I was reading a lovely article by Siobhan Murphy during the week called ‘Finding God in all things’. She said she was sitting in a coffee shop one morning feeling that life was a burden. She decided to start writing down the worries that were weighing her down. On the other side of the page she wrote down all the things that were going well and smoothly in her life. After that short exercise she described how she suddenly felt much better and her mood had lifted. Significantly Siobhan then wrote: “A sense of calm, peace and well being came over me and I thought ‘God is in this.”

The experts tell us that you need ten positives to counteract one negative. This gives us food for thought. Negativity is clearly heavy, limiting and is a heavy drain on energy levels. To balance this out we need lots of love, positives, kindness and TLC (tender loving care). It will need ten times the amount to balance out each negative. This seems a big cost and an effort.

Our Gospels remind us that this is what we need to do. Jesus led the way by example. Everywhere he went Jesus met a lot of negativity, hostility and resistance. He responded with love, kindness, positivity, healing, forgiveness, encouragement, gratitude, built peace bridges, inspired new beginnings and so much more. It made an amazing difference. People felt renewed, energised and ready to start again.

But Jesus never did it exclusively on his own. He encouraged others to do the same. We need to start harnessing those positives. It might help if you get a sheet of paper and start writing them down. If this seems a difficult task right now just get a small piece of paper and write down one or two. That is a good start. You need to do it, I need to do it, in fact we all need to do it. As you do it you will also sense somewhere that God is actually in this too.