Geography – Page 2

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.

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

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

did

nothing

when

counted

the

most.

…

Now our actions

or in-actions

count

again

the

most.

God Listens

Which May Be Good

Saturday, July 12, 2025

Or Not

For God Sees Through Us To Our Core.

Isaiah 49:8

Thus says the Lord: In a time of favour I have answered you, on a day of salvation I have helped you; I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people, to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages.

2 Corinthians 6:2

For he says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.”

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

When the whole world seems to be falling apart at the seams and between,

Words of assurance come from on high:

God listens, and helps us.

What a blessing.

Of course, sometimes we’d prefer that God would not be listening in on our lives.

Blessing or Curse?

Depends, eh?

…

Though the greatest blessing is to know that God is with us and for us, at all times, and even in those times when we’d prefer God were not listening, God forgives us, frees us from the shame and all else.

Wonders of wonders.

Reasons to Follow

Abound

Thursday, July 10, 2025

For God Is God, After All

Creating us to live well

wherever our paths take us.

Leviticus 22:31

Thus you shall keep my commandments and observe them: I am the Lord.

John 14:23

Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

There are ample reasons to follow God’s commandments.

They are guides for living life as God created us to live.

Why not live well?

How better to live than to live as one is created to?

For a spider trying to be a fly does not do well.

Nor a coyote trying to be a whale.

Nor a person trying to be a god.

…

Following is good,

it’s just not what saves us

morning, noon, and night of each day.

Only God’s Grace demonstrated in Jesus’ sacrifice to save us can do that.

Knowing we are saved, makes following the commandments possible.

We are not trying to prove something.

We are living out what has been given to us a gift:

Life Abundant.

On Watch,

Getting Us To Plant and Build

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Goodness in Our Time

Join the Circle

…

of Life.

Jeremiah 31:28

And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord.

Titus 2:11-12

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

It’s easy to think the world is lost.

The present times of turmoil and uncertainty do not promise a better future, if a future at all, for us.

With whatever time we have,

God gives us the gifts of the Holy Spirit

to leave behind impiety and worldly passions (like the economy’s foundation of greed)

so that we can reflect

the goodness God has made us capable of embodying

to other people,

Making these days, short as they always are for each of us,

the best days of life on earth,

ours.

Is He The One?

The One To Save Us

Saturday, July 5, 2025

From Ourselves?

Right there.

He was yelling right there at the top of his lungs,

“What’s Wrong?!

Everything!”

Lamentations 1:20

See, O Lord, how distressed I am; my stomach churns, my heart is wrung within me, because I have been very rebellious. In the street the sword bereaves; in the house it is like death.

John 4:29

The woman said: Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

We make so much trouble for ourselves, giving us cause for so many lamentations, and agreements with the passage from Lamentations.

We wait with great expectation worn weary into apathy for the One who can save us from everything.

It is so easy to scream or resign or fight, because our world economy sings only one tune: that of powerful greed.

Greed feeds us selfishness, insatiable hungers, and a callous disregard for all creation. As greed permeates everything around us, it is difficult to sing the songs of God’s Kingdom. Each day we need new images to jostle our hearts, minds, and imaginations to recognize God at work around us, and in us, and through us for others. We need to be reminded that Jesus is our song each day on this wonder-filled journey. Otherwise, drowned in greed-fed-fears, we only ramp up the heart-and-mind-stopping panic around us.

How can we find freedom from greed? How can we find a blessed tomorrow from today?

Encountering a man ranting and raving loudly in the woods where people come to camp for free, I asked, “What’s the problem?” The guy stopped a second before screaming, “Everything!”

What is your Everything? At the checkout till they keep asking: “Is that everything?” with a wink, I respond “No, the universe is a big place and I can’t afford everything. I’ll just take these few things, thank you.”

…

Our times are as tumultuous as any. It’s difficult to tell who is or will be a threat. Southern neighbours are now irrational and unpredictable. Last year’s extreme weather keeps becoming this year’s norm. Wildfires wipe out homes, communities, and livelihoods, and disrupt even more lives with deadly smoke, planting time-bombs in our lungs and blood. It’s difficult to tell what is safe, what is sure to be lost, and where one can take even a short rest from the tumult. We do know that our future, like a wild rapids, is going to be more difficult, dangerous, and full of surprises from new directions.

Yet God knew all this would be so in our times, as God has known about every time in the past, and knows about every time to come. God created us with the only real security for life in this universe: God’s own assurance that, come what may, God is with us through it all. And God sent God’s own Son to save us from our own sins and the evil that permeates the world. Each day God calls us to allow ourselves to be dandled in safety on God’s lap in this New Creation. Each day the Holy Spirit sends us out to share the wonders of God’s steadfast love with all who need it. And in the end, God will call us home, to sing our thanks again, for we are home, home with the saints in light, home at last, home at last.

And that is our Everything.

The Last Hope

For Life Lost

Friday, July 4, 2025

Where Will You See It?

Waves Come In and Go Out

Washing Us Free.

Psalm 119:114

You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word.

John 6:40

This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

How do you find that precious slice of time-place-tempo-song that gives you

everything to live for,

that gives you hope,

for another day, week, year, decade?

In the lives of those who have found a way to move from desperate-despair-loss-end

to become someone for someone, and maybe for a few more than one or two, maybe even for us all?

In the words that inspire one to dig deep?

Or in the faces of sounds defying the obvious end, despite the great loss getting into tomorrow from here?

Or in the safety of laughter and joy with children not yet stained by the short-harsh-brutish?

…

in the turmoil that is inevitably life,

the only hope for all kinds of life is

…

knowing that God is with us, for us, and

more than eager to redeem us, renew us, and give us renewed life each day.