What do you notice here?<\/p>\n
I you he she we they<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Anything? How about<\/p>\n you he she I we they<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n It’s something that struck me the other day – the self-importance of it all. “I” is the only one we give a capital letter. I am so much more important than you, and you are less important than I. I don’t mean that, of course, but it is very symptomatic of how we look at ourselves and how we look at others. It certainly doesn’t help when we have this innate bias from just the way we spell! I know that it’s only in the English language, but I think that the fact that the English language is taking over as the international language of choice maybe says a lot, eh?<\/p>\n The Greek letter i is the smallest letter in the Ancient Greek alphabet. It is so small that the ancient Greeks didn’t even put a dot on it. It is the letter iota<\/em><\/strong>, and it gives us the English word jot – as in ‘jotting something down’ – making a quick note. Sometimes we use the word iota, as in ‘it doesn’t make one iota of difference’.<\/p>\n Then came the Romans. The word they used for the pronoun I is ego<\/strong><\/em>. Do you recognise that? It’s a word which has been adopted straight into English, and comes with the connotations of self-importance, conceit, self-esteem.<\/p>\n I.<\/p>\n I think I think too much in terms of I.<\/p>\n I think i should start thinking more in terms of Others.<\/p>\n But it’s more than that. When I became a Christian I accepted Christ as my Lord and Saviour. But did I really do both, or did I just accept Him as my Saviour? Did I really accept Him as my Lord? Do I put Him, the great I AM, higher than I put the I that I am?<\/p>\n He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less. (John 3:30, NLT)<\/p>\n It’s worrying me quite a bit. I must become less – and less, and it’s not easy. A lifetime of I is hard to change to a life of i.<\/p>\n I have to dot my i.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What do you notice here?<\/p>\n I you he she we they<\/p>\n Anything? How about<\/p>\n you he she I we they<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3,17,413,374,38,48,55,373],"class_list":["post-2239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian","tag-bibleblogs","tag-christ","tag-christian","tag-ego","tag-god","tag-jesus","tag-lord","tag-selfishness","category-5","description-off"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfWaLo-A7","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1865,"url":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/2010\/11\/can-i-help-mr-cameron\/","url_meta":{"origin":2239,"position":0},"title":"Can I help, Mr Cameron?","author":"Robert Pender","date":"28\/11\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I was interested to read that Prime Minister, Mr Cameron, is going to spend \u00c2\u00a32million on measuring the happiness of the British people. Happiness, according to the dictionary is a state of well being and contentment. I do not see a lot of contentment in the society in which we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christianity"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/christian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7131,"url":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/2022\/10\/7-the-big-sea\/","url_meta":{"origin":2239,"position":1},"title":"7 – The Big Sea","author":"Robert Pender","date":"27\/10\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=\"7132\" img_size=\"full\" alignment=\"center\" style=\"vc_box_shadow_3d\"][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]For most of the first 20 years of my life I lived next to the Clyde, a beautiful river with stunning scenery around it. Where I was, the river was very wide and was for most of the time calm. Occasionally the wind would get up\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7158,"url":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/2022\/11\/badsadglad\/","url_meta":{"origin":2239,"position":2},"title":"8 – Bad Sad Glad","author":"Robert Pender","date":"20\/11\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]There is no photo at the top of this post because there isn't one which could cover everything that I am going to say. The three weeks since my last post have been a bit busy with appointments and it has been a whirlwind of emotions and news. There have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7224,"url":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/2022\/12\/13-how-are-you\/","url_meta":{"origin":2239,"position":3},"title":"13 – How are you?","author":"Robert Pender","date":"10\/12\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=\"7225\" img_size=\"full\" alignment=\"center\"][vc_column_text css=\"\"]Just three little words - How are you? How often do we say them? I think most of the time we don't even say them, we just let them out, because it's just a form of saying hello. Yes, we mean the hello bit of it,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7329,"url":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/2023\/03\/19-words-mean-everything\/","url_meta":{"origin":2239,"position":4},"title":"19 – Words Mean Everything","author":"Robert Pender","date":"12\/03\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"If you have been following my blog you will know that in November last year I was diagnosed as having terminal cancer. In episode 8 of this series, I described how the oncologist told me that if I did not get chemotherapy I would have two or three months to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pender.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/words.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pender.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/words.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pender.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/words.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pender.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/words.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pender.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/words.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7242,"url":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/2022\/12\/14-plans\/","url_meta":{"origin":2239,"position":5},"title":"14 – Plans","author":"Robert Pender","date":"16\/12\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=\"7243\" img_size=\"full\" alignment=\"center\"][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]I have always been a great believer in making plans, especially when we are doing something special or going away somewhere. It is best to get it right and not miss anything out. Be in control! The trouble is that we are seldom, if ever in control.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}