Category: Grace

Listening

Listening and Speaking To Breath

Thursday, October 26, 2023

Like Smoke From the Fire,

Always Present, Always Needed,

The Holy Spirit’s Breath Voices the Word of Christ

Each and Every Day.

Isaiah 50:4

The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens— wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.

Acts of the Apostles 16:14

A certain woman named Lydia, a worshipper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.

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Words of Grace For Today

In desperate times and circumstances we hope,

we all hope,

for we can only hope,

that someone will have a word to sustain us through our weariness.

We hope that someone has listened to the Word of Jesus, well enough, to understand how to provide a word that sustains us.

And

when others are caught in desperate times and circumstances they hope,

they all hope,

for they can only hope,

that someone, like us, will have listened well enough to the Word of Jesus that we will have a word to sustain them through their weariness.

Do we have ears to hear, and hearts to listen, and minds like Christs to understand?

Today, like each day, the Word of Christ is all around us. Will we listen as the wind-breath of the Spirit speaks to us?

Like Yeast

Just a Little Yeast

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

What little light can we add

to the ‘crescent moon’ light of other’s struggles,

so that the Light of Christ shines

brightly for them as well,

and for us?

Psalm 22:26-28

The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live for ever! All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.

Matthew 13:33

He told them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.’

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Words of Grace For Today

This news came Monday in the CBC newsletter brief:

N.W.T. coastal communities walloped by weekend storm

October 23 , 2023 • 04:44 PM CDT

It was a weekend to remember for people in some of the N.W.T.’s coastal communities, as a storm system brought high winds and massive, crashing waves — and people scrambled to save boats and cabins from washing away.

I read news like this, disasters that others struggle through, with a huge bit of distance in my mind and heart, until

I realize that some day for some reason news like that will be reported about this area, and I will be the one to struggle to survive through it.

The Psalmist repeats a promise often reflected in scriptures, that God will look after the poor, hungry, thirsty, and the desperate.

Matthew reports Jesus’ words on how God works for the people: God works through the little works of our hearts and hands, giving aid to those in need. Just a little from one person inspires another to do something as well, and that inspires another, until the help is sufficient.

Today, how can my small capacity (not so deep in poverty as months past when I had $69 a month to live on!) to help others to bring to them what they need.

I’m not sure that those in the affected N.W.T. communities still need anything I can deliver, nor that I can deliver anything to Ukraine or Gaza or Israel or any of the other distant places where people hope against hope to survive another day, another night.

There are those who struggle just as hard living not far from us, maybe without real shelter, without anything to call ‘home.’

How can I help them?

What can I do today to help them?

What I have to give is not much more than words, yet who can I inspire with a word today, as I get water, visit the library, pickup at the food bank, stop at a store where I cannot afford what I really need?

What can any of us do this day? And every ‘this day’ to come?

Work

God’s Work

Monday, October 23, 2023

The Cold and Hard of Winter Approaches.

Is That A Curse or a Wonderful Blessing?

Daniel 6:27

He delivers and rescues, he works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth; for he has saved Daniel from the power of the lions.

Ephesians 1:22

And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church….

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Words of Grace For Today

God certainly delivers.

And I would not take it away from Daniel, being rescued from being eaten by lions,

I’d just like to have been delivered from the ‘lions’ of today that consume other people with lies, deceptions, and greed.

Oh,

of course,

the paradise I live in now may well be God’s rescue,

and

that is

how it is for us:

we miss that God

is at work for us

because …

well all sorts of reasons.

Today, time again to notice God’s work for us.

Making

Making Things Right

Sunday, October 22, 2023

When the neighbour fills in the wetlands,

taking away a carbon sink and water purifier,

how does one make it right?

Leviticus 19:17

You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbour, or you will incur guilt yourself.

Galatians 6:1

My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted.

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Words of Grace For Today

It is more difficult than it sounds:

making all things right with someone who has done you wrong.

Yet,

because

we have done God plenty of wrong,

and

God

though we certainly do not deserve it

makes all things right with us,

We OUGHT

to spend the effort to

gently make all things right with those that do us wrong.

A little sounding task, that can take a whole life’s effort.

That’s what today is all about.

Each day’s today.

Anxiety Run

Amok

Saturday, October 21, 2023

The Ice is Coming!! The Ice is Coming!!

The Cold Hard Ice Days of Winter are Coming!!!

Jeremiah 17:7-8

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.

Galatians 5:22-23

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

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Words of Grace For Today

To live a life filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control requires first that one is not anxious.

The gift of faith provides a foundation of living free of anxiety.

Free from being locked up in worry and concern for what might have been, what might be, and will certainly come to be.

So we breathe easy, deep, slow, calming

to start each day

and

as we start to take on each new challenge,

trusting that God will be with us, guide us, and save us,

so that the worst

that can befall us is that

we get to come home to Jesus,

with all the wonder that that will provide.

Breathe, and get ready to be filled with and giving everyone love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

There’s no law against such things, except the law that lets anxiety run wild.

Facing God

Friday, October 20, 2023

Seeing God is Not Like Seeing through Thick Fog.

Exodus 33:11

Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then he would return to the camp; but his young assistant, Joshua son of Nun, would not leave the tent.

John 15:15

I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.

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Words of Grace For Today

The tradition was that if one saw God, one would die from the experience of such awesome power.

Then Moses spoke to God on Mount Sinai, returning with a face as white as a ghost.

Along comes Jesus, God’s son, and God as well. People encounter him in everyday settings. Twelve disciples, and probably more, follow him around the countryside, seeing him heal people’s illnesses and despair, teach with authority, and command even the wind and the sea.

Mostly they are, as the Gospels report, only somewhat aware that Jesus is God. Then he calls them not servants but friends, friends to whom he has revealed what God the Father has told Jesus. That’s a lot of divine disclosure.

And we inherit all that, through the Scriptures’ witness and the witness of Christians who have gone before us, teaching us, healing us, disclosing God’s Word to us.

That would make a huge number of people our friends, sharing in the information given Jesus by God.

I am always suspicious of people who I barely know who call me friend, for my experience is they are not about giving to me as their friend. They are about taking everything I might entrust to them, and abusing it and me with it.

That does not distract from the friendship that I have experienced many times from people I do not know, who are Christians, generous, gracious, and welcoming as Jesus was for all the terribly good sinners of his day (and all days since.) True friends do not use it as a demand, an opener and pry bar into one’s life, an avenue to use others to get ahead. True friends are about giving, and giving generously so that others can life, and live well.

That’s how we see God face to face, in the receiving of grace from strangers and in the giving of grace to everyone, even strangers.

God’s Kindness,

And Then What?

Thursday, October 19, 2023

Our View Of Wonder Is Not in Nature, Wonderful As It Is.

It is God Given.

First Samuel 2:30

Therefore the Lord the God of Israel declares: “I promised that your family and the family of your ancestor should go in and out before me for ever”; but now the Lord declares: “Far be it from me; for those who honour me I will honour, and those who despise me shall be treated with contempt….”

Romans 2:4

Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

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Words of Grace For Today

Listening to CBC’s Ideas: Astrophysicist Hubert Reeves on The Origins of Us (the Big Bang Theory), a popularizer of science little known in the English world, but famous in France, who died Friday, 13 October 2023:

The world began with a bang.

A very big bang, a theory that is ‘proven’ by 10 things that it predicts, which have since been discovered to exist.

We have messed it up royally.

God is kind, dealing with us with forbearance and patience.

So what then?

Snippets for the conversation with Reeves:

The universe is strange, more strange than we think, more strange than we are able to think.

Our way of thinking does not need to reflect reality. Reality is very counterintuitive.

We think in an operational way, that provides for our survival.

What is the power of our way of understanding the world.

We have limited intelligence.

There is no guarantee that our way of thinking is able to go the profoundest depth of the universe.

Our way of thinking is operational. There is no guarantee when we apply it to the universe. There is no guarantee that we can understand everything.

Can we understand at least that God’s kindness, forbearance, and patience is exercised for us for a purpose: that we will find our senses, and confess, and repent.

For while there is no proof that we know everything, and especially everything about the universe, we can know God’s Grace, and respond with humble confession and repentance.

That is not so far out in the universe that we cannot get around to God’s kindness leading us to repentance and understand it well,

or well enough to trust God will be patient with us as we figure it out.

A day’s task.

Every day’s task.

The Meek and the Poor Say

Wednesday, October 18, 2023

The Days of Autumn Redeem Much!

Psalm 140:13

Surely the righteous shall give thanks to your name; the upright shall live in your presence.

Luke 6:20

Then he looked up at his disciples and said: ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God….’

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Words of Grace For Today

Well, the meek, who will inherit the earth, have taken a good look at it and said, ‘no thanks!’

So the poor, who have the Kingdom of God, have taken a good look at what they have, and have said, ‘If this is it, what’s it worth anyway? How about some clean air and water, nutritious food, enough clothing and sufficient shelter, meaningful work and love? Then throw in some food security, and real security, and peace, and justice, and equity!’

Well, some of the poor, anyway, and by far not most of them.

Many more have given God thanks! Thanks for every little thing that makes for life and love and joy and hope.

It’s not that the rich have more and so they always give more thanks, nor that the poor have so little so we either have nothing to be thankful for, or that we are thankful for even the smallest of things good.

But having been on the wealthy side, and now on the poor side of life, I can tell you that being poor has taught me to say thanks to God for more and more of the things that I used to take for granted.

I guess knowing how to and actually giving God thanks makes the Kingdom of God more visible.

So here it is: the Kingdom of God, in this blessed hermitage beside a lake, with the hard cold of winter coming, after the wildfires, smoke, heat and bugs of summer. Autumn is a lovely time, with many fewer bugs, no more wild parties or crazy campers next door, cool temperatures for working hard in, and plenty of dead wood to collect to feed the wood stove so that the cold hard winter days are still warm inside the insulated tarps.

If, out of 365, 60 or more days are like today, then I see things are real good.

If there is a balance in life at all, then these days of autumn convince me that the balance has tipped in my favour, if just every so slightly.

But I’ll take what I get, with thanks, love, joy and hope … hope that life will continue as well far into the future.

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Answer 10

The map of North America of the Wildfire Smoke that has taken our breath away this past summer … and it’s all clear across Canada, with a few spots in of light smoke west, south, and south east across the US. Only a few areas are bad enough to be noticed. None are more intense than the light blue.

Get Up!

Get Going, The Devil Is A’Coming!

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

So Idyllic,

until

storms decimate the beach

and all within a half kilometre!

Psalm 91:11-12

For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.

Matthew 2:13

Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’

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Words of Grace For Today

If only we knew when to get up and run from danger

in time to make it to …

well where can we run to nowadays.

Earthquakes threaten so much of the earth. Island paradises are either disappearing under ocean levels rising or conflicts raging or can be decimated by hurricanes stronger and more numerous each year. Coasts and shores can flood without warning! Wildfires can rip through any wooded area. Tornadoes, derechos, and plough winds, or droughts or torrential rains can get most anywhere else.

And still the greatest danger is not from storms and climate change induced extremes. The greatest danger, as always in human history, is from other humans set on getting what they want or working to keep what they have.

We all need angels to guard us

and fearless hearts

assured of God’s mercy,

if not to save us from disasters and evil humans,

then to help us recover and live again.

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Answer 9

Just Air,

Clear Air, Blue and White with Clouds, for that I am thankful everyday, as I breathe

in

and

out.

And Live!

Mercy

Mercy Me!

Monday, October 16, 2023

That’d Be Us,

Smoking As We Go Down,

If God Were Not Merciful!

Psalm 103:10

He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.

Ephesians 4:32

… be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

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Words of Grace For Today

Well, a week of giving thanks for being able to take photos, and lots of other things is great, and it continues not least of all for Mercy.

Mercy me where would we be without mercy!

Since God does not make us pay all our debts, huge and impossible as they are, why are we not so gracious with those whose debts are small and owed to us?

Tender-hearted is a great start to every day, and every challenge. It gets us further than most any other effort on our part.

So God is merciful, and we, well not so much. God is tender-hearted, and we try but end up not so much, right?

And the world around us, with wars, lies, corruption, and lack of care for those without, is what we get!

Starting everyday remembering to be thankful for God’s mercy and tender-heartedness towards us is a great start. And then …?

What are you thankful for today?

Can you see all that you can be thankful for, clearly enough?

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Answer 8

Wood, that provides heat and cooking in the winter, without which I would be a might bit chilly and more.