But I think I understand the edge differently now. Or perhaps more honestly, I think I’ve lived there long enough to realise it isn’t quite as romantic as it first seemed.

Not because it’s bad. Not because God isn’t in it. But because eventually the shore disappears. The old landmarks stop guiding. The things that once felt clear become harder to explain. And somewhere out there, beyond the point where the map stops, you realise how much of you still wants somebody else to take over.

I’ve felt that deeply lately.

Not just with work or money or future plans, though those things are part of it. More internally than that. More quietly. I think part of me still wants somebody bigger, wiser, or more certain to sit me down and tell me exactly what to do next. To hand me a clear plan. To remove the pressure of not knowing. To reassure me that everything will work out before I fully step into it.

And the more honest I’ve become about that, the more I’ve started noticing it everywhere else too. Because I don’t think this is just my struggle. I think many of us are tired of carrying the weight of responsibility, of being human.

Waiting for someone else

You can see it in the world around us.

We expect political leaders to fix everything now. Not just governments or policies, but loneliness, anxiety, division, identity, purpose, community, meaning. Every election slowly starts sounding like people are searching for a saviour.

And then we feel disappointed when no leader can carry all of that. But maybe nobody was ever meant to.

I think deep down many of us are longing for somebody else to remove the burden of responsibility from our shoulders altogether. We want somebody to tell us what to do, what to think, how to live, and how to fix the mess. We want certainty. Clarity. A guarantee.

Me too.

Part of me still wants life to come with clearer instructions.
Part of me still wants faith to feel more certain than it often does.
Part of me still wants to know the outcome before taking the next step.

But life rarely works like that. Faith rarely works like that either.

Waiting for the Messiah

I think this longing to hand responsibility away is older than we realise.

It goes right back through the human story. We have always wanted somebody else to carry the weight of being human for us. Somebody else to fix what is broken. Somebody else to make the difficult choices. Somebody else to take over.

And perhaps that is part of why so many people placed so much hope, fear, longing and expectation on the coming Messiah.

By the time Jesus arrived, many were not simply waiting for comfort. They were waiting for someone mighty. Someone who would overthrow, restore, command, rule, and finally sort the world out from the top down. Someone who would take over the running of things. Someone who would carry the responsibility so they no longer had to.

But then Jesus came.

And He did not build the Kingdom in the way people expected.

His Kingdom was upside down. Not weaker, but deeper. Not less powerful, but less controlling. He did not come to remove us from the responsibility of being human. He came to restore our ability to love, follow, choose, and live again.

That feels important.

Because the cross is not God saying, “You no longer have anything to do.” It is God paying the price of our sin so that we can be made free again. Free not to earn His love, but to live from it. Free not to tick spiritual boxes, but to become people who can love, forgive, serve, notice, risk, surrender, and follow.

The invitation of Jesus is so simple, and yet so frightening: “Follow me.”

Not “watch me from a safe distance.”
Not “wait until I remove every uncertainty.”
Not “sit still while I do everything for you.”

Follow me.

Step by step. Day by day. In the ordinary. In the storm. Beyond the edge of the map.

Waiting for a Sign

Maybe this is what happens when the shoreline disappears.

At first, it feels like everything has gone. The old landmarks vanish. The familiar route is no longer visible. The things we used to rely on fade into darkness, and it can feel like we are completely lost.

I think this is often when we start waiting for a sign.

Something clear. Something obvious. Something that proves we are going the right way. Something that removes the risk of choosing.

Me too.

But sometimes, when the usual landmarks disappear, the older signs reappear.

The stars become visible again.

Not new signs. Original ones. Ancient ones. The ones God placed in the sky long before we drew our maps, built our harbours, named our plans, or tried to control the journey.

And maybe that is part of the gift of being beyond the edge of the map. Not that we become special. Not that we become brave in some heroic way. But that we begin to notice what was already there.

The presence of God. The breath of the Spirit. The quiet invitation of Jesus.

The next faithful step.

I think we still find ourselves wanting Jesus to fix everything by taking over completely. We want Him to take the wheel in a way that means we no longer have to face the journey. We want Him to make every decision, calm every fear, remove every risk, and steer us into certainty.

But even in the storm on the lake, when the disciples were terrified and Jesus was asleep, He did not wake up, grab the wheel, and give them a sailing lesson.

He calmed the storm.

Jesus does not always take the wheel in the way we imagine. He does something deeper. He brings peace into chaos. He reminds us who is truly Lord. He shows us that we are not alone, even when the sea is loud and the map has run out.

So maybe surrender is not giving up our responsibility.

Maybe surrender is learning to sail by the stars He has already put in place.

It is trusting Him for direction while still taking the next step. It is holding the wheel without pretending we control the sea. It is choosing to love, follow, listen, and live again – not because we have all the answers, but because He is with us.

Nobody can sail the ship for us. But we are not sailing alone. Beyond the edge of the map, the signs may not be as new as we hoped.

But the stars are still there.

Josh | A Curious Follower

Maybe you’ve been feeling some of this too.

The uncertainty. The longing for clarity. The feeling of standing somewhere beyond the old landmarks, trying to trust God one step at a time.

I wrote about “The Edge of the Map” in The Radical Recall to Rest long before I realised how much I would end up living it myself.

If this reflection resonated with you, you can explore the original chapter here.

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It can slip in quietly

Not as a dramatic shift or a moment you can clearly point to, but gradually, almost invisibly, shaping how we think about God, how we speak about Him, and what we begin to expect from Him without even realising it. It finds its way into our language, into the phrases we repeat, into the assumptions we carry about where God is and what He is doing. And over time, without intending to, we can begin to relate to Him as though He moves in bursts, in fits and starts, as though He appears more fully in certain moments and is somehow less present in others.

I heard it recently in a sermon – “God is on the move!” And I knew exactly what was meant. It was said with hope, with energy, with a sense that something good is happening, that there are signs of life and growth and renewal. But something in me paused as I heard it, not because it was wrong, but because it felt incomplete.

Because if we believe what we say we believe about God – that He is present, active, sustaining all things – then He isn’t sometimes on the move. He is always on the move. There is no moment where He is absent, no ordinary space where He has stepped back, no gap in which He is waiting to begin again.

And yet, if I’m honest, I don’t always live like that is true.

When life quietly becomes too much

Because most of life doesn’t feel like the kind of place where we expect to find God moving. It doesn’t feel like revival or breakthrough or anything that would make for a compelling story. It feels heavy in quieter, more familiar ways.

There is the weight of the world, yes – the ongoing conflicts, the headlines that seem to arrive faster than we can process them, the low-level anxiety that sits in the background whether we acknowledge it or not. But it’s not just that. It’s the ordinary as well.

The kind of tiredness that builds slowly over time.

Work that takes more than it gives. Evenings that are meant to be restful but somehow don’t reach far enough. The quiet pressure of finances, decisions, expectations, things that don’t resolve quickly or neatly.

And most of the time, we carry it. We keep going. We show up. We do what’s needed. From the outside, it can even look like we’re doing well, holding things together, managing life in a way that seems steady.

But underneath, something is building.

Not dramatically, not in a way that demands attention straight away, but slowly, quietly, accumulating. And then something small happens – something that, on any other day, wouldn’t have touched the sides. A comment, an email, a minor inconvenience, a moment that doesn’t quite go how you hoped. And suddenly, it’s too much. Not because that one thing is particularly significant, but because it lands on top of everything else you’ve been holding, everything that hasn’t had space to breathe.

And in that moment, it can feel like everything comes crashing down.

Not because everything has changed, but because you’ve reached the edge of what you can carry.

Holding more than we were meant to

I’ve been there more times than I’d like to admit. Not in ways that are always obvious to others, but in that internal space where you realise you’re more tired than you thought, more stretched than you realised, more affected by things than you’ve allowed yourself to acknowledge. Where even good things begin to feel like effort, and rest doesn’t quite reach the deeper level of what you need.

And if I’m honest, part of that has been the way I’ve tried to hold things together that were never mine to hold in the first place. Responsibility, expectation, uncertainty about the future, questions about provision, about direction, about what comes next. Even in my faith, I’ve found myself trying to make things work, trying to maintain connection, trying to carry something that was never meant to sit fully in my hands.

And underneath all of that, there’s a quieter, more honest reality that’s not always easy to say out loud. Sometimes I don’t feel as connected to God as I want to be. Sometimes I don’t know what He’s doing. Sometimes I’m holding things I know I’m meant to surrender, and I can’t seem to let them go. Or I do, briefly, and then I find myself picking them straight back up again without even thinking. Not because I don’t trust Him, but because when life feels uncertain, holding on feels safer than letting go, even if it leaves me more exhausted than before.

Not God in my story

There’s a line I’ve been returning to recently that has been quietly reframing things for me. Not God in my story, but me in His. It’s a small shift in wording, but it changes where the weight sits. Because if this is my story, then ultimately – it rests on me. My decisions, my direction, my ability to make something meaningful out of my life. God becomes someone I invite in, someone who helps, guides, supports, but the responsibility stays with me. But if this is His story, then I am not the one holding it all together. I am not the one responsible for fixing everything, or even understanding everything. I am part of something that is already unfolding, something that doesn’t depend on my clarity or control to continue.

And yet, living like that is not straightforward. Because surrender sounds simple until you try to practise it in the middle of real life. It sounds freeing in theory, but in reality it often feels like risk. It means loosening your grip on things that matter to you. It means sitting with uncertainty rather than resolving it. It means trusting that God is at work even when you can’t see how, even when things don’t feel like they are moving in the way you would choose.

And in those moments, it is very easy to take things back into your own hands, to try and manage what was never yours to manage.

The question we avoid

And at some point, if we are honest, a question begins to surface.

How long can we keep living like this?

Carrying everything. Moving at this pace. Calling it normal.

Because if we’re honest, it isn’t working – is it?

Not deeply. Not sustainably. Not in the way we quietly hope life might feel.

And deep down, we know it.

A quiet invitation

This is part of why I’m creating a small online space on Thursday 4th June. Not to fix everything, but to step out of the noise for a moment and make space for something more honest. I’ll come back to the details later – but if you’re already feeling the need for that kind of space, it’s there for you.

More information

The quiet longing underneath

What I’ve found myself longing for in the middle of all of this is not more answers, or more input about what to do next. It’s something quieter than that. It’s presence. On a deeper level. To be with God in a way that feels real again, not rushed or squeezed into the edges of an already full life, not another thing to achieve or maintain, but something I can actually experience where I am. To sit with Him, to breathe, to slow down enough to realise that He hasn’t gone anywhere. That the distance I sometimes feel is not because He has moved away, but because I have been moving too fast to notice.

And more than that, I’m learning to notice that He is already here, in the places I would normally overlook.

In the ordinary moments that I tend to rush past or fill with distraction. Standing in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil. Sitting in the car before going into something I’m not sure about. Walking from one part of the day to the next. Moments that seem insignificant, moments that don’t appear to hold anything meaningful, and yet, if I allow myself to be present to them, they begin to feel different. Not because they become dramatic or extraordinary, but because I begin to notice that God is already present within them, quietly, consistently, without needing to announce Himself.

What if those moments aren’t empty?

What if the God who is always on the move is already moving there?

Learning to notice

I think part of the reason we miss this is because we have learned to associate God’s activity with what is visible and obvious. With growth, with momentum, with something we can point to and say, there it is, something is happening.

But so much of what God does does not look like that. It looks like waiting. Patience. Quiet transformation. It looks like something shifting beneath the surface long before it becomes visible. And if we are only looking for the obvious, we will assume nothing is happening at all.

Which is why this is not about doing more. It’s about making space. Not a huge amount of space, not something that requires you to change everything about your life, but just enough to pause, just enough to breathe, just enough to be honest about what is actually going on beneath the surface of your day-to-day life. Enough to stop, even briefly, and pay attention.

A simple invitation

So this is not an answer. It’s not a fix. It’s an invitation.

On Thursday 4th June, from 7:30 to 9:00pm, I’m hosting a one-off online Growing with God session. It’s not teaching-heavy, and it’s not about giving you something else to carry or achieve. It’s about creating a space you can step into, where you don’t have to perform or pretend, where you don’t have to hold everything together for a while, where you can arrive as you are and take a breath.

We’ll move through a simple rhythm – SPACE – EXPLORE – PRACTICE. Space to arrive without pressure. Explore as something more open-ended than just noticing what is going on – a short reflection that gently opens up a single idea or question, not to analyse or solve it, but to notice what it stirs in you. Practice as a way of responding that is small and grounded, something you can carry back into your everyday life without it becoming another weight.

A small, honest space

It will be a small group. I’m limiting it to 15 people, not to make it exclusive, but to keep it honest and spacious – a place where you can actually be present rather than just another name on a screen.

Tickets are £10. If that feels out of reach right now, there are a small number of supported access tickets at £5 – no explanation needed.

And it’s worth saying this clearly – by paying for the space, you’re not just committing to something for yourself. You’re helping to keep A Curious Follower going. You’re helping make spaces like this possible for others as we continue to explore what it means to follow God with curiosity in the middle of real life.

Tickets are live now on Eventbrite. If this resonates, you’re very welcome to book a place. If it’s full, join the waiting list – if there’s enough interest, I’ll run it again. But if you sense this might be something you need, it’s worth acting on that rather than assuming another opportunity will come.

If you’d rather begin quietly

And if you’re not sure about stepping into a live space yet, that’s completely okay.

The same rhythm we’ll use in the session – SPACE, EXPLORE, PRACTICE – is the one I’ve written from in The Radical Recall to Rest. The book simply walks through that process in a slower, more personal way, something you can engage with in your own time, at your own pace, without needing to show up anywhere or be seen by anyone else.

If that feels like a better starting point, I’ve got a small number of copies available directly, and I’ll include a link to order one. It’s not a different pathway – just a quieter entry point into the same way of being.

A final thought

I don’t think most of us are far from God.

I think we’re just overwhelmed, carrying more than we were meant to carry, moving faster than we were meant to move, trying to stay afloat in a story that was never ours to control.

God is on the move.

He always has been.

The invitation isn’t to chase Him.

It’s to slow down long enough to notice He’s already here.

Josh | A Curious Follower

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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.

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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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If you’ve been reading, sharing, supporting, or simply staying curious alongside this work – thank you. It really does matter.

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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:

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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.