Lessons from a Floor Fan (or learning to go with the flow!)

September 7, 2026

Read on for a short reflection on the gift of AC units, the wisdom of a well-positioned floor fan, and learning more about God's grace.

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I never thought I'd care this much about fans (on this side of the Atlantic, anyway).

It's been a hot summer. An especially hot summer. Even with the AC unit we have in the bedroom (because when we left Texas I couldn't quite leave AC behind...). What seemed like a luxury on returning to Oxford has been a means of not losing my mind the past two months with the blistering temps and a house that is deisgned--quite successfully--to retain heat.

Well. Yesterday, we decided it was time to put the thing back in the attic. A bold move, perhaps, and a touch overconfident in the demise of the summer sun.

You see, come yesterday evening it was still a bit on the warm side. In the absence of active cooling, we decided to take our downstairs fan upstairs and place in the hallway to move the hot air out and bring the cool air in. Genius.

Only by the time I came to bed, the temperature in the bedroom was still pretty warm. The fan was on full blast, door open, windows open (even the attic door cracked to let the hot air go up if not out). But the temp wouldn't budge. Try as the fan might, it was no AC unit.

But then I noticed something.

I was standing between the labouring fan and the open window of the bedroom, and I noticed the cool air was hitting me on the wrong side. The wind had changed direction and was blowing in through the window. As a result, the fan was working really hard to do the opposite of what we wanted it to do! It was sending the cool air back outside again. No wonder it wasn't cooling off!

Thankfully, a repositioning of the fan and adjustment of the blinds later, and the temperature started to drop. Success at last.

***

As I was getting ready for bed, I couldn't help but laugh. In my Christian life, I have been that fan. Too often working in exactly the wrong direction.

I've wanted more of God. To be His person. To live as He wants me to live. To do what He wants me to do. I've valiantly fought in one direction, not realising it was at odds with His purposes. I've stressed and struggled in prayer and faith. And I've done so not realising it was rooted in a false view of God: one built on human fears and ideas. A God who wants me to do the work first and then present it to Him. That wants me to labour and labour to be as good as possible, so that God might be pleased with me and bless me.

I've had to learn that's not how it works.

It's when I admit I can't 'do' or 'perform' my way into God's good graces, that I'm ready to receive God's love. It's when I admit that the aspiration, the sweat, the energy expended to be 'enough' was all building castles in the air, then I'm ready to accept His grace. When I finally admit that the way I've been trying to manage and make do--ways that might have served me well as a child and even a young adult--these ways don't make for a contented adulthood or a mature Christian faith. They were lessons I learned from this world. Those around me. They are not the way of my God.

Instead, I begin by considering whether there's another solution to the way I've always done it. Maybe like me and the fan, I notice the breeze is coming from the opposite direction. Perhaps I realise I need to readjust and change tack.

When I turn around, trust and work with God's ways, it is then that I find the ease and strength and grace for life that begets gratitude and joy. The weight and the burden lifts. It's similar to the ease described in Matthew 11:28-30 (which is 'kind' or 'pleasant' more than 'easy'). Where I have been carrying religious burdens far too heavy for me to carry--I can bring them to Jesus.

I have come to know (and am still learning!) that sometimes when I've thought I was the most 'right', the most 'working for Jesus', I was often at my most mistaken. I've come to realise I'm actually just a very small part of an unimaginably large world in which God is working out his purposes.

I don't need to have all the answers. I don't need to prove myself to God to be acceptable to Him. I'm loved. I'm His.

And, yes, maybe I'll need to turn the fan around again tomorrow night.

But if I do? That's okay too.

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< Older Post

Forgiveness: A Free Pass?

By Suse McBay • August 4, 2026

A friend asked me for my thoughts on forgiveness. Here's some of what I have come to learn.

A Thought About Resurrection

By Suse McBay • July 28, 2026

Let me start by asking a question: if someone came up to you and asked what's the benefit or blessing of being a Christian, what would you include in your answer? There's the things we might know to say from Sunday School: Jesus loves me, died for me, so I can be forgiven and free. Or something like that. Would it naturally come to your lips to say this: The gift of my faith is that no matter how hard life gets, no matter the sorrow or suffering that comes my way, I am reassured and strengthened by the confidence that God does not ignore the unjust lives or deaths of those who stick close to Him? *** This summer I’m taking some time to look at Daniel 11-12 and Book 4 of the Jewish poetic writings I research, the Sibylline Oracles . This post is an observation and an out-loud thought from some of my reading. Again and again, both in Daniel, the Sibyllines, an array of other Jewish literature, and the gospels (as well as elsewhere in the NT—e.g. Mark 8:38-9:1, 10:29-31, John 11:25, 1 Cor 15:16-19, 2 Corinthians 4), resurrection and the post-mortem life appears as an encouragement and response to the problem of human suffering. Not a rationale or justification. It’s not an answer to the question of ‘why does God allow suffering’ in any overt sense. But an end to the story of God’s peoples that shapes how the present might be lived. When I was very young, I thought resurrection was more-or-less a get of jail free card for the crucifixion. Jesus died on a cross to deal with sin and death. But if he isn't raised it's all pointless: so God has to raise him. Resurrection as an after thought, if you will. But resurrection isn't an epilogue. It's the victory. Without it the whole story is pointless. It's a real, substantial, material hope. *** Life is hard work. Life does not always go our way. Even when it does, that way isn't usually what we really wanted anyway! There's the normal hard stuff of life: work, family, friendships, health and so on. Then there's the hard stuff of following God. We are given so much goodness in the gospel: a relationship with God for starters! But also forgiveness, healing, reconciled relationships, a change and liberation of priorities, freedom and new life. All such wonderful and good things. Yet they are all a foretaste. Reconciliation doesn't always happen. We might have an interior freedom but experience hardship after hardship externally. I've been reading the diaries of Etty Hillesum who expereinced just that. She was a young Jewish woman in the 1940s. She experienced such a bliss and joy because of her faith and spirituality that found contentment even in life in a concentration camp. Yet her life ended at the tender age of 29. So much life left to live, so much potential unrealised. *** Resurrection is a reminder and encouragement that our real hope and the true fulfilment of the gospel isn't in the here and now (it begins now, but as a foretaste of what's to come). We aren't to expect ' everything will go my way ' in this life or that I should experience the perennial blessing of God in my earthly life and relationships. Following God will not be easy. The things He calls us to do may not succeed. The people we love may not love us back. The person we pray for may never come to faith. The change we want to see manifest in the world around us may not happen in this life. But resurrection says this: God has not forgotten. God sees it all. God will set right. Unjust deaths will be dealt with. Unfair hardship will be set straight. This life is not all there is. There is so much more to come, that all of this--even the heart-breaking stuff—will pale in significance in comparison. Yes, that doesn't stop it hurting in the present moment. It doesn't stop grief or stem the tide of darkness today. But it allows us to let go. Surrender. Trust. None of this has to be fixed now. We do what we can. But the outcome of it all is not one realised in this life, but the next. So take courage. There is more to come. ******