What's Wrong About Being.....

 

From a Biblical, Christian, view-point,  what's wrong about being.....

Gay? - here's a list.....

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Trans? - here's a list.....

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Hetero? - here's a list.....

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What?  No lists, from a Biblical point of view?  We are always hearing lots about what the Bible says about stuff, and and often in a very direct way.  Please stay with it for a moment.

What's wrong about being.....

Disabled? - here's a list.....

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Black? - here's a list.....

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Brown? - here's a list.....

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White? - here's a list.....

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etc... etc... etc...

Are you getting the drift yet?  You wouldn't expect that there would be a list of things wrong about a person being Disabled, or Black, or Brown or White or any other colour. Why?  The answer is simple - that's the way they were born, or perhaps in the case of someone who is Disabled, something that happened to them later on.

The Bible, right at the beginning, tells how creation went wrong.  It tells how it then continued to go wrong, and how the whole of creation, which includes every living thing, including Humans, went wrong:  it is broken.

How we are as Humans is a result of creation being broken.  BUT.....How we act, and the things we do, these are in our hands, they are the responsibility of no-one but ourselves.

For instance, whether we are Kind, or Cruel; Loving or Hateful; Honest or a Liar, a Giver or a Thief, a Healer or a Murderer, etc., is in our hands and is our responsibility.

[An aside..... People who suffer from Mental Illness, and have, perhaps, diminished control over what they do or say are, of course a different consideration.]

So, in the Bible there is no condemnation about how we feel, although the Bible does encourage good and pure thinking,  but what we do with our feelings, how we act, because that is our responsibility, and this is what the Bible teaches us about living.   

There are, of course, numerous things the Bible says we shouldn't do: Stealing, being Cruel, Lying, Murder, Hating, giving in to Temptation, etc., and numerous things that we should do, BUT, what the Bible doesn't say is that it is wrong to be Gay, any more than it is wrong to be Hetero,  or it is wrong to have different coloured skin compared to someone else.

What the Bible does say however, whether your feelings are Straight or Gay, is not to be Sexually Immoral:

*For a Straight Hetero person this means waiting until you are married before you have sexual relations.  

*For a Gay person this means not having sexual relations with a person of the same sex.  

Of course this has, and does, and will undoubtable continue to be, a cause of great debate.  But if a person professes Christian Faith, and to be a follower of Jesus, there are biblical rules to follow, and the Bible is clear about what those rules are.

Following those rules can be hard, but Christians look to, and depend upon, the Lord to be able to guide their thoughts and behaviour and not to depend on themselves.  Of course, you may not be a Christian, or a follower of Jesus.  You might, therefore, consider these rules of behaviour in the Bible do not apply to you.  But they do.

Thoughts on the parable of the Talents [Matthew chap. 25 v14-30]

God’s power at work in our world, to defeat evil, will only be seen where God’s people, in whom He has invested His power through His Spirit, are at work in the world.  God hasn’t filled us with His Spirit, raised us up as an army, dressed us in the full armour of God, to have us sit on the side-lines while He does the job himself. 

 We are the means by which God is at work in our world. We are lights in dark places.  We are Salt. If we are not seeing God in action in our World, Our Countries, our Cities, our Towns, our Villages, our Neighbourhoods and our Communities, it is because God’s people are not at work.  As long as we sit on our backsides doing nothing, nothing is what we will see being done.

 If you think being a Christian is solely about going to church regularly, about performing your religion to the satisfaction of yourself and others, about quoting scripture to impress with your knowledge and as a result, feeling pleased with yourself, then you are like the servant to whom the master of the house gave the one Talent.

 It is only when we move out in real prayer, in real power, in real action and in real Love, that God will be seen to be at work, and will be at work through His people, who are at work. It is, of course, essential to be in God's power and that the action is what God wants.

 If we are to come against the dark tide we need to know God's power is stronger than our feeble efforts, like David’s battle against Goliath.  The Philistine Champion had been taunting Israel’s troops for 40 days.  Then David comes on the battlefield and challenges the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.  This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.  All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”  Take special note of what David says. ‘I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty’. 

 If we fail in this, we will continue to feel powerless, helpless, frustrated, discouraged and impotent to do anything against the dark tide of evil which has already engulfed so much of the world around us, the World we live in. 

 It is to us the question will be asked, ‘What have you done with what you were given’.

 
[The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for Good Men and Women to do nothing ~ Anon, but attributed to Edmund Burke]

Our Relationship with God

 The power of our relationship with God, as our Father and our Sovereign Lord, is not based on our feelings at any particular moment, nor is it proportional to whether we’ve had a ‘good’ service in church, nor a ‘good’ quiet time, nor a ‘good’ worship time, nor how much we are ‘doing’.

 The Power of our relationship with God is based on fact: undeniable fact, unarguable fact, that through Christ we are Children of God: not that we shall be, nor that we were, but are not any more, but ARE, both now and forever.

 To return to our feelings: a Soldier is still a soldier, whether in the front line fighting, or in training in boot camp. That soldier is always, at any moment, likely to be flung into battle. The Christian ‘soldier’ is always on the front-line of the Spiritual Battle, whatever the current state of the battle may ‘appear’ to be, or whatever our ‘feelings’ are.  Feelings and emotions ebb & flow, but our relationship with God our Father is unmoving, solid, and totally dependable.

 When all appears quiet, or there does not appear to be much happening in our particular strategic placement, we must not allow ourselves to think that nothing is happening.  We must always live all out in the reality that, our relationship with God does not depend solely upon what we are ‘doing’ or what we are ‘feeling’ or what we ‘see’ around us.

We ARE Children of God, both now and forever.

Why we stopped, ‘going to church’.

Before we talk about stopping going to church, it’s useful to add context about how we started going to church in the first place.

Jan’s Intro..... 

I was brought up in a Christian family going to a Brethren church, in fact it wasn’t called a church but an ‘assembly’.  There were three services on a Sunday; Breaking of Bread (communion) back home for lunch then, Sunday School in the afternoon, back home for tea and then the evening, Gospel Service, where it was hoped people who were not Christians would be there to have ‘the Gospel’ preached to them.  Of course, there were also meetings during the week; Bible studies, Ladies meetings, Prayer meetings and often, on a Saturday, Missionary Meetings where a person who had been abroad would come and tell their story with photos, film etc.  So I grew up with this being the normal thing to do.

I became a Christian when I was five, through a Baptist Church minister at Christmas, but I had always felt the presence of the Lord in my life before then – going to church was just what you did to be with other Christians. I didn’t feel any closer to God if I was in a ‘church’ building.

During my teenage years I joined a home Bible study (run by a couple who attended the Assembly) and also went to other Brethren meetings in the area I lived in.  The Bible study was where I met Dave, my husband, but the study also helped my faith.

Dave’s Intro..... 

I went to church for the first time aged 5 yrs old.  My Aunt decided this would be good for me.  It was many years later that I learned she was actually my Godmother! The only thing I remember about that church visit was getting a picture card of a blond blue eyed Jesus. I remember being unimpressed and never went again.  

When I was 7yrs old my Parents separated and we moved around quite a bit.  Then at 18yrs old. a friend persuaded me to go to the 1966 Billy Graham event in London, and I became a Christian.  I started going to my friend’s church for a few weeks, but didn’t own a suit, felt out of place and quit.  It took another year to re-engage with the whole ‘going to church’ thing, via a young peoples’ Bible study group in the home of a truly wonderful couple.  It was also where Jan and I met, which was an added incentive.

I (Dave) had joined a Team of Christians who ran a Christian Coffee Bar in a small Essex Village.   The Coffee Bar was a meeting place for local teenagers/twenty somethings and Christians would meet with them and chat about their faith.  I (Jan)  went along to be with Dave and also got involved.  It was then that, on meeting other Christians who had different ways of expressing their faith, I began to see that there was more that the Lord had for me.

So, What Happened Next?.....

During the next few years after we got married, we realized that there was so much more to Christian life than ‘just going to church’ – the Holy Spirit moved on so many people at this time, including us, and this led to feeling called to full time Christian work and Bible College.  Big physical changes led to further spiritual changes and at the Bible College we met and fellowshipped with people from all over the world – different types of worship and experience led by the staff who also shared their faith in different ways from different churches.

During the following years, God led us to many places and involvement in many different churches, and when we moved to Wirral [Merseyside] in 1988, we joined a local Evangelical Church. Over the next 11 years we were involved in Sunday School teaching, Worship Band and Worship Leading, Deaconate, Home Group Leadership.  Everything except Eldership.  

Then the fellowship’s pastor retired and the church went through horrendous leadership upheavals.  God kept telling us to stay, and we were often caught in the middle of things as we wouldn’t take sides.  After the final upheaval, which saw the new Pastor of just one year, sacked, God said it was time to go.  We left but didn’t realise, nor could we have possibly imagined, how this would lead to us not being a member of a particular building-based church,  but to being simply a member of, The Church.

We did initially join a new fellowship (house style), but it didn’t last as the leader moved away to the NE and it folded.

Then an unexpected thing happened.  In January 2001, when we found ourselves without a fellowship to attend, God said to us, very clearly, not to join another church. WHAT!?  REALLY!?

A Different Journey

However, for the next two years we continued to try to join another church as that was what we still felt Christians did, but the experiences we had all pointed to us ‘not attending a building church’ but meeting with Christians and non Christians where ever they were. 

It took us those 2 years to really believe this was what God wanted, and during that time numerous things happened to show us this really was what God wanted, including Jan once being asked to leave a Cathedral.  

I (Jan) was in a town and bought a Big Issue Magazine from a street vendor then went into the Cathedral.  I popped into the loo and when I came out into a side part of the place it looked empty of other people.  The organ was playing and I stood for a moment enjoying the music when a man appeared (maybe an usher or sides person) to tell me in no uncertain terms I couldn’t stand there and would have to leave!  I had no idea what he was talking about as the Cathedral was open to the public all day.  

Suffice to say he got quite nasty when I questioned why I had to leave – he got very close and angry saying it was an organ recital and people had paid money for seats – everyone else had to leave.  To avoid further unpleasantness I left, puzzled at this behavior.  Outside I found crowds of people who had also been sent out – one group from Italy who had come to pray in the Cathedral!  I was more than upset for everyone and walked off down the road with tears in my eyes asking the Lord what was this all about.  

I got out my street map to get to my next stop, and then the Big Issue seller was suddenly there asking if I needed any help (the difference in attitude was very healing).  He was so helpful and as I was standing talking to him on the street corner I felt the Lord’s Presence around me and the Lord said, ‘This is where I want you, on the street, where people are’.  I realized finally that the Lord really wanted us to share our faith in the places He took us to, meeting inside and outside buildings of all sorts where ever He wanted us to be.  

Two or three similar things happened to one or the other of us during this times Including both of us being, not exactly welcomed, by an individual at another Cathedral.  

Suffice to say we eventually got the message!

Being, Church where there is no Church.  

This was the start of a very different mindset for us and quite a different life – yes we still meet with Christian friends, yes we may sometimes attend a service in a building but we know that wherever we are, we are part of the Body of Jesus, ‘The Church’. 

At a meeting with friends, a Prophetic word was given to us, which re-emphasized  that we were to be, ‘Church where there is no Church’.  This, of course, applies to the whole Body of Christ, whether you attend a building or not.  We are meant to reach people who may never enter a building for whatever reason. In other words, take Church into the Community.  

After 23 years living in Birkenhead. God led us to New Brighton, where we had the bright idea of holding informal Bible related meetings in our flat.  God simply said, ‘Nah’, and then we quickly became involved, without really trying (God again!) in the local community as: Beach Rubbish Pickers, Part-time Pirates and a number of other community related things including Jan’s photography.  This gave us the chances to pray with people who would never pass a conventional church threshold and to simply be there for folks.  It has been an interesting journey, and is not over yet!

At this point it would be a good idea to talk about ‘church’ and ‘Church’ in a little more depth.

Church and church

As a word, ‘church’, can mean a great deal of things to many people. To some it is a physical place where they meet with others, during the week and particularly on  Sundays, to corporately take part in acts of worship and fellowship. 

To others, ‘church’, is a complete mystery and plays no part whatsoever in their daily lives or thinking.

In a Christian context, ‘church’ is neither of the above. Rather it is, or should be, ‘Church’ (note the capital letter) which is the name given to those who follow Jesus Christ, and have become, ‘born again’ (and there’s another abused phrase!).  Church is NOT a place, it is NOT a building, it IS a people. That is the true biblical meaning of the word, and once we accept that, it radically alters how we think about, and what we think of as, ‘church’.

No longer can we say, we are, ‘going to church’, and mean a building; or, ‘what church do you belong to?’, and mean anything other than the complete Body of Christian Believers.

We can begin to view the physical infrastructure of ‘church’; the meetings, the endless ‘activities’, and the politics, as being what they really are – a Man-Made deception and a diversion from the true calling of, The Church. That calling? To go into all the world and spread the good news of the Gospel of Christ.

Concerning how the Church should be, James Thwaites, in his book, ‘The Church Beyond the Congregation’, puts it like this:

“It is (this) concentration of 98% of the ministry gifts in and around congregational settings that sets the agenda….. We need to look beyond the local church community to see the eternal purpose towards which they are all meant to be working. These things are not given to just build the church localised and organised; they are given to build the church as the fullness of him who fills all in all. That Church exists in marriage, family and work. It cannot live and bear the fruit that God intends within programmes, buildings and meetings. The Church gathered must ultimately exist to equip and resource the body of Christ with a view to the saints coming into their fullness in, through and over the ‘all things’ of creation. It simply cannot be the other way around. "

[© 1999 Paternoster Press]

Jesus didn’t die on a cross to give us ‘religious meetings’, nor to create a Christian (using the term loosely) commercial sub-cultural ghetto where we idle our lives away amusing each other, preaching to the converted, and encouraging each other to, ‘be blessed’ , or to ,‘have faith and be rich and healthy’. We are not called to be busking by the queue for Hell. Rather we are called to be pulling people out of that queue.

But we need to clear our vision. We need to re-discover (or perhaps discover for the first time) what, The Church, is really all about, new ways of being Salt and Light to a dark and dying world, new ways of worshipping and serving God. We are tired of having our minds moulded by dead orthodoxy and false, Man-made Religion. We want to free our minds through being living sacrifices, which is our real worship (The Bible-Romans chapter 12).

We are strangers in a strange land; passing through on a journey to that celestial city. We should stop living as though our calling is to be ‘something’ in this world, to put down roots and take up permanent residence. Let’s regain our focus, re-commit our lives to following Christ and spreading the word.

Jesus died to set us free, not imprison the Good News behind bricks and mortar, being suffocated by Man-Made Religion.

[Dave & Jan Peddie(c)2020]

What is Truth?

Watching a recent Mark Kermode series about cinema and films, he got to the episode about Spy films.  In his introduction, he used the phrase, ‘... in this, post-truth world...’.  An interesting phrase, which struck me as more significant than perhaps initially perceived.  A phrase which genuinely raises the question: are we now living in a ‘post-truth’ world?

Of course, the deliberate laying aside of ‘Truth’, is not a recent phenomena.  Another well know phrase, ‘The first casualty of War is Truth’, would indicate that for long as there has been war, there will have been the casualty of Truth.  And of course, there has been ‘war’ for as long as humans have lived on this world.

So, I was left questioning why that phrase, ‘... in this, post-truth world...’, seemed to resonate so deeply.

Firstly we need to ask ourselves, ‘what is Truth?’  a phrase that will ring some bells as it’s a question that occurs in the Bible (John’s Gospel, Chapter 18 verses 37-38).  Jesus has been arraigned before Pontius Pilate.   ‘You are a king, then!’ said Pilate.  Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.’  ‘What is truth?’ retorted Pilate.

So, some 2000 years ago that deepest of questions was asked.  What is Truth?  It remains a formidable and heart-searching question to this day.

Members of the Flat Earth Society fervently believe that the Earth is, well, flat.  Conspiracy theorists may believe that the Apollo Moon landings were put together in a film studio for American propaganda house points.  There are those who insist the 2nd World War Holocaust never happened, but the Loch Ness Monster is real.  Indeed the list is almost endless.  It can equally be said that, one person’s Truth, is another person’s Lie.

So, where does that leave us in the 21st century, currently in the grip of a world-wide viral pandemic called COVID-19 [aka Coronavirus 2 or SARS-CoV-2] - or are we?

In the last 25 years, with the growth of on-line communications, be it via email, Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, TikTok, Skype, Facetime, Zoom etc., etc., we have a communication situation which is unprecedented in human history,  where anyone with a Computer, Tablet or Smartphone has the ability to ‘talk’ to the rest of the World.  Just think about that for a moment.  At the end of WWII in 1945, the only way you knew this had happened was via Radio, Newspapers and Newsreels in cinemas.  And it was only a one-way communication.  And you had to trust what you heard because that was the only information source.
Leaping back to the modern day, we now have the newly named phenomenon of, ‘Fake News’, not just from one or two sources, but from Millions of sources.  Fake News/Information is now used for a myriad things:  Scams, Propaganda, Ego-boosting, Influencing, Deceit, Misguidance, and general misdirection.

So then, how does anyone know, ‘What Is Truth?’.

There are two fundamental approaches to the question:
1 - Assume everything is not true, until proven otherwise, or
2 - Assume everything is true, until proven otherwise.

The former is, in some senses, the safest route.  It will always protect you, but in the process you stand a good chance of missing some potentially valuable and important piece of information.

The latter will ensure you hear every bit of news that comes your way, but leaves you potentially very vulnerable.

Sadly there is no single answer.  No-one can possible know the veracity of every single piece of information that comes their way.   So this is where the old fashioned attribute called, ‘Wisdom’, comes in.  Combine this was the well known Bon Mot, ‘If it seems to be too good to be true, it probably is’, and you will be on your way to not getting sucked, or suckered, in but some scam or other deceit.

Does this therefore mean we really are living in a Post-Truth world.  No it doesn’t,  Truth does exist, it just takes, in many cases, some time to filter the good from the bad, the dust from the specs of real Gold, the honest from the dishonest.  It can be a tough task, a lifelong task, and sometimes a heart-breaking task.

Pontius Pilate had the Son of God, Jesus, standing in front of him, and didn’t know what was truth. He made the wrong decision.  Be careful that you don’t, perhaps, make the wrong decision.

But They're Not Like Us

There has always been an attitude within certain sectors of Society, both Globally, Nationally and Locally, that if someone is different to, 'me', there must be something wrong with, 'them'.

Down through human history this has led to conflicts, sometimes terrible conflicts, resulting in massive loss of life.

These differences can arise for a number of reasons: place of birth, colour of skin, the language spoken, different beliefs, different philosophies, etc.  The list is almost endless.  The saddest incidents of these 'differences' arises within the very arena where they should be rarest:  the arena of Christian belief.  Let me explain.  

Christianity, as a faith-based system, is rooted in the Holy Bible, a Book of books:  actually 66 books in all, telling the story of creation, the stories of God's and Creation's interaction through Millennia which lead to the Ultimate interaction, that of God sending his Son, Jesus Christ, to die for the redemption of a broken creation having turned bad as personified in the Human Race.

From the moment that the first humans disobeyed God, and Sin entered the world, it has infected our Humanity, our very DNA, and there has been conflict.  Even, sadly, where the two Sons of those first humans had a conflict, and one Son killed the other.

That first act of, free-will rooted disobedience, resulted in the whole of creation being broken, from that moment.  And it is this broken creation, in which we all live, which causes all the conflict we see every day.  And it is this broken creation which seems to be constantly over-looked when we come to consider all our conflict initiating differences, and none more tragic than how we treat each other.

OK, so now we come to the core of this article.  How we Christians, view, respond to, and treat those we find are different to ourselves.  How the, 'Me' is different to the, 'Them’, particularly, in the 21st Century, how we view certain groups of, 'Them', the ‘Others’.

One of the favourite targets, and there are others, of certain Christian groups are members of the LGBT+ community.  An example being the Westboro Baptist church in America, one of whose favourite placards proclaims, 'God Hates Fags'. This church also targets many other groups, as well as other churches.  It really is a hate group.  Sadly though, their hate-filled rhetoric and messages towards the LGBT+ community, in particular, seems to have influenced many churches, and many  Christians groups.  But of course, this hatred towards, ‘Others’, this ‘otherness’ is not new.

So lets start with the question: Does God Hate People?

Being part of a broken creation, we are all born into a sinful world.  Sin lives in us all, and it is who we are.  And it is this Sin, this terrible disease if you like, that fills us and leads us to do sinful things.  And that is what God hates.  And the only way to deal with this disease of Sin that consumes us was to offer his Son as a sacrifice, which is what happened when Christ was hung on a cross to die more then 2000 years ago.  And all this happened because God Loves us and wants us to be free of the disease of the Sin he hates.  He did it not because he hates us, but because he hates what has become of us because of Sin and because he loves us and wants to rescue us from that which he hates.  God does not hate us. God loves us.

But we are still part of a broken creation, and we still do things that are wrong.  But because God loves us, and Jesus died for us on that cross, we have a pathway to be washed clean of all the horrible things that Sin can still do to us. 

You may have come across the argument used by many people to condemn people who are Trans-sexual (or Trans), Homosexual (Gays) etc. and you may often hear the argument, 'God made them Male and Female - END OF!’  But what those people forget, or have failed to understand is that, the moment Sin came in, ALL of creation,  I repeat, ALL of creation became broken.

From that point onwards everything we did, thought, said, wished for etc., became tainted.  Nothing was, or is, how it should have been, nor how it should be.

And this leads us to another very important consideration.  Not only is the whole of creation broken Spiritually, it is also broken Physically and Biologically and some of that is down to us.

In 1996, some 30 years after Rachel Carson's book, 'The Silent Spring' was published, another book was published, called, 'Our Stolen Future'. One of the outstanding things in the book was the discovery that Man-made chemical hormone changing molecules have now permeated every living person on the planet.  Even isolated and remote Northern Inuit peoples are contaminated.  This had led to, in some people, deep psychological, physiological and Biological changes.  So people may be born with bodily defects that are a direct result of these human made chemical contaminations.

So it is really no surprise that a person may be born 'Male' and yet feel they're  'Female', or vice versa.  Or they may be born with two sets of genitalia, or none.  And the list goes on.

Because we are all part of a broken creation, we should not be judging, criticising, ostracising or condemning anyone.  As Christians, or as I prefer to say, Christ Followers, we need to heed Jesus' words in the Bible: Matthew chapter 7 verses 1-3 'Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

It is humbling to acknowledge that we are all broken people, and in no position to set ourselves as judges of others.

Remember, as Christ Followers, Love Others. 

A good way to do passwords

A good friend recently had a scam scare, so needed to change her passwords. It can be a mammoth task.

The big question:  Is there an easy way to have different passwords for everything, yet at the same time still be able to remember them all?

The answer is, YES!

Here's the way it works:

1 - take a word that you will easily remember, for instance = 'coconuts'

2  - then do a standard number substitution for some of the letters (o=0, s=5) turning coconuts into,  c0c0nut5.  
[Other good general number substitutions are: i=1 and e=3 b=6]

3 -  now add a symbol to either end - $c0c0nut5$

So far so good, but that would still be the same password for everything, but here comes the clever bit.

Include the first 2 or the first 3, letters relevant to the website you are logging in to.

For Instance - Amazon.
The password is now...
(1st two letters) $c0c0nut5am$ or
(1st three letters) $c0c0nut5ama$ 
(or use the last 2 letters) $c0c0nut5on$. 

You could even go for the whole word:
 $c0c0nut5amazon$
Or even reverse the website name:
 $c0c0nut5nozama$. 

Of course, depending how your brain works this might be a step too far!

You can also add a special year. $c0c0nut5am1987$

In the same way, if it was Twitter, the password would be,
$c0c0nut5tw$, or
$c0c0nut5twi$ , or
$c0c0nut5er$ or
$c0c0nut5twitter$
etc, etc.

Imagine doing it for a phrase.  For instance  'I love ice cream', would be,
I=1
love=l0v3
ice=1c3
cream=cr3am,
which becomes (for Amazon) $1l0v31c3cr3amam$

Get the idea? Hope that helps.

PS - did you know that one of the most common words people use for a password is, 'password'.  PLEASE DON’T!