Hope by Grace

Freely Given

Friday, October 24, 2025

To All!

When the Storms Threaten,

Hope Fuelled By God’s Grace

Calms Our Pounding Hearts.

Jeremiah 31:17

There is hope for your future, says the Lord: your children shall come back to their own country.

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Ephesians 2:5b and 7

By grace you have been saved so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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We all want freedom.

Mostly Freedom From [fill in your latest list of maladies of your days here.]

Jesus promises us freedom.

But it’s not really Freedom From.

God saves us very rarely from our trials. Usually it’s in our trials.

Jesus gives us Freedom For.

Forgiving the greatest horror of life, our own sins (nope it only seems that it’s others’ sins.)

With that, though we still are captive to sin, slaves if you want to call it that, we are given the gifts to live life as God intended us to live it; free for everything good and worthwhile.

Jesus forgives us our sins and frees us for dancing, reading, skiing, singing, travelling, smiling, laughing, and dreaming.

Jesus forgives us our sins and frees us to have wide horizons, open hearts, engaged minds, and active hands.

Jesus forgives us our sins and frees us to care for creation, and to compassionately and passionately love, even our enemies; and to be loved, for who we are, just as we are.

That’s just a little something to keep our hearts thumping through the worst life throughs at us.

Even a wild pitch from the Blue Jays, or worse, from Trump.

Blessings

For All,

Friday, October 17, 2025

Young and Old, maybe?

When All The Colour Has Drained Out of Life …

Genesis 32:26

Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.”

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Matthew 19:13a

Then little children were being brought to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Youthful Jacob is able to demand a blessing from the angel he’s struggled against all night. Got a lame hip for it

and

a blessing in the end.

Jesus distributes blessings to the children freely, widely, readily.

…

but

is there a blessing for the old people.

Some cultures revere their older people.

Some respect them.

Ours ignores them.

…

Maybe there’s a blessing in that, too.

Do Not

Be Afraid!

Thursday, October 16, 2025

Blessings Promised

Lots of water

between here and

the coming storms.

Genesis 26:24

And that very night the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham; do not be afraid, for I am with you and will bless you and make your offspring numerous for my servant Abraham’s sake.”

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Ephesians 1:3

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

“Do not be afraid.”

Always, “Do not be afraid.”

But …

well, there’s plenty of reasons to be afraid.

Seasons change,

and with climate change, the wild storms are now ferocious, focused on destroying us

…

it seems.

…

Morning

Rising moon sliver cannot dent the not quite frozen dark.

Innumerable stars pierce the black void around dancing magnetic streams.

Dew drenched grass waits increments of snow piling on.

Ferocious winds wait, catapults loaded.

Biting cold looms over the horizon.

Already the monster chews it’s bright orange flames turning wood to ash & light & heat

Ever slowly boiling the pot for morning coffee & the day’s tea.

All is well

…

For now.

…

Thank God for all the blessings (as promised each day through the generations) that have kept us alive

until now.

And a home waiting

when that last day comes

our way.

Place?

My Place

Wednesday, October 15, 2025

what’s your place like?

The Geese,

Soon Gone.

The Stillness Stays Behind.

Isaiah 55:12

For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

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Luke 10:17- 20

The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

pulled and pushed my bones and muscles resist

but they must out of the warmth from under a down duvet rise

dawn peeks through the trees

frost covers the grass

the air holds it’s breath waiting

the lake waters exhale fog rising

on the shore a goose honks once, then twice

across the waters the oil processing plant roars dullness

and trucks pound the pavement, as another of their work day begins

smoke rises from the chimney

a four fist size rock sits beside the path, pulled out from where it tipped innumerable loads of wood coming in

My day begins, a pot of water on the wood stove, waiting for heat, an hour until it boils for morning coffee and the day’s thermos of tea.

My ‘place’ awaits another 8 hours of hard labour preparing wood for the winter, repairing and improving systems that keep the cold, the storms, the animals and bugs at bay

…

and me alive.

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What’s your place in life?

…

Is our place anything other than to rejoice that God has a place for us, in creation, and beyond?

Gone Degenerate and Wild

Will Anyone Plead for Us?

Friday, October 10, 2025

Surely Someone?!!

Sunset Glory.

The Colours Are Not Real.

But God’s Blessings Are!

Jeremiah 2:21

Yet I planted you as a choice vine, from the purest stock. How then did you turn degenerate and become a wild vine?

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Romans 11:2

God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?

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Words of Grace for Today –

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If we are at all honest with ourselves we know that we have at least taken the good vineyard God planted in us and chosen to bring in wild weed seed, and degenerative thoughts, words, dreams, and deeds,

to much so that they choke out life in and around us.

…

Elijah, as powerful as he may be, cannot save us.

Thankfully, God has not rejected us and deserted us to ourselves and all the evils we dream up.

Instead

God sent Jesus to save us

and save us he did and does

each day.

…

Thus we may live this day

as the ones God blesses,

all in order that we share those blessings will all.

…

Breathe.

The Spirit

Always in and around us, for life.

For This Reason

And What Reason Is That

Thursday, October 9, 2025

That God Would Bless Us?

The Spirit Works Where God Wills

Genesis 12:1-3

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

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Galatians 3:9

For this reason, those who believe are blessed with Abraham who believed.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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God calls and says “Go!”

God promises a great nation, blessings to be blessings to all.

And Abram and Sarai, go, and manipulate, cheat, and lie their way to wealth, security, and fame (or infamy to their victims). But they cannot make a great nation, starting with a family unless God blesses them with a child, and for that …

well they are humbled, most humbled. They cannot do it on their own.

Late in life, they finally have a child, and the rest is history.

A history of a nation growing and strong, then corrupted and overrun, and reestablished but still weak, then dispersed across the earth, and oppressed, killed and driven out.

…

Do we want to join that family?

Maybe not so much, eh!

…

Yet, by baptism into Jesus, the Christ, we are made a part of that family of God, a family larger than just Abraham’s blood descendants. A family bound together by the fire-wind-spirit of God, pouring gifts upon us all

…

all so that we can be blessings to others.

And how are we brought into this family? Do we do what is right and good and just and earn our way in. Not on your life.

We, like Abraham and Sarah, can do nothing, except wait for the gifts of the Holy Spirit to bring us home, into the family of God.

…

For this reason, namely, that we are saved not by our works, not by our own hands, not by our own hearts or minds; that we are saved by faith given to us by God;

for this humble reason, that we do none of it on our own, that God must do it all for us.

For this reason, this humbling reason, we are blessed

not for our benefit

but that we can be a blessing to others, many times over.

Coming Up Short In Life?

Look!

Wednesday, October 8, 2025

Even Zacchaeus Is Invited to the Feast!

Success Is Not Finding the Right Path and Reaching the End.

It is Loving Everyone Along the Way, No Matter How Far We Get.

Psalm 10:17

O Lord, you will hear the desire of the meek; you will strengthen their heart, you will incline your ear.

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Luke 19:5-6

When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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We measure life

in money

in power

in popularity

in relative privileges and comforts

in things of this world,

– ignoring those who come up short.

…

And so many must come up short.

…

God has always given special attention to those measured as coming up short:

the meek

the widows

the orphans

the slaves

the servants

the handicapped

the ill,


– which pretty much leaves no one out, except those that insist on staying out.

Jesus reaches down where we think people don’t even count, and invites us all to come to the feast of knowing Jesus at home, and in the feast of life (purchased with his death.)

…

For God measures life

in empathy

in forgiveness

in helping

in serving

in love

in joy

and in hope,


– and in seeing everyone as they are.

…

and the Holy Spirit makes sure no one comes up too short for God to notice!

Betcha Can’t

Betcha God Can!

Tuesday, October 7, 2025

Thwarts and All Cannot Stop God’s Love

Canoe at 72?

Possible.

Be Saved Yet Again?

For God All Is Possible!

Job 42:2

Job to God: I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

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Luke 1:37

For nothing will be impossible with God.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Trusting that God will not be stopped, that all things are possible for God, is the first good half of trusting God.

The other half is knowing, from experience (one’s own and those of the God’s people since the beginning of time) that God intends good for us, that God indeed loves us like we can only dimly imagine possible.

That’s seemingly impossible:

loving such miserable sinners as us,

mere blips in time,

vulnerable to

the smallest

bugs,

and so capable of

ugly and hateful destructive things

against the earth that supports life for us all,

towards people different than, and especially those so like, us,

and even to ourselves!

Yet there it is to see: God loves us, forgives us, and does the impossible:

God gives us life, and then renews life for us when we botch it so badly.

Even, Especially, Now

God’s Goodness

Monday, October 6, 2025

Hearing, Seeing, Trusting

Life Without Trust

Life With Trust

Psalm 27:13

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

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James 5:15

The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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It’s all good and fine to live life waiting for life after death, dismissing how miserable life is here for oneself, or how miserable it is for others, while oneself enjoys comforts and privileges unimagined even 100 years ago.

Well, that’s not good or fine, really.

Our lives are more determined by what we hear, see, and trust than the actual things we experience. The same mundane and boring or dire and desperate circumstances can be experienced completely differently by different people, usually depending most (not considering various vulnerabilities due to health and age) on their value-reality framework, which they live with each day.

If one hears the autumn winds blow, and does not take the time to actually see beauty of the yellow leaves against the deep blue skies, the marvels of the waters reflecting the wisps and billows of clouds, and the freedom from bugs the cool temperatures provide, how can one trust that even as winter approaches one’s preparations for the darkest and deepest of cold days will be enough?

If one hears the words upon words spoken, presented, and drilled into the fabric of our lives these days, and does not take the time to also hear the Words recorded by the saints through the ages of God’s love for us, and then to see the wonders the Word has brought to all peoples of all times, how can one trust that in the darkest and coldest of days to come God will walk with us?

The wonders of God’s love for us are not reserved for only after death. These wonders spring up and blow about each day around us. Today we can see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

Today we can trust that prayers help those who are ill, and that God already pours forgiveness to all people, hoping we will hear it in God’s Word, see it in lives past and present, and learn to trust it today, and in each day to come.

Wonders to hear, see, and trust abound.

Deliver Us!

Send Us

Wednesday, September 24, 2025

to deliver us all.

As We Get to Reflect Christ’s Light

to Strangers and Friends Alike.

Psalm 79:9

Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and forgive our sins, for your name’s sake.

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Luke 24:46-47

Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Psychology professor Gillian Sandstrom was a lonely graduate student in Toronto when she … and a woman who ran a hotdog stand on her way to university around 2007 would wave hello and smile at each other. Their interactions were so small that Sandstrom uses air quotes to even describe them as a “relationship.”

And yet “it really meant something much bigger than it seemed like it should, and it made me feel like I belonged there,” said Sandstrom.

From https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/micro-relationships-and-talking-to-strangers-1.7636486?cmp=newsletter_CBC%20Edmonton_1646_2029080

In the drudgery and loneliness of life God finds us.

Most often God uses another person, intentionally reaching out to us,

and even more often another person unintentionally reaching us

exactly where it hurts so much we barely can describe the pain.

…

Psychology professor Gillian Sandstrom was a lonely graduate student in Toronto when she began what she calls “a tiny, tiny micro-relationship.”

Today there is a whole surge of people recommending that interacting with strangers is exactly what we are missing in the technology driven and ‘stranger danger’ driven world we’ve created.

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In the drudgery and loneliness of life God finds us

and sends us out to share the Good News, even with strangers.

We need not start, nor should we start by mentioning Jesus’ name or forgiveness or sacrifice and atonement for sins, or even sins.

We start by being the saints God makes us, acknowledging, sharing, addressing, listening, smiling, thanking the stranger for being.

In that interaction God will bless them, and us,

and maybe we will have opportunity to demonstrate and explain that Jesus makes us possible to be

today’s saints

just a bit

for

them.