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A reflection and prayer to start the day with the Rev'd Dr Craig Gardiner, a tutor at South Wales Baptist College.

Good morning.

Today churches in the Eastern tradition celebrate the feast day of St Jude. Western churches remember him in October, but it is the same man either way, though, just to add to the confusion, he’s also known as Thaddeus and Judas. Calling him Jude maybe a variation of Judas that emerged deliberately to distinguish him from that other Judas, Iscariot, the disciple who betrayed Jesus.

It can be really difficult if you share a name with someone who is of a very different character. Recently, I read about a computer analyst who couldn’t open a bank account because the background search kept returning information about a criminal fraudster with the same name.

Protecting a reputation is a problem as old as time, or at least since when the writer of the biblical book of Proverbs reminded us that, ‘a good name is more desirable than riches, and to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.’ But to be thought well of like this is a fragile thing, not least because it largely depends on what others think of us. Maybe that’s why American basketball coach, John Wotten used to tell his players to be more concerned with their character than their reputation, because character is who and what we really are.

The challenge for us is to live today with an authenticity of character. And if our public presence matches an interior life that is self-aware, shaped by honesty, kindness, and loving respect, what might be seen as Christlike, then surely a reputation more valuable than riches will follow.

Dear God
We welcome the interior life
and the space to meet with you
who knows best who we are
when no one else can see or hear
Shape our character today
Until it resembles your own
Until we resemble you
Amen