty in the gentle glow that remains.

Because even now, even here, the light still flickers. And it’s calling you.

Josh | A Curious Follower

Before You Go

If you’ve connected with this reflection, you might also appreciate my new book The Radical Recall to Rest – a quiet invitation to slow down, remember who you are, and rediscover God’s presence in the midst of a restless world. The last day to order your copy guaranteed to arrive before Christmas is Wednesday 3rd December.

Order Your Copy Here

If you’d like to journey with me through Advent and beyond, you can:

Subscribe to A Curious Follower for new reflections in your inbox

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Thank you, as always, for reading, supporting, and journeying with such attentiveness.
Here’s to the slow light that still flickers.

There’s a phrase we use when we’re nearly somewhere: “We’re more or less there.”
It’s what we say on long car journeys, usually when someone in the back has just asked for the fifth time, “Are we there yet?” It’s vague, but hopeful – a way of saying, we’re close, but not quite.

Lately, I’ve been thinking that’s where I often find myself – not quite arrived, but not completely lost either. Somewhere between who I was and who I’m still becoming. Somewhere between certainty and mystery. More or less there.

And yet, that phrase can feel a little disenchanting, can’t it? Like saying, “I’m not quite where I thought I’d be by now.” There can be shame, regret, embarrassment attached when we utter or at the very least, think those words. And we might hear people say – it’s okay to not be where you thought you’d be. And yet, despite potentially knowing that it’s okay – it doesn’t actually feel okay. The gap between the two can be wide, and heavy with self-doubt. Because grace, even when we know it in our heads, takes time to sink down into our bones. We can be left with a kind of ache between who we hoped to be and who we actually are.

Lists of intentions

So, what do we do with that ache? Most of us, I think, start by making quiet promises to ourselves. Little lists. Intentions. A kind of personal manifesto for how we’d like to live.

Less of the things that drain me. More of the things that give life.
Less hurry. More stillness.
Less comparison. More gratitude.
Less noise. More presence.

There’s nothing wrong with that – it’s good, even necessary. It helps us name what matters and begin again with purpose. But life rarely unfolds as neatly as the lists we write. Some weeks, we carry those intentions close and live them beautifully. Other weeks, they gather dust. And when that happens – when we’re more or less there with the things we said we’d prioritise, when the words sound wiser than the actual life we’re living – that’s when grace becomes everything.

Grace

I often write about the five values that shape this space – curiosity, attentiveness, invitation, vulnerability, and wonder. But what I don’t say enough is that grace is what holds them all together.

Because when we’re more or less there, grace reminds us that being “not quite” is still okay. That God isn’t waiting at the finish line for us to get it together – He’s walking beside us, patient and kind, as we stumble our way forward.

And if you’re anything like me, it’s often easier to extend grace to others than to yourself. Easier to say “don’t worry, you’re doing your best” to someone else than to believe it for your own weary heart. But grace asks that of us too – to look gently at the unfinished parts of ourselves and say, “even here, even now, I am loved.”

For me, grace often shows up through the people closest to me.
In a conversation over dinner with my wife, where laughter breaks through the heaviness of the day. In the quiet look that says, you don’t have to have it all figured out tonight. Those small, human moments of love are where grace takes on skin and bones – where the divine meets the daily.

Because we were never meant to live this life without stumbling – we were meant to live it trusting that, even as we fall short, we are still held.

Made for more

Yes, we were made for more. More compassion. More courage. More love that looks like the love we’ve received. But that “more” doesn’t cancel the “less.” We can long to become more like Jesus and still acknowledge that some days, we’re more or less there.
That doesn’t mean we’ve failed – it means we’re human.

We are, as the old saying goes, sinners saved by grace – learning, faltering, growing.
And in that process, God’s voice is never one of condemnation, but invitation.

To keep going. To begin again. To trust that there’s beauty in the journey of becoming.

For the road ahead

So yes – I would like less fear, less cynicism, less comparison. And I would like more gratitude, more wonder, more courage to stay curious and kind. But when I find myself more or less there – I need to remember this:

Grace is already here.

Today is new.

And who knows what that might bring?

Josh | A Curious Follower

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After months of writing, editing, designing, signing, and sending out those first pre-orders – The Radical Recall to Rest will be officially released on Saturday 15th November.

This little book carries a quiet invitation: to rediscover rest, reclaim rhythm, and reimagine Christian community in a tired world

It’s not a manual or a manifesto – it’s a reflection, a companion, and a reminder that rest isn’t a luxury or an escape, but a way of being present with God in the middle of ordinary life.

The Online Launch Event

Join me for the official online launch of The Radical Recall to Rest – Tuesday 18th November, 7:00–8:30pm (UK time).

An evening of reading, reflection, and conversation exploring what it means to rest, return, and remember.

This isn’t just a book launch; it’s a moment to pause. To slow down, breathe, and listen together for the quiet invitation beneath the noise.

The evening will include:

• A live reading from a previously unreleased section of the book

• A conversation and open Q&A exploring the heart and story behind the writing

• The opportunity to purchase a signed copy of the book (if you haven’t already)

• And a chance to make a donation in support of A Curious Follower – helping this growing ministry continue creating reflective spaces and resources

Whether you’ve been following this journey from the beginning or are discovering it for the first time, you’re warmly invited to be part of it.

Bring a cup of tea, find a quiet corner, and join us for an evening of story and stillness.

Reserve your free place here

To everyone who’s pre-ordered, shared, encouraged, or prayed – thank you. Your support has brought this book (and ministry) to life. Your signed copies will be on their way very soon.

Here’s to slowing down. To remembering what matters. To the radical recall to rest.

With deep gratitude,

Josh | A Curious Follower

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Before anything else – thank you.

Thank you for reading, for showing up, and for helping this small, slow project keep moving. Whether you’ve been here since the beginning or only recently found A Curious Follower, you’ve become part of something quietly significant.

When I first began writing here, I didn’t know exactly what it would become. I just felt drawn to create a space that felt more human – a corner of the internet where people could breathe a little deeper. Somewhere that allowed space for faith, questions, and wonder to sit alongside the real mess and beauty of everyday life.

What’s grown since then feels like more than my own effort. It’s something shared – shaped by readers like you, and sustained by the quiet creativity of God beneath it all.

The journey so far

Over the past few weeks and months, we’ve travelled through the five values that hold this space together – Curiosity, Attentiveness, Invitation, Vulnerability, and Wonder.

But that’s not all. Alongside those have come smaller reflections, open questions, and even a few poems – moments that have given shape to what A Curious Follower is really about: noticing, naming, and nurturing the sacred in ordinary life.

Each piece has carried its own texture. Some playful, some tender, some written through tired eyes – all born from a desire to stay attentive to what’s real.

And woven through them have been three excerpts from The Radical Recall to Rest – the book that’s been quietly forming behind the scenes. Each one has offered a glimpse into the deeper invitation at the heart of this work: to slow down, breathe again, and rediscover what truly matters.

The turning point

As this is read, pre-orders for The Radical Recall to Rest have just closed. That still feels surreal to write.

To everyone who ordered a copy – thank you.
To everyone who shared, encouraged, or simply paused long enough to read – thank you.

This moment marks the end of one season and the beginning of another. The book will soon be printed, signed, and sent. But before that, I want to pause here – between the making and the releasing – to give thanks.

Because none of this exists in isolation. It’s a partnership: between God, who keeps nudging this work forward, and you, who keep showing up. Together, you’ve helped turn an idea into a living space of reflection, conversation, and community.

A shared kind of work

This kind of work doesn’t grow through noise or algorithms, however frustrating that might be. It grows through relationship – through trust, through time, through small, steady acts of support.

That’s what A Curious Follower has become: not a platform, but a table. A place of shared nourishment and story. A reminder that good things still grow slowly, and that presence still matters.

Every time you read, share, or support this work, you help keep that table open – for the weary, the curious, the uncertain, and the hopeful.

That’s what makes this sustainable: not scale, but sincerity.

What’s next

With pre-orders now closed, the focus turns to preparing for the book’s release later this month – and to holding space for reflection as it begins to find its way into the world.

Alongside that, I’ll be leading a duo of special Growing with God taster sessions – reflective spaces using the SPACE – EXPLORE – PRACTICE rhythm that runs through the book.

It’s a gentle, creative time to slow down before the busyness of Christmas begins – a way to finish the year well, grounded and refreshed.

There are two session times available:

• Wednesday 19th November – 9am–12pm

• Thursday 20th November – 1pm–4pm

Each session costs £15 per person, and places are limited. Click on the above links to book your place.

If you’ve never joined one before, this is the perfect way to experience what they’re like – relaxed, reflective, and rooted in everyday life.

Keeping this work sustainable

People often ask how they can help A Curious Follower continue. The simplest things still make the biggest difference:

• Read and share the posts. If something speaks to you, send it on. Word of mouth keeps this community growing in real, human ways.

• Join a Growing with God taster session. These spaces turn reflection into shared experience and help to fund this project.

• Buy the book once it’s released – or gift a copy to someone who might appreciate it as a timely Christmas present.

• Become a paid subscriber or founding member. Your support helps me keep creating freely and sustainably, without needing to chase trends or sponsorships.

Every small act – practical, relational, or spiritual – keeps this work alive. It allows me to keep showing up and creating spaces that help others slow down and reconnect too.

A moment of gratitude

Writing often begins in solitude but never ends there. What you read here is the fruit of a much wider conversation – between my story and yours, between our restlessness and God’s quiet persistence.

So again, thank you.

For your trust. For your presence. For the unseen ways you’ve carried this work – with kindness, patience, and belief.

This project exists because of the combined grace of two things: your steady support, and God’s ongoing faithfulness.

Looking ahead

In a few weeks, The Radical Recall to Rest will make its way into the world. I hope it finds a place not just on your shelf, but in your rhythm – a reminder that rest isn’t retreat, but renewal.

After that, who knows what will unfold? More reflections, more shared spaces, more small experiments in living curiously and attentively.

But before all that begins, I simply want to pause here – to breathe, to notice, and to say thank you.

With gratitude and hope,

Josh | A Curious Follower

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There’s a strange pull that often comes after clarity. Once the clutter is cleared – physically, emotionally, spiritually – we feel the urge to fill it again. But this time with something better. Something brilliant. Something new. We reach for colour-coded schedules, fresh routines, bold resolutions. We picture ourselves waking early, praying longer, eating cleaner, becoming better in every way. It’s the temptation of the overhaul – the idea that real change must arrive all at once, in a sweeping, dramatic transformation.

But transformation rarely starts that way.

Big shifts can be inspiring – but they can also be overwhelming. They can paralyse us before we begin, because life doesn’t often give us the luxury of a clean break or a blank page. Most of the time, change happens in the middle of things – while the washing machine is on, the bills need paying, and the kids are calling from the other room. Most of the time, transformation comes not through a grand vision, but through the next right thing.

The next right thing might be small. It might seem ordinary. It might not feel worthy of a journal entry or a social-media caption. But that’s where faith meets real life – in the quiet courage to take one step, make one decision, breathe one prayer. We don’t need to have the whole path laid out. We just need to move with God – one moment at a time.

You don’t need a full vision for the rest of your life today. You don’t need to overhaul your entire routine this week. What you need, what most of us need, is to take the next right step. That might look like resting instead of rushing. Asking for help. Making a phone call. Saying no. Saying yes. Beginning again.

Doing the next right thing is not a compromise. It’s not the ‘lesser’ version of bold faith. It’s what faith actually looks like – trust with shoes on. Because the truth is, you don’t need to know the whole way forward to begin. You just need to know that God is already with you – and then take one small, faithful step in His direction.

One of the greatest obstacles to movement is the pressure to know everything before we begin. We tell ourselves we’ll rest once we’ve worked everything out. We’ll slow down once life feels more stable. We’ll take a step when we’ve got a clearer picture, a five-year plan, or a sign in the sky. But that’s not how Jesus led people. He didn’t hand out blueprints or detailed strategies. He didn’t recruit His disciples with timelines and certainty. He simply said, “Come. Follow.”

No destination given. Just a direction. A presence to walk with – not a map to master.

And yet – how easily we fall into the trap of waiting until we have it all figured out. I’ve known that feeling more times than I can count. I remember it vividly during my Masters dissertation, the pressure to get it right, to have every section perfectly mapped out before I typed a single word. But the more I stared at the whole thing, the more frozen I became. I knew what I wanted to say. I believed in the heart of it. But the scope paralysed me. That kind of analysis paralysis where you spend hours at a screen and still end the day with a blank page.

It’s been the same with this book. If I’d let myself focus too much on the end, I might never have begun. The sheer weight of wanting to do it well could’ve crushed the desire to do it at all. And when we live like that, waiting until we feel certain or confident or ready, the new habits fade. The dreams stay small. The healing stays on hold. And procrastination? It creeps in quietly, believe me, like water through a crack, soaking everything with doubt before we’ve even taken a step.

But here’s the relief – we don’t need to have it all figured out. We don’t need the full picture to begin. We just need to start with what we know. The next right thing. The next gentle yes. The next small no. The next breath, pause, or prayer. Five quiet minutes of faithfulness. Not because we’re fearless. Not because we’re experts. But because we’re willing.

Movement with God isn’t about mastery – it’s about trust. It’s about walking in step with the One who sees further than we do, and knowing that step by step is enough.

We live in a culture obsessed with big wins, dramatic turnarounds, and instant results. If it isn’t visible, viral, or victorious – we wonder if it’s worth anything at all. And that same pressure shows up in our walk with God. We think small means failure. We think quiet means unspiritual. We think rest or healing only counts if it’s impressive. But that’s never how the Kingdom of God has worked.

God has always worked through seeds. Tiny things, buried in ordinary soil. Unseen, slow, quiet. A mustard seed. A bit of yeast. A whisper. A widow’s coin. A lunchbox with five loaves and two fish. The kinds of things that don’t turn heads – but still change everything. These are the things God holds in His hands and says, “Watch what I can do with this.”

So when your next right thing feels small – don’t dismiss it. Don’t disqualify it just because it won’t impress anyone. The decision to close your laptop and go for a walk. The pause before reacting out of fear. The choice to put your phone down for ten minutes before bed. These aren’t weak steps – they’re steady ones. They’re the kind of choices that train the heart to move with grace, not pressure. Slowly. Honestly. One step at a time.

Small isn’t less worthy – it’s just less noisy. And in a world that prizes noise, maybe it’s time to remember that quiet faithfulness still counts. That slow beginnings still grow. That God sees every seed planted in trust, and He’s not in a rush. His pace is patient. His presence steady. His power doesn’t depend on our performance.

So if your next step feels tiny, let it be tiny. Let it be mustard-seed small. Let it be five minutes of stillness. One deep breath. One gentle no. One quiet prayer whispered in the middle of a busy day. God can do more with that than we think. In fact, He often chooses to.

This is the final glimpse of The Radical Recall to Rest before the book goes live.

It comes from the final section – PRACTICE – where the ideas of rest and rhythm begin to take shape in everyday life. Because rest isn’t a theory to understand; it’s a way to live – one small, faithful step at a time.

If something in these words has stirred something in you, I’d love to invite you to journey deeper. The Radical Recall to Rest is available for pre-order for 3 more days. Pre-orders close on Monday 3rd November, and every copy will be signed and posted personally.

It’s more than a book to me – it’s a conversation I’d love you to be part of. A reminder that change doesn’t have to be grand or instant – it can begin right where you are, with the next right thing.

Josh | A Curious Follower

A Curious Follower is all about this – slowing down, living with curiosity, and rediscovering wonder in ordinary life. If this post spoke to you, you can subscribe, share, or leave a comment to keep the conversation going.

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Let’s keep noticing what can grow when we slow down, listen closely, and follow curiously.

On long car journeys at night, I’d lean my head against the window and watch the stars stretch across the dark. The movement of the car made it feel as though the stars were moving with us – like they were alive, keeping time with our journey. The hum of the engine became a kind of background lull, and I’d stare at the night sky until my eyelids grew heavy.

I didn’t know their names, or what made them burn, or how far away they were. But I knew enough to be amazed.

Mystery Upon Mystery

Then, at school, I learned that each one of those stars might have a whole solar system like ours spinning around it – worlds we’d never seen, light-years away. I remember feeling my chest tighten with awe. The mystery hadn’t disappeared. It had multiplied.

That’s the strange thing about wonder: the more you learn, the deeper it goes.

As mystery is replaced by even more mystery, the sense of awe doesn’t diminish – it deepens. Each new layer of understanding only seems to reveal another layer of beauty yes, but questions too.

The Awe of New Life

I’ve been told that a similar, if not greater, sense of awe dawns when a baby is born. When the first cry fills the room, and the tiny hands that didn’t exist a moment ago curl around your finger. Life itself, breathing before you.

In that moment, knowledge gives way to wonder. Time seems to pause, and you realise that what you’re witnessing isn’t just ordinary – it’s extraordinary.

Awe in the Ordinary

But wonder isn’t reserved for the vast or the miraculous.

There is wonder in the everyday too – in the scent of coffee, the rhythm of rain, the warmth of another person’s presence. There is awe waiting in the ordinary, if only we stop long enough to see it.

The whisper of the kettle before it boils. The late-afternoon light spilling across the table. The way a friend remembers to ask how you really are.

All of it – a quiet reminder that life itself is a kind of gift.

Growing Up

Somewhere along the road from childhood to adulthood, we learn to protect ourselves from looking foolish. We learn to lower our voices, to walk a little straighter, to guard our hearts against being caught off guard.

We trade wonder for knowing. Curiosity for certainty. Childlikeness for being grown up.

We learn that confidence means being sure – that to lead, we mustn’t be seen to doubt. But what if that’s never what true confidence was meant to be?

Because curiosity and confidence aren’t opposites. They belong together.

Curiosity says, I don’t know, but I’m willing to learn.
Confidence says, I don’t know, and that’s okay.

Both are forms of courage. Both require humility. Both move us forward – not through control, but through openness.

The most confident people I know are not the ones who have all the answers, but the ones who are unafraid to keep asking the questions.

Maybe that’s the kind of confidence wonder invites – a quiet steadiness rooted not in certainty, but in trust that discovery itself is good. That we can explore without fear. That the unknown isn’t our enemy, but our teacher.

We learn that answers earn respect, that questions expose weakness, that awe is something to outgrow. But the truth is, childishness and childlikeness are not the same thing.

Childish or Childlike

Childishness demands to be the centre. It clings to control, refuses to share, shouts to be heard. It wants to be seen, but not changed.

Childlikeness, though – childlikeness trusts. It notices. It receives. It looks out of the car window and whispers, wow.

To be childlike is not to go backwards. It’s to return – to remember how to see. To live with open hands instead of clenched fists. To rediscover that joy was never something we had to earn – it was something we were born knowing how to feel.

Still Stopped by the Stars

Every year I grow older. Hopefully a little wiser. Definitely more aware of the complexity of existence – the ache, the uncertainty, the fragile brilliance of being alive.

Yet when I look up at the stars now, they still stop me. They still speak to me.

They remind me that I will never outgrow awe. That no matter how much I learn or understand, there will always be more beyond my reach. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s what wonder really is – the steady widening of the heart, even as the mind begins to understand more.

The closer we get, the more vast it becomes. The more we know, the more we realise how extraordinary it is that we’re here at all.

Standing in Wonder

When I think back through these values:

• Curiosity asks, what’s really going on here?

• Attentiveness notices, I can see it.

• Invitation says, can I share it with you?

• Vulnerability asks, will I still be accepted if I’m really seen?

And now – Wonder stands still and says, wow – this moment is sacred.

Because that’s what this is all about.

A Curious Follower exists to help us remember that. To make space for curiosity and attentiveness and all the quiet practices that lead us back to wonder. To recall us to the kind of life we were made for – slower, deeper, more alive.

The Radical Recall

That phrase – to recall us – sits at the heart of my upcoming book, The Radical Recall to Rest. It’s a deeper invitation into the same posture this series has been exploring: slowing down, paying attention, and rediscovering meaning in the simple.

Because when we are recalled to rest, we are also recalled to wonder.

Perhaps wonder is not something to chase, but something to welcome. Not a fleeting feeling, but a faithful posture. A quiet readiness to be amazed again.

Look Up

So maybe today, just look up.

Not to escape, but to remember. Not to find answers, but to rediscover awe.

Let curiosity have room again – the kind that leads to noticing, not knowing. Let confidence return – not the brittle kind that needs to be right, but the quiet kind that trusts it’s okay not to be.

Let wonder do its work.

Because when we pause long enough to see – really see – the world as it is, something inside us shifts. We remember that we belong here. That life, in all its mystery and mess, is still a gift.

And maybe that’s what this whole journey has been about – not arriving, but awakening. Not growing up, but growing open. Because wonder isn’t something we lose and find again. It’s something that’s been waiting all along, whispering:

I’m still here. Welcome Home.

Josh | A Curious Follower

If this reflection stirred something in you, my first book – The Radical Recall to Rest – goes even deeper into these same rhythms of slowing down, paying attention, and rediscovering the sacred in the simple.

Pre-orders are open now until Monday 3rd November only. Each signed copy helps support the work of A Curious Follower and makes future projects possible.

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Thank you, as always, for walking this road with me.

The Beauty of a Jammed Typewriter

I’m not old enough to have needed a typewriter, but I’ve used one – and that was enough to realise how honest those machines are. There’s no pretending on a typewriter. No silent keys or forgiving delete buttons. Every letter requires intent. Every mistake leaves a mark.

You can’t go too fast, otherwise the keys jam. They tangle together in a messy clatter that brings everything to a halt. It doesn’t matter how many words you have lined up in your mind – if your hands move faster than the machine, it simply refuses to keep up.

My grandma would probably disagree. She could type with astonishing speed, the rhythmic clatter of her fingers like music. But even she knew the trick: it’s not really about going fast, it’s about finding flow. Too quick, and the keys collide. Too slow, and the ink dries mid-sentence making it look like an unfinished thought - not great for professional settings. There’s a sweet spot in the middle – steady, consistent, patient.

That’s what I find strangely beautiful about the typewriter: it has boundaries built in. It’s not made for haste. It teaches you the rhythm of thought. You start to listen for the sound of each key, the pause at the end of a line, the satisfying ding before you slide the carriage back and begin again.

In a world obsessed with speed, no longer restrained with physical technology boundaries, the typewriter insists on something slower, truer, more deliberate. It invites you into attentiveness – to your words, your body, your breath.

It’s inefficient, yes. Inconsiderate, even. But maybe that’s the point. Because I think there’s something special about a pace that refuses to rush.

Maybe that’s what following Jesus sometimes feels like too – learning to live at a rhythm that won’t be hurried. To resist the temptation to sprint through every season.
To trust that the work of God, like the rhythm of a typewriter, can’t be forced without things jamming.

The Slow Sweetness of Jam

Then there’s another kind of jam – the one that smells like summer fruit and sugar.

I am man enough to own the fact that I love making jams. If you’ve ever made jam, you’ll know it’s not a quick job. The fruit needs time to soften. The sugar needs time to melt. You can’t turn the heat up and expect the same result – it just burns. The transformation only happens when it’s given time.

There’s something worth noticing about that. Perhaps something spiritual?

The fruit breaks down before it becomes whole again. The sweetness deepens through surrender. It’s the slow mix of patience and heat. Maybe that’s what grace feels like.
It rarely comes instantly. It arrives through process – the gradual thickening of things once fragile, the slow turning of bruised places into beauty.

You can’t rush that kind of work. You can only wait – stirring occasionally, trusting the heat, trusting that something is happening even when you can’t see it. I think we forget that God can work like that. We want microwave miracles – instant outcomes, immediate clarity. But the Spirit often works like jam – slow, consistent, transformative in the waiting.

When the time finally comes to pour the jam into jars, it’s sticky and messy and full of texture. You can taste the process in every spoonful. It’s not perfect, but it’s real.

And maybe that’s what grace tastes like too – not flawless, but faithful. Sweet, but not shallow. A reminder that the best things in life are rarely efficient, and the holiest moments often come after the slow simmer of surrender.

The Frustration of Traffic

And then there are the JAMS – in all caps. The kind that test your patience and your humanity.

I’ll be honest – even as a curious follower, I still find it hard not to get mad in a traffic jam. You sit there, inching forward at a crawl, often at a standstill, the same songs looping, the glow of brake lights stretching endlessly ahead. You tell yourself it’s fine – that you can’t control it, that it’ll clear soon – but your body tightens, your thoughts race, and before long you’re muttering to yourself as if that’ll help.

Traffic jams might be the modern version of wilderness waiting. You can’t move, can’t fix it, can’t reason your way out. You just sit – suspended in the in-between. It’s the kind of slowness you didn’t choose. The kind that exposes what’s really going on inside you. You start to notice the tension between what you say you believe – that God is present everywhere – and what you actually feel – that He’s definitely not here, in this queue, on this road, right now.

But maybe that’s exactly where the invitation lies.

Not in the chosen moments of rest, but in the unchosen ones. The jams we can’t plan for. The interruptions that stretch us. The detours that feel like delays but might, in some strange way, be direction. Because the truth is, the spiritual life isn’t just about finding peace in the quiet – it’s about finding grace in the grit. In the traffic jam. In the tension. In the red lights that refuse to change.

Maybe the frustration itself becomes the teacher. Because to wait, really wait, is to relinquish control. And that’s where God so often begins His work.

Living as a Curious Follower

Three kinds of jams.

1. The typewriter that slows us down on purpose.

2. The toast that reminds us sweetness takes time.

3. The traffic that exposes what’s underneath.

Each one carries its own kind of grace.

The first invites attentiveness – to pace, to rhythm, to the art of not hurrying.
The second invites patience – to trust that what’s being transformed will take time.
The third invites honesty – to admit our frustration and maybe, just maybe, discover that God meets us there too.

That’s what A Curious Follower is really about.

Learning to see the special in what slows us down. To pay attention when life jams. To ask what might be forming in us – not despite the slowness, but because of it. Because curiosity doesn’t only live in wonder – it lives in waiting. It looks at what’s inconvenient, inefficient, even irritating, and asks: What might God be saying here?

I’m learning that faith isn’t about avoiding the jams, but living well within them. To trust that the stuckness might be a space for grace. To believe that even here – in the pauses, the processes, and the places we’d rather skip – God is quietly at work.

Because maybe the jam isn’t the problem. Maybe it’s the point. The pause that brings us back to a rhythm we forgot. A slower, truer way of being that doesn’t just get us somewhere, but forms us as we go.

Josh | A Curious Follower

This is rhythm I’ve been exploring more deeply in my upcoming book, The Radical Recall to Rest – a reflection on slowing down, listening again, and remembering the God who invites us to breathe.

Pre-orders are open now until Monday 3rd November, with each signed copy helping me bring this project – and its rhythm of rest – into the world.

If this reflection resonated with you, I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment, share it with someone who might need it, or subscribe to receive future reflections straight to your inbox.

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