A Bit of February’s Chill Feels Good In August’s Heat.
Fools Forget the Bite of -40⁰ and of +40⁰.
We Are Vulnerable.
Ecclesiastes 5:1
Guard your steps when you go to the house of God; to draw near to listen is better than the sacrifice offered by fools; for they do not know how to keep from doing evil.
Matthew 7:1
Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.
Words of Grace For Today
Right, Ecclesiastes again. All full of wisdom and folly, advice that cannot help one iota.
If we could do what we know or easily could know is right, the world would be a different kind of place,
one without love,
since love requires freewill and
freewill inevitably allows and produces not love
which includes choosing and doing what is not right (even when we know what is right.)
As far as not judging others, it’s also great advice, a warning that we too will be judged.
But we will inevitably judge others and we will for sure be judged, regardless of what we do.
Only God can save us!
…
And God has, does, and will again.
Now that’s wisdom that is not full of folly.
Humbly trusting God’s works for us
is the only worthy way of living.
…
But we will miss that mark again today, again and again.
…
Thankfully God knew that, and has taken that into account with forgiveness for us that is unending.
When I told of my ways, you answered me; teach me your statutes.
1 John 5:15
And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him.
Words of Grace For Today
Tell a child what not to do, over and over again, and the child will inevitably try out what is prohibited.
It’s not that much different for adults.
Hearing and doing God’s commandments are two very separate things. What stands between them like an insurmountable wall is our freewill and curiosity; just like a child we will choose to do what we are told not to do.
Hearing God’s commandments is one simple thing. It requires the patience and humility to give focus and take time to listen.
Doing them, well that requires something beyond our ability.
So we pray:
help us.
And knowing that God hears us,
and God forgives us,
we are then inspired (Spirit working in us) to sometimes even be able to follow God’s commandments.
So how do we respond to others who breech even a semblance of God’s commandments? What do I do with the party-ers ‘next door’ who make such a racket yelling and screaming with loud music to boot until after 2:00?
I ought to be able to forgive and understand.
But forgiving is as far as I get, with a strong hand on my wish to interfere and complain to them of their behaviour. Understanding is beyond me. First the urge to party. Is that something that covers up the stupidity of life they choose or are left with? I’ve not a clue. Then the need to party into the early morning hours. Again, not a clue. And to do so where many other people are left to suffer from the noise and ruckus? This becomes a stretch of imagination that I cannot make, why anyone would be so blatantly insensitive, inconsiderate, and destructive to others with such a choice of actions, time, and place.
Forgiveness will have to be enough, and the minimum is to not try to interfere, which would probably put my life on the line.
So as people have since the beginning of time, I pray and know God hears and know all is well: Dear God, there are some people that need your attention. Please give it to them … in spades!
It’s a bit better than asking Karma to include a few more people missing from the list.
Ok, not much, but a little? Maybe not even a little, you say?
Thus each day has it’s beginnings, never perfect, always requiring God to forgive me (us) so that we can move through the day not trying to figure out what we are not supposed to do, but giving our all to do the things we know God would have us do.
The Lord loves those who hate evil; he guards the lives of his faithful; he rescues them from the hand of the wicked.
Matthew 6:24
No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
Words of Grace For Today
No one can serve two masters! Really!
Ask any of the many double agents. Hardly ever does a life of a spy turn out well, even less so for double agents. It’s just hard to keep up with all the lies, and keep them all straight! Especially when you have to keep two completely separate sets of lies (and many subsets) straight.
One might call that the life of a politician, or a diplomate, or bishop, or dirty cop but that would be to simplify their ‘complicated’ lives.
The reality is today pretty much anyone who makes a decent wage or salary and who owns or rents a home is actually owned by their financial obligations, their possessions. That is their possessions posses them.
The challenge is to image a life where one is not obligated financially, without being so wealthy that one has never or never will again face debt problems, just money problems. Harder is to actually find a way into such a kind of life, and then to live it.
What would it, what could it, possibly look like, this life of serving God, and not money?
Enough saints have left wealth and entered poverty, but as it was said of Gandhi, one who lived in poverty, ‘it takes an awful lot of money to keep Gandhi in poverty.’
Thankfully our serving God is not that for which we are rewarded God’s grace, favour, and love. God chooses us, forgives us sinners (again and again and again when we certainly do not deserve it; that’s grace), bestows on us all sorts of favours (blessings and gifts of the Holy Spirit, some even have a monetary value to them at times), and loves us steadfastly and faithfully without end.
So we start another day, sinners still, God-made saints, thankful for God’s awesome works for us; giving God thanks and praise (even as we struggle to balance our expenses and income.)
I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no saviour.
John 17:3
And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent ….
Words of Grace For Today
I really like this kind of message, so common in scripture and from the lips of so many people:
Get it Right!
OR EXLE. opps
OR ESLE!
Opps again
OR ELSE!
So the demands come at us, as foolish as ever a human word can be.
So the the interpretation of God’s communications (revelations) to us are made by humans, and they miss the mark of all God’s Words.
To demand that we get it right is to demand something beyond our abilities.
Stuck in sin, Slaves to sin, unable to free ourselves, sinful by nature, human nature is flawed, Evil will have it’s ways, Boys will be Boys, Women will be manipulative and devious.
It all has many different names and endless permutations in humans history, permutations that each generation repeats many times over.
Knowing Jesus is to know God’s Grace, is to trust that God rescues us when we certainly do not deserve it (for the umpteenth Millionth Billionth Trillionth [infinite] time.)
Of course demanding of others (and maybe ourselves a little) that they get it right, is to play right out of God’s hands into the Devil’s.
Trying to be right.
Never works.
Start with humility: confessing who we are as sinners, trusting God’s mercy and grace to save us and renew life in us. Then accepting that Jesus sends us out to exercise that same mercy and grace for others.
That’s a good minute, a good start to any day, a wonderful way to be all day long, if only we could.
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.
Amid the Smoke and Fog, Beyond the Weeds One Sees Two Loons,
and
By Faith
One Can Trust That Their Chick Is With Them,
Safe,
Growing,
Beautiful.
Isaiah 25:9
It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Words of Grace For Today
Waiting.
Waiting for.
Waiting for something important, or something scheduled, or something freeing.
Waiting is something we all do, if not by sitting still, breathing slowly, anticipating but not moving, then by moving to something else that will take us time, but in the back of our mind we wait for ….
What is it?
The next pay-cheque, so we can pay our bills, or buy something so that something that has broken can be fixed or replaced, or
The crops to grow, so they can be harvested, or
Other people to complete their work, so that we can start or resume ours, or
The neighbour’s music to stop, so that we can get back to sleep, or
The tyranny (by whomever of whatever kind among the so many different kinds that are worked against people) will end, or
The impossible: that real guilt will go away, or grief will turn to joy, or loss into gain, or that we will see again or hear again or move again, or that we will love again, or that we can forgive again, or that we can breathe again, or that we can remember again, or dream again, or sleep at all again, or
That the devil (attacking us in so many ways, also through our enemies who would do us in) will leave us and we will be free to live, laugh, and love, again.
And
That God will save us.
For that day we wait.
Wait.
Wait,
but not so patiently sometimes, many times.
Only faith interrupts our waiting; for by faith we know not only that God will save us, but that God has saved us already,
1976: Performing on the uneven bars at the Summer Olympics in Montreal, 14-year-old Romanian Nadia Comaneci scores the first perfect 10 in Olympic gymnastics history.”
Well, that begs the question for us, or at least for me:
Who am I?
After all I am perfect at nothing!
I am not even perfect at being a terribly good sinner.
Sometimes I even do something good, by mistake.
What is life all about anyway, if I (and I would guess most of us are the same even if we don’t admit it) am less than perfect in every way.
I mean it’s one thing to be a master of a trade. And another thing to be master of none and jack of all. It’s yet another thing to be perfectly bad at everything.
It is no wonder then that humans in droves head off into the bizarre and unimaginable to be someone of note.
This also from CBC’s Morning Brief Newsletter, the ‘good news’ on 18 July:
“Of the more than 40,000 achievements in the Guinness World Record database, some are obvious — tallest woman, fastest marathon or most pull-ups. Others, like the one Bobby Dubeau says he’s accomplished, are less so. While he’s still awaiting the official certification, Dubeau says he’s become the fastest person to catch a game at every Canadian Football League stadium. The Delta, B.C., man says he saw a game at all nine home fields in 15 days.”
That effort to be unique and noticed is at least not destructive. So many humans strive toward something that requires they take something from others: wealth, power, fame, just to name a few of the things we greedy humans stick it to others in order to have more than our fair share.
The same CBC newsletter the lead story reports once again: minimum wage will not pay the rent in most any city in Canada. The government of Canada got out of the business of providing affordable housing to the most vulnerable in society back in the 1980s and 1990s. The cost was too much (but the rich kept getting richer and the poor poorer.) Now the cost of providing the basics for a homeless person are greater than providing housing and supports for them to stay in the housing. But the poor still are left on the brink of becoming homeless, and that’s a lot of children going to school without and parents who are stressed beyond reason. Still the homeless cannot be provided for, the costs are too great?! But interest rates keep rising, making housing costs climb and climb and climb beyond reach for more and more people.
We are not perfect at providing housing for people, at providing a livable society for a huge swath of our citizens, residents, and guest workers.
Perhaps the one thing we are perfect at is taking the most we can from the poorest.
Yet, with a good number of people working to help others, to find housing, to find food for each day, to find work, to find community and connection, I guess we are not even perfect at screwing the poor.
Thanks be to God, who is our refuge and our salvation. May our faith make us well, as a society, for right now, as always, we are quite sick.
But we are not perfectly sick, and that’s only thanks to God’s work through many hearts, minds, and hands of the sinner-saints … like us, like me.
Remember your congregation, which you acquired long ago, which you redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage. Remember Mount Zion, where you came to dwell.
Matthew 18:20
Jesus said, For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.
Words of Grace For Today
We often pray to God to do something for us, to remember us, when things are ‘going straight to hell in a hand basket’ and we find ourselves ‘up a creek without a paddle.’
Most often there are things we ought to be doing to help our own situation and the situation of the other 8 billion people on earth, or a good number of them that we can make a difference for.
Instead we do little to nothing and pray. Not that prayer is a bad thing; rather it is a quite good thing indeed! But prayer without action is just laziness of heart, mind, and hand.
Praying to God when we feel abandoned is exceptionally good. Praying that God remember us misses the point all together. God never forgets us. We forget God. I suppose it’s terrifying to realize that in the worst situations we get ourselves into (or put others in or others put us in) God certainly is remembering us, and letting all that is bad happen to us, to smarten us up, or to (and I think this is the best explanation) allow us freewill: free to choose to love God, Creation and all Creatures; AND free to not love God, Creation and all Creatures, especially those 2 legged humans that seem so hard to deal with … and then suffer the consequences of our choosing to not-love what God has given us.
It’s easier to fool ourselves into thinking that God has abandoned us.
But God has not. God is here all the time, remembering us and all other people always.
God always offers us mercy, steadfast love, and hope.
So let’s hope we come up with some good ideas on how to FIX the MESS before the earth eliminates us as the fix.
Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his surpassing greatness!
Romans 1:20
Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse ….
Words of Grace For Today
We’ve taxed the whole earth to support us greedy 8 billion people, and in many and various ways the earth is fighting back to reduce us back to …
back to whatever it takes.
While climate change fills the air with smoke from wildfires, many times more fires and acres burned than ever before in a year, and while we find it hard to breathe,
Covid came and we wrestled it to the mat but it’s not pinned and gone yet and never will be, they tell us,
the economy went into turmoil, because we stayed home, money stopped changing hands as fast, government subsidies helped many, and then with the lockdowns ended, money changed hands at a rate to make up for the lockdown-slowdowns and inflation climbed like a rocket (but not like the 80’s of 20% and more, just 8%) so the central banks increased interest rates to slow things down.
Now the pain of increased interest rates bites hard and many face more than difficulties, even bankruptcies, and many ask what are we doing????!!!!
Other than the central banks increasing interest rates, which will put more people out of their homes, and rents have skyrocketed so renters are not immune, what have we done?
Some experts say there is much we could do.
The best line I’ve heard quotes the Simpson show: “We’ve done nothing and we are out of ideas.”
But, like the visible evidence of God’s works all around us, there is plenty of evidence there are things, bad things, done, and there are things, good things, to be done.
It starts remembering our place: we are sinful creatures of our Creator God. So confession and repentance start every day (and every thing). Then in thanks for all that is, and for all that we have and are, and for all that will be: we can give God thanks and praise.
I’m not sure if that gives a good start to what can be done to counter inflation with more intelligent efforts than leaving it all up to the central banks and interest rates increases, but
It is always a good start …
a good start to this day,
a good start to every day,
a good start to every thing.
…
It’s a good start also because whatever ideas we then come up with will be ideas to deal with reality: we are sinful creatures and God is our Creator, and Creator of all that is. And God don’t make no junk.
