Just

Friday, March 7, 2025

Just A Broken Body,

Not Alone,

By God,

By God’s Grace.

Proverbs 10:19

When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but the prudent are restrained in speech.

.

Matthew 5:37

Let your word be “Yes, Yes” or “No, No”; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

In a word

just

just me

That’s what each of us have,

Even if others are around us, love us, hold us, wonder with us,

in the end

it’s just

…

not that others loving us, holding us, wondering with us is nothing … because

because it is about all the bonus life has for us,

still

in the end

it’s just

…

me

…

for each of us.

…

Doesn’t take many words to say it all.

Just me.

Except it really is

…

as God shows us again and again,

it’s nothing about

me

for each of us.

It’s all about God’s love

that we share with others.

Just me, because God loves me,

is what each of us can say,

which is really to say

just nothing about me at all.

Gathering

At the Feast

Thursday, March 6, 2025

Some are Huge and Expensive,

Some are Simple and Free.

This one is the best

and

free.

Malachi 1:11

For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.

.

Matthew 8:11

I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

There’s a feast set

and you are invited,

just don’t bring your

– well do bring your ratty friend, your enemy, your troubled heart, and anything else usually not welcome at snobby feasts.

This feast is hosted by Jesus,

for all the sinners

here on earth.

Drink up. Eat your fill. It’s the feast of life, all is free.

…

…

PS: Snobby sinners also welcome.

Pooches

And Up-pooches

Wednesday, March 5, 2025

No matter how cute,

a pooch-up

is still a pooch-up.

Isaiah 59:2

Rather, your iniquities have been barriers between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

.

Romans 6:23

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

if it were all up to us

we’d screw the pooch

yet again.

Thankfully

God’s Grace saves us from our pooch-ups

and

it’s free.

Now we get to live

that freedom,

doing what the Holy Spirit equips us to do.

Ready or not,

here comes today’s challenges.

Enter

The Light of the World

Tuesday, March 4, 2025

See the Light

of the World!

Zechariah 2:10

Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion! For lo, I will come and dwell in your midst, says the Lord.

.

Matthew 21:10

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’

…

Words of Grace for Today –

We seldom see God entering our lives.

First because we seldom see God.

But most of all because God is always in our lives, we just don’t see.

Many would say: open your eyes.

But that is not something we can do when it comes to seeing God. It’s not our choice. It is a gift from God, given to us by the Holy Spirit.

We can choose to sing.

And sing God’s praises we should, can and have many reasons and opportunities to do so,

like

breathing

waking to a new day

laying down to rest

working hard

basking in the bright sun

feeling the fresh breeze on our face

enjoying a nutritious meal

being able to give to others what they most need, including the joy of being alive.

Remember

Saturday 1 March 2025

Remember the Golden Times

of Years Gone,

Gone,

Gone,

Or is it golden even now?

Isaiah 46:9

… remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like me,

Revelation 1:8

‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

if only we could remember.

Remember where we put things.

Remember why we are here.

Remember God?

That’s so far beyond possible.

Or is it?

Will God keep us from remembering even God?

We would hope.

Hope that God is powerful enough from Alpha to Omega, Beginning to End,

and certainly from our beginnings to our ends

to remember us.

And then all is well, all is well, all manner of things are well.

Finding God

Or?

Friday 28 February 2025

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_Everest_as_seen_from_Drukair2_PLW_edit_Cropped.jpg

Mt. Everest, The Highest Place On Earth

But Not The Closest To God!

Psalm 66:12

You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.

2 Corinthians 4:9-10

… persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

When I was much younger, I had two older friends, a married couple, who kept suffering the same loss, over and over again. They lost their glasses. I experienced their searches a few times before I realized that most often they had their glasses in a pocket or even on their head.

That’s us when we search for God. God is always with us, night and day, though God doesn’t allow our expectations to determine how God is with us, or how we can know God is there. We certainly don’t need to go find God, not even on a mountaintop, though sometimes after being on the summit we see life and God and all God’s wonders more clearly. We get a bit closer to God’s view of us.

No matter where we end up in life, through fire and water, persecutions and exiles, God is always with us, giving us the abilities to show Christ through our hardships

and our joys.

Knowing God

As Knowable

Thursday 27 February 2025

Climb High,

Or Not.

Regardless God Walks With You.

First Samuel 12:20-21

And Samuel said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil, yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart; and do not turn aside after useless things that cannot profit or save, for they are useless.

Ephesians 5:17

So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

Foolishness and Uselessness, Things that can only come to nought, Evil continued …

these things we know God does not wish for us to engage in.

Somethings we can know of God’s Will.

We ought not waste our time denying it, or thinking we can know all of God’s will, for God will always surprise us, as we learn more and more of the obvious things of God’s will.

What would you do today, knowing God will guide and bless you in the doing it for others?

Knowing God as

The Unknowable

Wednesday 26 February 2025

The Wind blows the snow where it will.

God works as God will.

Trust God’s Graciousness

Isaiah 40:13

Who has directed the spirit of the Lord, or as his counsellor has instructed him?

John 3:8

The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

So many times we want or desperately feel we must get control, control of an uncontrollable in our lives. So we grasp

grasp

grasp

and think that we can twist

reality

so that we can control God

to be as we need God to be.

But

God remains beyond our control, or our ability to predict.

We can only trust the testimonies of so many saints who have gone before us that God is always gracious and merciful, and abounding in steadfast love.

May that also be enough for us today.

Responding to

Encounters With God

Tuesday 25 February 2025

When was the last time you encountered God?

How did you respond?

Or did you not notice?

God Encounters happen many times each day for everyone!

Psalm 118:14

The Lord is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation.

James 5:13

Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise.

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Words of Grace For Today

…

Scripture reports people responding to their encounters with God in many different ways:

Glowing faces (Moses)

Glowing clothes (Jesus)

Humility (David)

Astonishment (witnesses to Jesus’ healings and calming of the sea)

Thankful Survival (Elijah and the Widow)

Gratitude (Psalms and many others)

Naming God as one’s Rock, Salvation, Helper (Psalms and )

Calls to prayer and praise

…

So how can we respond with indifference as if God were irrelevant?

Or with Ho-Hum, business as usual?

…

Too used to miracle stories, we reduce them to elements of science and explain them away or dismiss them as false reports by fanatics.

Too successful in our own endeavours we choose to ‘rely’ on ourselves, while sinking into profound sadness as individuals and as a people, since no matter how we succeed (wealth, power, fame, or supposed freedom) our achievements remain unable to ‘pull us up by our bootstraps’ into joy at being alive.

…

Scripture is full of acknowledgements that we think, speak, and live in such fogs of denial about God.

Thus Scripture and Tradition is full of Wisdom of the ages admonishes us to

Breathe.

Be still.

Listen.

Be humble.

Be thankful.

Be contrite.

Be bold.

Be as God created us to be, those who embody God’s Grace for us all… again today.

Delights Abused

Always Cost Us Life Abundant

Monday 24 February 2025

Beauty and Delight,

Or Chemical Escape

As Deadly As Lies

That Kill In So Many Ways?

Amos 6:4a, 6

Alas for those who drink wine from bowls, and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph!

Ephesians 5:18

Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

God has given us many ways to enjoy life on earth, only one of them is alcohol.

When we use what God has given for enjoyment as a way to dull our way through life, in order to deal with the pain life can be, we suffer.

Some suffer alcoholism, a disease of addiction that always beckons as an escape, an escape that always ends in death, unless one continually recovers, finding the goodness of life, starting always with honesty with oneself.

Other prices are many all the ways we take God’s delights, and turning them into escapes from honesty, from reality, from the suffering of life (ours and others.)

Honesty.

It’s hard.

But it is so much easier in the long term.

…

For God intends for us to find delight in life, even as we remain sinners, causing pain for ourselves and others.

For God intends for us to pursue justice for all, and to share all that we receive as gifts from God, so that more and more people can find delights in life.