Before ‘Yet’

And ‘Job answered’

Friday, September 20, 2024

What Came Before All This?

Summer?

Nighttime?

Injustice?

Hope?

Job 9:1-9

Then Job answered:
‘Indeed I know that this is so; but how can a mortal be just before God?
If one wished to contend with him, one could not answer him once in a thousand.
He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength—who has resisted him, and succeeded?—
he who removes mountains, and they do not know it, when he overturns them in his anger;
who shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble;
who commands the sun, and it does not rise; who seals up the stars;
who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the Sea;
who made the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the chambers of the south …?

1 Corinthians 8:6

… yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

There’s something before ‘yet’.

Is it important?

There was something before Job answered.

Is it important?

Context sometimes is everything.

Our context is simple to adduce:

God created everything and can do anything and everything.

We are creatures who live a short time, often suffering greatly,

even at our best when we love, it always ends in suffering the loss of love

or our life.

How can we pretend to take on God?

Yet

(there it is again)

Yet, we do so often,

So often to make good through and through fools of us,

like the ant that tries to escape from the anteater’s tongue.

Or like the mouse that tries to free itself from the trap.

Or the young bird that tries to fly through a window.

Or a person who tries to speak as if God.

What will we do today?

Live humble lives before our Creator?

Live futile lives trying to be our own godlets?

Twinkle Twinkle

Little Star,

Who is Going to Come to Save Us All, From So Far?

Wednesday, September 18, 2024

As the Sun Rises Across the Land,

Do You See It Rising

For You, Too?

Numbers 24:17

I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near—a star shall come out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel.

Revelation 22:16

‘It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.’

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

To know God

Yet not know that God is near

Is a hopeful

but frustrating experience

shared by so many through all the generations.

Thus hope that carries many generations is that salvation may yet come

sometime,

or ‘next year in Jerusalem’ perhaps,

or in the wildernesses that our lives have become,

all tangled with comforts, luxuries, and excesses

that we’ve forgotten how wonderful the fresh morning chill is when

it is countered by the warmth of a wood fire,

together promising another wonderful day,

not too cold, and not too hot,

not too wet, and not too dry,

not too windy, and not to close,

not too anything, and not too everything;

The perfect day awaits.

Did you even notice?

As the sun ascends

and hearts give thanks

and blessings are celebrated

and computers have updated

and a wonderful, promising day has begun.

Did you even notice

the star

out thar’

promising

a Saviour

so close

already?

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.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

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.

Making Way

Through uncharted, turbulent waters

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Where Will Our Journeys End?

Buried in Cold Graves?

Or …?

Isaiah 43:16

Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters,

John 14:3-4

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

We try to make our way through the days ahead, not knowing what will come for sure, for the future, though it repeats the past often, is not at all predictable, not at all.

Only God can part the waters of the Red Sea for the rag-tag group running for their lives from Pharaoh’s army. Only God can part the water of the future’s chaos to show us the greatest and only security there is for our lives: that God walks with us into each new day. God walks right there along side us through all the frightful unknowns and challenges, the temptations and our failings, and the offering of joys and small triumphs. Hearing God’s footfalls beside us give us courage like none other.

For we know, that, no matter how circuitous and daunting our paths may turn out to be, the end of our journey will be at home with Jesus.

Return,

Repent, Believe the Good News

Friday, December 29, 2023

Our Well Worn Paths, Beckon,

But God Calls For Us To Turn,

And See Anew.

Deuteronomy 30:2-3

… and return to the Lord your God, and you and your children obey him with all your heart and with all your soul, just as I am commanding you today, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you, gathering you again from all the peoples among whom the Lord your God has scattered you.

Mark 1:15

… saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

…

Words of Grace For Today

We think all too often that we do not need to repent and return and believe anew the Good News.

But

in this in between time

we remember

humbly

that

we need start each day

with confession,

followed by repentance,

Then returning to God

and believing anew

the Good News,

That

promises us that God is eagerly waiting for us to repent, return and believe anew.

Another day

A new beginning

again.

Delights?

or Despair?

Friday, October 27, 2023

A drab morning, snow falling, making wood collecting more difficult.

Or delight in the cool that makes working outside a bit easier

than with countless bugs looking for a meal from your skin?

Psalm 27:1

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

Philippians 4:13

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Courage is hard to come by when one is down and out, beaten again and again by enemies, lies, deceptions, and others’ greed.

At times one has to agree with Thomas Hobbes when he said about life being ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’.

God answers that and all our other despairing with a simple reassurance: God is with us through it all.

Like walking in a sunset alone, still unable to do anything but despair how tough life is, ‘going it alone’ is always a recipe for struggles without end.

Like walking in a sunset with a loved one, the experience grows beyond itself to convince you two that life is a wonderful, marvellous adventure, with promise unending of things good and better.

So God walking with us through it all, turns life inside out with joy, delights, and hope.

And when God walks with us, we need not be overcome with fear of yet another enemy taking more of life from us, for even if that does happen, God will show us how to find joy and delight in all that life is for us.

Today, as the snow falls again, and then hard cold of winter is coming, the joy is in the warmth provided by a hot fire in the wood stove, held close by many insulated tarps. It may not be much, but it is as much a home as I have, and in it I find endless delight even as the challenges never cease to more than fully occupy my days.

So what will we see today? The enemies efforts or God’s Grace and delights for us?

Good Land

Wednesday, October 4, 2023

The Good Land?

Deuteronomy 8:7

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills,

Acts of the Apostles 14:17

… yet he has not left himself without a witness in doing good—giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filling you with food and your hearts with joy.’

…

Words of Grace For Today

Perhaps if we develop ‘warp drive’ (space flight faster than light) we can anticipate that God will bring us into a good land, flowing with water and all goodness, but until then

we’ve ruined the earth so much that it is hard to imagine a ‘good land’ somewhere under these skies.

The water flows alright, as the glaciers and ice caps and land mass ice melt, and it collects in the oceans and they rise, and what used to be ocean front property is underwater.

Or the water does not flow and the rains do not fall and the crops do not grow.

Or … you name it, the climate of earth has gotten mean.

What did we expect?

Okay, it’s not really all all that bad.

There are blessed places where the water flows, the rain falls in good amounts, the sun shines, and the crops grow.

And if one has lived in an area that was marginal to good before climate change, conflicts and disasters, but it has become uninhabitable or unsafe then coming to a land where crops grow and people live in relative safety, then one can count that as a blessing.

Typical is, though, that if we’ve always lived where the crops grow reasonably well year after year, then we easily forget how blessed it is that God has brought us to this good land.

It is easy to forget how others yearn for such a land to call home.

It is easy to think we deserve it … and others do not.

When life is hard, survival in question each day, then each breath is precious, and with each breath we can say, thanks for such wondrous blessings. These are the blessings that make life possible.

After

After the Break

It’s time to …

Thursday, September 7, 2023

After a Dry start, summer rains have not let up and the grass Grows Lush,

likewise

we live as God favours us with God’s Grace.

Second Chronicles 18:4

But Jehoshaphat also said to the king of Israel, ‘Inquire first for the word of the Lord.’

2 Timothy 3:14

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it,

…

Words of Grace For Today

It’s time to continue in what we have learned and firmly believed, namely that God prepared for us to be good sinners,

sending Jesus to show us that God still loves us, saves us, forgives us, revives us to full life, and sends us out to be that love for others.

This is the Word of the Lord.

On that we can base our whole lives

and

all will be well,

all will be well!

All manner of things will be well.

For that’s how God created the universe to be.

Gifts

Gloriously Plenty

Tuesday, August 8, 2023

Gloriously Plenty …

Dandelions?

Jeremiah 31:14

I will give the priests their fill of fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my bounty, Says the Lord.

1 Peter 4:10

Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.

Words of Grace For Today

On the walk to the lake the path is covered with pine cones fallen from the trees, and husks of pine cones eaten by squirrels. One steps on the path, after so many days of pine cones coalescing into a soft carpet, with comfort even for arthritic feet and hips. This just as the view of the lake’s waters opens between the branches of the trees.

This is repeated in a few places where more pines grow than the weed-like trees, the poplars.

And the population of squirrels need not forage for food at all. So they multiply, and multiply. And steal more and more insulation from my camp.

God also provides plenty for us. If you have ever seen a combine off-load it’s grain into a waiting trailer, filling and sometime overflowing, the cavernous grain haulers, which in turn off-load their fill into even larger trains of semi trailers, which in turn off-load their fill into grain bins, wider and taller and more in number every good harvest year, which in turn are loaded into mile long trains of grain cars …

If you have ever seen this process of grain hauling, grain flowing, grain filling larger and larger containers then

well then you have seen an example of how God provides gifts to each one of us, and multiplies them as we gather to share what we have.

God does not give gifts for us to hoard them. God’s gifts of wisdom, intelligence, physical strength, determination, communication, charisma, leadership, handiwork, trades skills, compassion, inspiration, faith, and (most of all) love really only shine and provide us the goodness of life when we share them with others,

as the pines share their pine cones to form a cushioning carpet, and to feed those darn squirrels.

So, yes, sometimes what we share with others does not produce blessings.

God knew this, and prepared for it,

and walks with us to bring us through the evil that others ‘share’ with us,

(and to help others through the evil we ‘share’ with them),

and renews life with forgiveness, redemption, healing, and a bounty of more gifts,

and always overflowing, steadfast love

like a cool, refreshing breeze

that cannot be held,

only enjoyed.

Fear

To Love?

Wednesday, July 26, 2023

The Whole Universe,

Determined By

God’s Judgments

God’s Love?

Genesis 3:8

They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

1 John 4:18

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.

Words of Grace For Today

Love ought to preclude fear, but all I know from life is that love has taught me to fear greatly, especially that the love claimed is not really love at all, but rather sick manipulation that will kill if it can, and otherwise ruin anyone who trusts it faster than you can blink an eye.

Or Maybe:

Love ought to preclude fear, or maybe just drive out fear. The difference being love exists along with fear, but love moves fear out of the driver’s seat of one’s life and heart and mind and spirit. Fear is still there, love just negates it into being irrelevant. But all I know from life is that love has taught me to not worry, for love claimed may or may not be love, but love from God is sure and in that love I allow myself to be defined. That is the love that has taught me what love really is.

Adam and Eve hide from God for fear, for they know Good and Evil and they have disobeyed God. They have tried to reach beyond their own selves and have tried to be God, knowing Good and Evil. So they think they know Good and Evil, and in a small way they do. They have caught a glimpse of it. Same as I have caught an eyeful of love claimed that is really manipulation. What they have not yet learned is that God’s love is greater than all Good and Evil.

But they will.

And we will.

And in that we need not worry for tomorrow

for God loves us, even as we are caught in Evil and in Love.

…

God’s love defines not only us, but the universe through and through.