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.

.

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.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

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.

…

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.

Holiness: Set Apart

Into loneliness?

Tuesday, September 23, 2025

Or Life Abundant Amidst the Dreck

Living in the Weeds.

Ezekiel 36:29

I will save you from all your uncleannesses, and I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you.

.

1 Thessalonians 4:7

For God did not call us to impurity but in holiness.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

Holiness: to be set apart.

Are we set apart?

How does God set us apart?

Are we ridiculed, mocked, exiled?

Are we ignored as inferior and useless?

Are we set apart to live in loneliness?

Even if God lays no famine on us, what good are full grain hoppers if no one will interact with us?

Is this life?

…

Holiness: to be set apart.

Set in the world, among all the dreck, drudgery, mundane, offensive, disgusting, dirty, and destructive, but set apart to be examples not of our own purity, but of God’s choice to free us from all that would denigrate us and others, setting us free to be as God created us to be.

Holy. Set apart in the midst of all that is impure, to be God’s example of God’s power to make impure blessed, and therefore

wonderful,

awesome,

graceful.

Water Flows

Living Water Flows

Monday, September 22, 2025

Through Us

Like Foam, Stuck

In The Weeds Of Life.

Psalm 111:3

Full of honour and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever.

.

Philippians 3:8b-9

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

When I take a shower, the water is pulled from the camper’s 30 gallon water tank, which now after nearly 45 years, probably only holds 25 or so. Since a shower takes about 10 gallons, it’s a bit dicey getting water throughout the shower unless I first refill the camper’s tank from the bigger 275 gallon holding tank. If I take a shower without enough water in the camper tank … Let’s just say it’s uncomfortable trying to fill that tank with soap in my eyes. So before I shower I open the valve on the bigger tank, which has a hose connected to it, which at the other end is connected to the filler connection on the camper.

Water flows out for the shower.

Water flows in to refill the camper tank.

All is well.

Jesus’ sacrifice for us does not simply fill us up when we empty ourselves living sinfully in this world.

No! Jesus provides a different solution for our tanks, and we are showered not with righteousness earned by our compliance with the Law, or dedication to living as Jesus did.

No! Jesus provides the living water that satisfies all our thirsting for life, life as we were created to live it. That valve is always open, flowing over us, overflowing through our lives to all those around us.

Then come the challenges of life, and we might struggle with them as usual. Or we can recognize that we are made different in our baptisms, by the living water that we are submersed in, which flows over us, which washes away our sins, which provides the water needed for growth. The living water carries us with God and our struggles become God’s, and God’s joy becomes ours, and God’s call becomes the priority for each our days.

Until we forget.

And then the living water of Jesus’ hard won forgiveness for us washes over us again and still into our ‘tank’s’, our lives, freeing us to recognize again the change the Holy Spirit makes in us, equipping us to live and deal with all the challenges of life differently.

We see, instead of unending reasons to despair, great cause to celebrate in all that has been done for us, by so many people, by so many saints working God’s blessings for us.

Then we know as Paul did, that

For Jesus sake we have suffered the loss of all things, and we regard them as rubbish, in order that we may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of our own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, given to us by the Holy Spirit, founded on the righteousness from God based on faith.

And we can praise God with the Psalmist, being examples that God walks with us, and his work is full of honour and majesty, and his righteousness endures forever.

The Little and All That Matters

Some Give, Some Sacrifice … Some Live.

Thursday, September 18, 2025

Finding Our Way?

Coming And Going: To Darkness

Or

To The Light?

Isaiah 55:2

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.

.

Mark 12:44

Jesus spoke, For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but the widow, out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

it takes many words for form a worldview in a person.

it takes just the wrong words to send a person into despair, anger, and misdirected violence.

it takes just the right words to pull a person out of misery into happiness, from angst into hope, from anger into joy, from death into life.

…

the widow had next to nothing, and gave it all.

Jesus’ listeners would think that more money is better, and yet giving is not only for the recipients, it gives life to the givers.

Those who know where all they have comes from can be willing to give it all, even if it is not very much.

Just a word or two

can save a life.

…

What words do you absorb each day?

What words do you share each day?

…

What words does the Holy Spirit bring to you each day, to bring you into freedom?

What words do you thus have to share that will bring freedom from, and freedom to, to those who most need it, today?

A Burning Fire Shut Up In My Bones

God’s Call to Deal With the Crap of Life

Wednesday, September 17, 2025

Sharing the Mystery of Christ

Pristine Bush?

That’s Full of Crap.

Jeremiah 20:9

If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.

.

Colossians 4:3-4

At the same time pray for us as well that God will open to us a door for the word, that we may declare the mystery of Christ, for which I am in prison, so that I may reveal it clearly, as I should.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

Away for a few days (a family gathering, a dance, a strained ankle needing recovery) I returned to find everything as I left it in my camp: all the work to prepare for winter still left for someone to do, and since there’s only me, it’s left for me to do.

Thankfully no one came in (as sometimes past threatened and done) to steal, damage, or destroy the camp.

All’s well!

Until I find tracks where there should be none; unidentified until I find a dozen or so cow pies on the grass. The adjacent grazing land was bought by a new owner and the cows are grazing it. Some obviously got out and spent a few days and nights eating the green grass around the camp. The pies are prime breeding grounds for flies, both bothersome and unhealthy … and most unpleasant are the little, nearly invisible ones that dive bomb in, bite and escape leaving a sting behind. One is not much, but a hundred within a minute or so becomes shockingly painful.

So the next morning in the cool I clean them all up into the wheelbarrow and haul them far away where they’ll do no harm, dump them and clean out the wheelbarrow and the shovel. Back at the camp I find one cow pie that I missed. I shovel it into the wheelbarrow, but I leave it for later to dump, since I may have missed more.

Always, always, always there’s someone else’s crap to clean up.

…

God sent Jeremiah out to warn the people that God was tired of cleaning up their crap, that God was going to leave them to the mercy (or no-mercy as it was) of their enemies.

Jeremiah tried in many ways to avoid this unpleasant calling, but could not.

…

Jesus sends us out to proclaim the mystery of Christ, God’s love for all people. Jesus came to pay the price for all our crap, to free us from it and all that flies wildly free from it.

Are we ready to deal with the crap that will be thrown at us if we engage in this calling?

Given the Wilds of Climate Change

We Need Jesus to Do More –

Than Walk On Water

Friday, September 12, 2025

We Need God to Stabilize the Water Everywhere!

Storms A’Brewin’

Proverbs 3:25-26

Do not be afraid of sudden panic, or of the storm that strikes the wicked; for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught.

.

Matthew 14:26-27

But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

it’s just fine to deny that we are the cause of climate change.

Just go a head and bury your head in the sand,

so you can carry on blithely, making it so much worse for us all.

Now if we’d followed Jimmy Carter’s plan for 20% solar power, started in 1979,

(adapting it in each country, like our own, eh?)

We’d not be in the such terrible grips of climate change with smoke and wildfires and drought and floods, and storms so wild we’ve never seen the likes of them.

…

But wishing doesn’t make it so.

And only lots of action, guided by wise thoughts (dreams and prayers as well),

will make our future a bit better than

the even worse it is each year

because

we

did

nothing

when

it

counted

the

most.

…

Now our actions

or in-actions

count

again

the

most.

Just A Word Or Two

On Our Behalf

Thursday, September 11, 2025

Hoping It’s a Good Word, Eh?

If God Can Bless

This Water Rat (Some Call Them Beaver) Environment

With Loons,

God Can Bless Us All.

Ezekiel 12:25

But I the Lord will speak the word that I speak, and it will be fulfilled. It will no longer be delayed; but in your days, O rebellious house, I will speak the word and fulfill it, says the Lord God.

.

Galatians 3:8

And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you.”

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

Lots of words flying around. Lots of chaos flying around.

Lots of weapon drones flying around, making chaos and

threatening a war of wars … again.

But God spoke first,

long ago,

and

it will be so:

Even the Gentiles, and those creating chaos and war, and threats of great war,

even these

God invites to the table.

God … how patient God is! Especially with all those that create such evil,

…

not to mention with you

…

and, yeah, with me, too.

(Now if only that were the meaning of this MeToo thing; spoken by abusive ones – male and female.)

But thankfully God has spoken, and it is Grace, Grace, Grace for us all.

It Ain’t Easy

And Only One Thing Is For Sure

Wednesday, September 10, 2025

Rising and Setting, All A Wonder.

Smoke Gets In Our Eyes, Noses, and Lungs, Giving Us Beautiful Sunsets.

Nehemiah 9:32

“Now therefore, our God—the great and mighty and awesome God, keeping covenant and steadfast love—do not treat lightly all the hardship that has come upon us, upon our kings, our officials, our priests, our prophets, our ancestors, and all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria until today.

.

Romans 8:38-39

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

Life is full of crap, hardships, disappointment, loss, great cause for despair and resignation and sorrow, … and death.

The only thing that is for sure, that is good,

– there are so many things that are downright ugly, and evil which one can count on –

is that God loves us, and will not let us go it alone.

So it is,

that the most important good thing in life is 100% guaranteed

to be steady as a rock

for us.

Makes it possible to endure the crap, hardships, disappointment, loss, great cause for despair and resignation and sorrow, … and even death.

And more than enduring,

through it all we live blessed to see great beauty, goodness, and wonders,

each day.

Taking It All In

Leaving No One Behind

Tuesday, September 9, 2025

See the Light, Guiding Us Home.

First Samuel 12:22

For the Lord will not cast away his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.

.

Acts of the Apostles 11:18

When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

God’s mercy is endless, and unfathomable. We do not deserve it, Jew, Gentile, or whatever else we would be or be called.

The education policy to ‘Leave No Child Behind’ was not first spoken of or acted upon in the educational setting.

God was first out the gate with it

for us all.

And why?

Just because it pleased God to do so, to have people that return God’s love, to have a great host of saints to guide us into the future that God has readied for us.

God’s mercy is endless, and unfathomable, we cannot understand the depths that God goes to to bring us home.

The Learning Curve

Yearning Enough

Sunday, July 13, 2025

To Go Out As The Sun Goes Down

To Pray: God Save Us!

Isaiah 26:9

My soul yearns for you in the night, my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

.

Mark 1:35

In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

Oh that it were so.

Or so.

So that we could climb the steep curve to learn justice.

And that we could make justice be equal for all, and life be abundant for all, and all be able to enjoy the basics of life, and …

well, that God’s will were on earth as it is in heaven!

We yearn for lots of things,

but our greatest, rightest, most worthy yearnings are that God’s judgments to be applied for all on earth,

for we trust God’s mercy and abounding steadfast love, to forgive when we need it, and when do we not need it!

Yet

so much interferes

each day

so

we seek the calm of the approaching dark to beg God

to come

and save us

also this day

and this night.