What a Pain!

Thursday, September 12, 2024

Why is it that there’s always a stone in the way?

Psalm 82:3

Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute.

1 Thessalonians 3:12

And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you.

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Words of Grace For Today

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There is a secret to life, well it is a well know secret, so not really a secret, but a key to succeeding in life in the things that really count,

which is not power, money, or fame.

It is in living as one who reflects for all people God’s love, compassion, grace, and healing power for us all.

That key is that saving one’s own life is a disaster in the making.

Losing one’s life for another human is great.

Losing one’s life for Jesus’ sake and for the sake of the Gospel, so that God’s boundless love, compassion, grace and healing is known by others, now that is what we were created for and

living that way is to succeed at life, where it really counts.

Simple

yet

losing one’s life for others to know God’s love

still feels like one is losing,

well,

losing life!

And that, I guess, is the secret. That that pain and suffering is also what life at it’s best is all about.

The One Determinative Thing

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Can We See What’s Coming

Psalm 51:12

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.

1 Timothy 1:5

But the aim of such instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith.

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Words of Grace For Today

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A personal ran in the newspaper, back when there were such things, that read: Lost, missing for hours or days, it’s hard to tell, last presence evidenced by a note to myself last week. Reward unknown. Oh, lost is my mind. Call me if you find it.

The next ad read: oh, forgot my number, too.

Two days later another personal ran: Found one loose and lost mind, wandering about the back avenues of 3^rd and Park, near the Bowling Alley. Call 412-384-9012 if you know of it’s owner.

Three days after that an article on page three ran a story about the happy ending of an old man in his early 90s reunited with his mind that had wandered off during a boring TV program on shellfish, and the young mother of three who had found it engaging her oldest boy over the fence to the alley behind their house.

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Sometimes, all too often really, it seems we get separated from the one thing that makes such a determinative difference in our lives, the joy of our salvation, namely being found and saved by Jesus. Our stories make about as much sense as the ads and story in that newspaper that summer in New York when it was hot and smoggy and crime was at its worst.

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So, even when we are not so lost in a fantasy world of liars posing as politicians and people hoping for the impossible (which will lead to the loss of many things basic to democracy and human rights), we too pray,

restore to us the joy of your salvation Lord. For this is the one thing that does not change or get taken from us.

Help us to love You, our neighbour as ourselves, and even our enemies … and all creation (we have to add, since it’s been on the endangered list now for oh too long.)

On the Ground

In Here.

Friday, September 6, 2024

Finding Our Way On The Ground,

Or Not?

Daniel 9:18

Incline your ear, O my God, and hear. Open your eyes and look at our desolation and the city that bears your name. We do not present our supplication before you on the ground of our righteousness, but on the ground of your great mercies.

Ephesians 2:8-9

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

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Words of Grace For Today

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On the ground.

On the ground … in the wildernesses.

On the ground … in the wildernesses where the real battles of life take place.

On the ground … in the wildernesses where the real battles of life take place …

in the hearts,

mind,

and spirits,

of every

person,

lost

not lost

in the wildernesses

that work to end us.

On the ground we know, that though we work oh so hard as we can, there is really nothing we can do to change the circumstances of the wilderness nor our selfish hearts, minds, and spirits that would survive first, and help others later, maybe.

So when we cry to our maker of this wonderful and terrible and gorgeous and cruel creation we may want to say that we deserve divine intervention to help us survive

as we are wont, of course,

but

we know that we deserve nothing and any boasting we engage in is mere delusion on our part.

So we cry on the ground of God’s great mercy, steadfast love, and unbounded grace,

please save us.

…

Just another day on the ground

in the wilderness

that is our lives.

OR

Would It Be Too Much To Ask …

Thursday, September 5, 2024

Sometimes the Signs are Just Too Obvious Which Way Things Are Going!

Psalm 28:9

O save your people, and bless your heritage; be their shepherd, and carry them for ever.

Matthew 9:36

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

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Words of Grace For Today

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Some days one feels tossed about by the winds of change and the storms of polarities, not just in the environment.

Then it would be a blessing to have a shepherd to guide one to greener pastures and beside still waters.

This God promises.

Let it be so, this day as well.

…

Please.

…

give us enough of what is required to make it through this day without messing up too badly or hurting anyone,

especially those who cannot forgive,

and live.

The Broom

Of God Does Not Sweep Us Away

Wednesday, September 4, 2024

What’s Your Broom Tree Look Like,

Today?

First Kings 19:5-8

Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, ‘Get up and eat.’ He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, ‘Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.’ He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food for forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.

Matthew 6:31

Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?”

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Words of Grace For Today

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No Food.

No Food in the Wilderness.

No Drink in the Wilderness.

No Hope in the Wilderness

Well, after Elijah took on the prophets of Baal, and they (great in number) turned on him, leaving him no choice but to run for his life, it would come to this, wouldn’t it. Elijah gives up and lies down to die.

God planned for that, too. Not just for Elijah but for each and every one of us.

The angel brings him food and drink, two times, since Elijah needs at least that much to continue.

But there are so many times that we worry and fret about what we will eat and what we will drink. The worry is just as bad if not worse than the hunger and the thirst.

God does not have easy, comfort, boredom planned for any of us. God has adventures of the body, heart, and mind … and spirit in mind for all of us, traversing the wildernesses, becoming demonstrations and examples of God’s love providing life for us, becoming those who share that with others in need.

The broom tree is a place to rest. It is not a place where God abandons us, not ever.

Not even today.

Hemmed In

On All Sides

Tuesday, September 3, 2024

Finding the Path Home?

Out There Somewhere?

Psalm 139:5

You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

Acts of the Apostles 17:27-28

so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said, “For we too are his offspring.”

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Words of Grace For Today

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Trying to escape from the Wildernesses

of poverty

of hunger

of harassment

of threats

of apathy

of depression

of other people’s wildernesses

of the desert of a parched soul;

We’ve all tried at one time or another to escape

or at least minimize the parched heat, or the soppy wet floods, or the thunder, lightening, and wind storms of an angry planet or soul that seems out to do us in.

While we may try on our own, in real desperation, as even the least of believers to seek God,

yet God is not to be found, for God is before us, behind us, above us, under us, and to each side of us, walking with us through all the deserts and wildernesses that we traverse.

For we are God’s children, also this day, with all it’s challenges and things to be rightfully feared.

No other solution is needed, and we do not escape at all. God gives us what it takes to make it through, for even if death finds us, and takes us, there God gathers us in

to a home like none we have yet known. Home.

Be nice to have a home even in the wilderness, or maybe especially in the wilderness, eh?!

Fresh Start?

Ailments No More?

Monday, September 2, 2024

Rain Drops Clear The Air,

For a New Day.

Psalm 147:3

He heals the broken-hearted, and binds up their wounds.

1 Peter 2:24

He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

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Words of Grace For Today

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It is an odd, illogical thought, that we can be healed because someone else is wounded. That is the illogic of sacrifice. It is the illogic behind living organ donors (like kidney transplant donors).

The obvious truth is that we all need and want to be healed. Our physical ailments may come to mind first. Old people know ailments of many kinds that seem to multiply as the years pass. Far too many younger people suffer the cruel, random selection of genetic, developmental, and accidental ailments. While medicine makes advances each year, we still cannot heal all these ailments. We simply suffer them.

The most severe, and life-robbing, ailments we suffer are not the physical ones. They are our psychological and spiritual wounds and ailments that reek havoc in our lives, and the lives of many around us. The ‘science’ to heal us of these ailments, or at least mitigate their disruption to our lives makes advances to be sure, but the progress is minuscule for those who suffer.

How can God promise to heal the broken-hearted, and bind up their wounds.

Or to heal us by his wounds?

Yet both the Psalmist and the writer of 1 Peter don’t make that promise. They state it as an accomplished deed.

Oh, to live knowing our broken hearts are healed, and our wounds have been bound, that we have been completely healed so profoundly that it has cost someone else his life.

By faith we know exactly these things to be

how, since our baptisms,

we start each day,

each encounter

each challenge.

Good Morning!

A Fresh Start, Again!

Wounds and sins have no power over us.

To Pray or Not to Pray

Or not to be able to Pray

Sunday, September 1, 2024

Can We Pray For the Weeds Of Life To Be Beautiful?

Psalm 90:1-2

A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.

Lord, you have been our dwelling-place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Mark 11:22-23

Jesus answered them, ‘Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, “Be taken up and thrown into the sea”, and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you.

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Words of Grace For Today

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it is a wonderful thing to be able to pray.

it is an even more wonderful thing to know that God will take our prayers and make it so!

What of all the people who cannot pray?

What can we give to them

from all the blessings God has given us as stewards in this fragile creation,

if not peace, love, and hope?

The Difference

God’s Because-Therefore

Saturday, August 31, 2024

Can We See Through the Fog Of Demands Laid On Us, To See God’s Love for Us ALL!

Malachi 3:17

They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, my special possession on the day when I act, and I will spare them as parents spare their children who serve them.

Matthew 5:9

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

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Words of Grace For Today

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They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts!

The Ten Commandments start with BECAUSE. Because God is our God. What follows is many THEREFOREs. Therefore we will keep the Sabbath, honour our parents, and so on, showing us that our relationships are most important. God’s “Because-Therefore” laws begin with God’s love for us, followed by a guide to how we can return God’s love and love one another.

When we live, assured of God’s love for us – not striving to meet the demands of the Laws as if they were all and IF-THEN proposition: If we follow, then we are God’s people. And if not, then not! When we live, assured of God’s love for us life becomes a project of bringing God’s love to all people, and that converts us into peacemakers, those people who bring peace, by assuring people that they are loved, and can love one another,

no matter their differences.

What a blessing to be able to share in today’s polarized and fractured world.

Generational Wealth

Or Wealth Eternal?

Friday, August 30, 2024

Ready to Share Even This?

Psalm 33:11

The counsel of the Lord stands for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.

Ephesians 1:11

In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will,

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Words of Grace For Today

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When the ‘wealth for generations’ is denied so many people, while it is assumed as a right by others,

it is not hard to feel left out of life.

Yet the core to living abundantly is not in one’s possesions, but in what one has to give to others: grace, love, and hope

and help.

These God provides to us in our inheritance as God’s own children, adopted through Jesus’ redemption, demonstrated to us in our baptisms.

So how will we live today, concerned for our wealth, or lack of generational wealth?

ready to share the greatest inheritance with others,

grace, love, and hope

and help

not matter what comes our way?