Category: Grace

Reformation

Celebrations of History

Sunday, October 26, 2025

Challenges for Today

The Spirit Wends Its Way Into Every Moment, Every Life.

Sometimes we can even see it

between the trees in the sunlight.

Proverbs 3:27

Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.

.

James 2:2-4

For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

Do good!

Seek no honour!

Be humble!

All well and good.

But …

It’s not the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It’s not what brings us closer to God.

First: God acts and saves us through Jesus’ sacrifice, forgiving our sins (each moment we breathe – and sin, since that’s who we are- miserable sinners all. Well we are actually really good at sinning!)

And then …

Well then we GET (not must) … We GET to work to do good for all people and all creation.

We get to seek no honour! We get to be humble!

We get to live with wide horizons, open hearts, engaged minds, and active hands, always doing Christ’ work here today.

And that takes reform every day, moving from the status quo so dripping with sin as it always is, and moving towards being Grace saved, Grace living, Grace giving.

Satiated

Across the Earth

Saturday, October 25, 2025

From threshing, to vintage, to sowing!

Deep Pan Pizza,

1.5” of toppings on a thin crust.

The way it should be?

Leviticus 26:5

Your threshing shall overtake the vintage, and the vintage shall overtake the sowing; you shall eat your bread to the full, and live securely in your land.

.

John 6:33

For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

We’ve all heard that a good leader does not ask more from her people than she herself can and does do: no earlier arrival, no later going home, no more risk going into a challenge or into battle, and never any more sacrifice.

…

Following Jesus, a good leader if ever, would, on those terms, leave us total failures. Who among us can still the before-creation-chaos present in the seas and skies, in wind and storms, in demons and evil spirits? Who can follow by forgiving the unforgivable? Who can feed more than 5000 with 2 fish and 5 loaves. If anyone can, please step up now, for millions are starving today!

…

So we pray: Give us this day our daily bread, including all people on earth in our ‘us.’

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.

.

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.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

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.”

.

Matthew 19:13a

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

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

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.”

.

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

…

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.

.

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.”

…

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.

…

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?

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.”

.

Galatians 3:9

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

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

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.

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.

.

Luke 1:37

For nothing will be impossible with God.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

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.

.

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.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

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.

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.