Issues – This Life

Armaments and Ordinances

Blow the Enemy Sky-high

Friday, July 11, 2025

Leaving Holes In the Fabric Of Life.

Life is Fragile,

and Home is as Well …

even if it’s more than tarps.

Psalm 119:52

When I think of your ordinances from of old, I take comfort, O Lord.

2 Corinthians 5:1

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Oh so many have taken, do take and will always take comfort in human ordinances, for with their power they can blow their enemies into oblivion, and who does not (at least in passing) wish to do that to those infuriating [deleted expletive] irritants (meaning one’s enemies.)

Yet God provides a different kind of ordinance, one that guides one to live well.

These are harder to trust and take comfort in, for they ask self sacrifice from us, and unconditional love for our enemies.

The upside is they do not put holes into the fabric of life. Instead they heal what is broken, and offer life to the downtrodden.

And

when our enemies use their destructive human ordinances to blow our homes sky-high, then God still has a home waiting for us,

and God will welcome us home.

Things That Go Bump

In the Night

Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Can Be Deadly

God Knows

And Brings the Light.

Daniel 2:22

He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with him.

John 17:25

Jesus prayed: Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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In the cold dark of night

intruders, hollering, laughing, snickering, partying drunk and high,

on an adventure, the think,

enter the meadow, my home, such as it is.

Home Invasion, almost, as threatening.

What they do not know is …

is what is hiding in the cold dark, out there.

…

Skunks meandering after a meal of mice.

Coyotes laying in wait for whatever moves slowly.

Lynx, the hunter predator that silently stalks its prey, including vulnerable humans.

…

Life treats us similarly.

Venture into the cold dark,

into the dark of human sloth, scheming, striving, or revenge,

into the dark of the soul, where past sin accumulates a semi-truck overwhelming load of dark-matter, where regret rules and all hope is lost,

into the dark of the valley of misery, disease, and death,

venture into the cold dark,

and one is likely going to lose it all, entering the vortex that sucks one down, down, down forever …

unless

God sends the light into the cold darkness.

Caught in the darkness? Pray for the light to come, and soon.

Pressed Down

In Chains

Monday, July 7, 2025

Of Low Estate.

Here God Loves Us and Calls Us

to Speak Boldly of That Love.

Psalm 136:23

It is he who remembered us in our low estate, for his steadfast love endures forever.

Ephesians 6:19-20

Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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What the English translates as ‘low estate’ one German translation has as ‘unterdrückt’, ‘suppressed’ (as in suppress one’s anger) or ‘oppressed’ or ‘repress’ or literally ‘pressed down’.

In Mexico and other Central American and South American cities built on hills, the rich have built fantastic estates on the highest hills, not unlike one sees around L.A. The lower one descends down the hillsides (the direction the refuse and excrement flows) into the valleys, the poorer the houses become until in the valleys, in the dreck, one finds the shanties of the poorest.

While enjoying the ‘good times’ of living high on the hills it is more difficult to recognize that all goodness comes from God, and not one’s wealth, fame, or station in life. In the bottom of the valleys of life, where goodness is hard to see, when one recognizes goodness it is much easier to recognize that it comes from God. Still the challenges of life ‘on the top’ and ‘underneath’ can either drive one away from God or towards God.

As we struggle through life’s challenges, it is as if (regardless whether we live on the hilltops or in the valleys) we struggle to exist, as though we were pressed down to the bottom of life, where one misstep leads to death.

Here Jesus finds us, in the low and lower and lowest levels of existence as it becomes survival instead of existence.

Here Jesus finds us, or the reality is, God was with us all along, all along the hard road of life that became ‘low estate’ or poverty or barely surviving. What may change is we become newly aware that God walks with us, so we say ‘Here Jesus finds us’ meaning, even here we are or become aware that God is with us, and

and God loves us, with all the glory and blessing of divine, unconditional, all-powerful love,

and, as we are forgiven, revived, and given new life (though not often pulled out of our ‘low estate’), and newly equipped to give testimony to God’s love …

and as God does all that for us, Jesus sends us out

to share that same glorious blessing of divine love with everyone, with words only when necessary.

We, having been ‘pressed down’ just as olives are pressed down to make precious olive oil, become priceless treasure in God’s Kingdom, life savers for those in greatest need.

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So –

How’s your day going so far?

Up on the hills?

Down in the valleys?

Do you see God walking with you?

Are your ready to share the wonders of God’s love with others?

Happy Birthday

Death Day

Friday, June 20, 2025

Funeral Day

The sun will set

also on the longest day of the year.

Psalm 25:16

Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.

Mark 10:47

When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

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Words of Grace for Today –

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It’s the longest daylight day of the year,

here, and most places in the northern hemisphere.

It’s a birthday coming,

A death date going.

Makes for long thoughts to fill the long hours.

Celebrating life, mourning death,

but mostly counting on God’s mercy

and compassion

to save us yet again,

from all that would undo us

or put us, too, six feet under

for the long dirt-nap.

Oh, that honesty and kindness were possible ….

Oh, that Grace would prevail ….

Oh, Lordy, Lordy, have mercy on us all, help us each day

when death is easier to deal with than the opposite of honesty and kindness practised against us so, costing us so much,

but costing those who lack honesty and kindness so much more, the very essence of life itself.

Light our way, heal us all, bring your promises to come true, also in this time and in this place for us, as we celebrate and mourn your own Irene.

Beyond These Troubles

Fear Not

Tuesday, June 17, 2025

God Goes With Us

And brings us home,

to a home greater than a city,

or even a nature retreat

…

at the last.

Genesis 46:3-4

Then God said to Jacob, “I am God, the God of your father; do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again; and Joseph’s own hand shall close your eyes.”

Luke 18:28-30

Then Peter said, “Look, we have left our homes and followed you.” And Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not get back very much more in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.”

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Words of Grace for Today –

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The rise of dictators around the world, and most disruptive, to the south, has any thinking person on edge.

The threats are like those in many times in the past. None of those times were good times for most people. Of course there were a few who made tremendous fortunes on the backs of everyone else. But it’s hard to see how any good person today would follow that path, though plenty are poised to try, if not already in action, to ‘fleece’ us all for their gain.

The immediate economic threats are clearly felt as we look for food, clothes and shoes, transportation (even vehicles for some), and shelter (even apartments and houses for the lucky ones), all at prices that we can afford. No honest person says things are going to get more affordable. The effort is to stop the rate of increasing un-affordability! Drop that on our heads and the response is almost always FEAR. Fear for ourselves, and greater fear for our children, and all the following generations.

The breakdown of good order in society adds to the triggers of fear. More and more the police are found to be bullies or white supremacist-racists or misogynists or misandrists, as are prosecutors, lawyers and judges. Even churches seem to be led by those faithful to something far from the Gospel of Jesus the Christ. The less than faithful can be found in all religious institutions.

…

If we follow Jesus …

If we follow Jesus then we recognize we were created and given great gifts (everything we are and have, including the unmatched gifts of the Holy Spirit – given at our baptisms) so that we can share them with those most in need … the world ‘round.

Which means we already have no claim to any security of possessions, place, privilege, or reputation. Instead our security is founded only in that God will be with us and …

Well, even though we have reason to fear for our survival in the future.

We already know the future will be harder than the present.

But God always offers us peace

in knowing God gives us life, not to enjoy comforts and false security offered by possessions, place, privilege, or reputation.

God gives us life so that we may expend it

giving life to others.

And in the end

God will be with us and bring us home.

Fear not.

Purpose given, the best possible security demonstrated each day, the only ending worth anything.

Fear not.

God gives it all to us.

For The Blind and Lame

God’s Call

Friday, May 23, 2025

Includes All Who We’d Leave Behind

Feeling Like Firewood Left to Rot,

God Still Gathers In All Us Outcasts

Jeremiah 31:8

See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, those with child and those in labour, together; a great company, they shall return here.

Luke 14:21

So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’

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Words of Grace for Today –

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The banquet table is set, the food is ready or on the last stages of being prepared, there’s even dessert, a specialty seldom enjoyed except by the wealthy.

And then no one comes.

So the master sends one or more out to call in the homeless, the rejected, the immigrants … all those we’d leave behind.

And the feast is fully appreciated by those so hungry for food, and even more to be noticed, to matter, to count for something good.

So God calls us all.

Yet those that are doing well on their own don’t seem to sense a need to show up. It’s not about being saved: as if those that don’t come aren’t saved. All are already saved. It’s living out that salvation that is tough. We prefer the comforts of being slaves to our sins, stuck in our comfort zones that the devil uses to keep us from living.

So God sends out urgent messages to those others, those we’d rather not acknowledge exist. They might not have understood the invitation was for them, for they just are not ever included in anything, so why this?

But they show up.

God’s children all.

Misfits all.

Baptized, marked with the cross, and commissioned to serve those most in need.

What a motley crew!

And aren’t we fortunate if we know we are one of them!

So what will we do this day, to give God thanks for the feast and the dessert?

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There’s plenty of others hungry to know they matter.

Cheating Others?

Fear God and Stop

Sunday, April 13, 2025

Fear God Almighty Already –

Stop so that you may live!

For the love of God,

Leave Wilful Evil Behind

and Find Joy

IN Life Abundant.

Leviticus 25:17

You shall not cheat one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the Lord your God.

Philippians 2:5

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus….

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Let

not achieve or make yourself or strive,

just let

let the Holy Spirit put in you

the same mind that was and is in Jesus the Christ!

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What is that?

Jesus taught, healed, sacrificed, served the poor, welcomed everyone, and died to save us all.

Can you do that?

Can anyone of us do that?

Not on our own, for sure!

But cheating others,

I mean

taking life from others with deceptions and lies and all that.

Come on, you think that gives you anything worthwhile? Really?

It just sucks the life right out of you, even as you continue to walk and work and futilely strive to live well.

The fear of God ought to have kept you from that path long ago.

But it hasn’t, has it?

So fear of God does not help you.

Perhaps you ought to surrender to God’s love for you.

God intends that you live as Jesus did.

Now that’s living!

Try surrendering to the Holy Spirit working in you,

repenting, making amends, working to give to others,

starting today!

Why not?

You’ve nothing to lose, except what God has given you exactly for this purpose, to imitate Jesus.

God waits, always with steadfast love and grace.

Everything is

Just the Same

Saturday, March 15, 2025

Old Story

The Blues,

from Sky to Ice

and Back.

Isaiah 62:2

The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give.

2 Corinthians 5:17

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

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Words of Grace for Today –

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The Promises people make,

the Promises scripture makes on behalf of God,

the Promises people make to one another,

the Promises.

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How can it all be new,

when it’s the same old, same old.

Putting creases on my face, and on yours.

Wearing my all down, down, down.

…

promises

…

More lines, more grief, more loss, more sorrow, more lines.

Until my face, your face, is no more, except dust.

…

So?

Not Found

Zeroed out.

Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Goners

Smoke steals air

on our way to

zeroing ourselves out of life.

Jeremiah 50:20

In those days and at that time, says the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and none shall be found; for I will pardon the remnant that I have spared.

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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The order was given

by the devil’s generals

to zero us all out.

Out of shelter, clothing, food, water, even air.

Out of energy, movement, thought.

Out of time, out of hope, out of love.

…

Instead God came to zero out our sins

so that we might live free from the incapacitating chains of fear

so that we might live ready and able to give life to others

so that we might be filled with hope and love for all people.

An impossible journey made possible by the only one who made the journey to death and hell to pay for our sins of helping the generals of the devil zero out other people.

So we step forward, against all expectations

into the light of humble penance,

and hope for love that

can transform us

and

the world.

Just

Friday, March 7, 2025

Just A Broken Body,

Not Alone,

By God,

By God’s Grace.

Proverbs 10:19

When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but the prudent are restrained in speech.

Matthew 5:37

Let your word be “Yes, Yes” or “No, No”; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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In a word

just

just me

That’s what each of us have,

Even if others are around us, love us, hold us, wonder with us,

in the end

it’s just

…

not that others loving us, holding us, wondering with us is nothing … because

because it is about all the bonus life has for us,

still

in the end

it’s just

…

for each of us.

…

Doesn’t take many words to say it all.

Just me.

Except it really is

…

as God shows us again and again,

it’s nothing about

for each of us.

It’s all about God’s love

that we share with others.

Just me, because God loves me,

is what each of us can say,

which is really to say

just nothing about me at all.