Category: Lake

Servants, Happy

Birthday

Saturday, May 20, 2025

Simon

Always Storms Threaten,

Weeds Can Slow Us,

Still Jesus Calls Us

Onward to …

Psalm 119:36

Turn our hearts to your decrees, and not to selfish gain.

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Titus 2:7-8

Show yourself in all respects a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, gravity, and sound speech that cannot be censured; then any opponent will be put to shame, having nothing evil to say of us.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

Jesus calls and bids us die.

Dietrich Bonhöffer

Jesus calls each one of us, to different lives of service,

always self-sacrificial service.

Not self accomplishments, nor selfishly accumulating wealth, power, or fame.

Just service,

bringing the basics of life, and the extravagant gifts of the Holy Spirit, to all people, especially those most in need.

Where of where

are you going this day?

With Jesus?

Or off into the wilderness so large it swallows up souls day after day?

Fools All

Thinking They’re Wise

Tuesday, April 15, 2025

The Most Foolish of Follies.

True Wisdom is As Accessible As Beauty,

Everywhere!

Jeremiah 8:9

The wise shall be put to shame, they shall be dismayed and taken; since they have rejected the word of the Lord, what wisdom is in them?

.

1 Corinthians 1:20

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

The world’s ways spawn many people who think they are wise, who are told by many others they are wise, who’s counsel is taken by many especially those in power.

But they are nothing but mere fools, thinking they know so much, in such good ways, as to bring the world forward to some nebulous goal.

God’s Word brings a different kind of wisdom:

Jesus sees the crowds, climbs the mountain, sits down, and begins to teach. Actually, he begins to turn everything upside down. Or is it right-side-up? All of a sudden, the meek, the poor and the heartbroken are the blessed ones — and our enemies are the ones we should pray for. The Sermon on the Mount is one of the greatest gifts of scripture to humanity; just ask Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Leo Tolstoy. But who is making any use of it today?

In a time, like every other, when an eye for an eye still seems to hold sway, what is this seemingly bizarre logic of Christian non-violence, beginning with Jesus’ counsel to ‘turn the other cheek’*

if not the wisdom of God for us all.

* CBC IDEAS’ Newsletter description of IDEAS’ “Turn the Other Cheek: The Radical Case for Nonviolent Resistance” episode for 14 Oct 2022 and rebroadcast Good Friday 18 April 2025

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.

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Philippians 2:5

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

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

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!

…

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.

Being Exalted or Halted

In God’s Good Time

Thursday, April 10, 2025

Meanwhile, Serving With Humility

Living the dream,

solitude

surrounded by green pastures

beside still waters.

First Chronicles 29:12

Riches and honour come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might; and it is in your hand to make great and to give strength to all.

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1 Peter 5:6

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

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I prayed, God give me a billion dollars. (It used to be for a million but with inflation, well you know….)

God answered, “In a minute.”

Nothing happened. I’m still as poor as ever. So I asked a wise person why God did not follow through with God’s good promise.

The wise person said, “God will in God’s good time. For God a billion years is like a minute, and a minute is like a billion years. In a billion years your billion dollars will be yours in heaven. It’ll be worth a dime today, and worthless in heaven. God always keeps God’s promises.”

…

Oh, it’d be great, wouldn’t it, to be great

With riches and honours beyond number!?

God calls us,

not to make ourselves great,

not in anyway,

but rather to serve others

so that even the poorest

have the basics of life,

blessed life,

life abundant.

That can cost us everything.

It did Jesus.

It did numerous saints who have gone before us.

It will us

if we serve Jesus, by humbly serving others, as the Spirit guides and equips us.

In God’s good time.

In God’s good time God gives us wonders upon wonders to enjoy each day.

The Gathering Masses

Of Messes

Thursday, March 27, 2025

or Solitude, anyone?

Some People Fish,

To Get Away From it All.

Others Live Joyfully

in Solitude.

Psalm 68:26

Bless God in the great congregation

.

Acts of the Apostles 2:46-47

Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Gather.

Gathering Together.

A mess of humanity getting together.

Singing and praising God, sharing the meal with all with grateful hearts and active minds.

Of course the ‘adding to our numbers’ has long since not been in the works. We’ve been bleeding people for decades now.

So the great congregation is no longer so great, just 2 or 3 gathering, maybe a dozen or so.

But the best are the blessed ones who can live joyfully in the solitude of a hermitage with the basics all in place, able to give God praise with readings and songs.

Most of the faithful can still gather, one way or another, to share a meal (and diseases rampant), sing and praise God, and be grateful for all God provides.

The mess of humanity, as God knew we’d be, living out the promises of God,

blessed.

It is the Lord

No question about it

Monday, March 24, 2025

the surprise for all but mystics

Fishing,

Seeking,

and Being Found.

Surprise!

First Samuel 3:18

So Samuel told Eli everything and hid nothing from him. Then he said, ‘It is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him.’

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John 21:12

Jesus said to them, ‘Come and have breakfast.’ Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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while mystics hear, see, smell, and feel God, and know it!

Most of us get surprised over and over again

(if we pay any attention at all

to how God is present in our mundane lives)

how God shows up

like when God called to the boy Samuel, and he thought the priest Eli who raised him as a son was calling for him

like the disciples on the road to Emmaus

when Jesus shows up to walk with them after his resurrection

and opens to them the meaning of the old scriptures and his death and resurrection and then asks them to join him for breakfast.

Are you ready to encounter God today?

At least be open to the possibility?

It’s a sweet surprise, a joy that lasts a lifetime.

To Be Seen

To Be Known

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

And Loved

Especially When We Are Cast Out,

Cut-Off,

Alone.

Job 40:3-4

Then Job answered the Lord: ‘See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth.

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1 Corinthians 13:12

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

There is nothing more frightening than to not be seen.

To have no one see one as a person, as a person of worth.

Or worse, to be seen and valued as worthy only for what one is not. To be a lie.

…

In the Psalm for this coming Sunday we read

 O God, you are my God; eagerly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Our hearts, minds and spirits know from where we have come, and they thirst to be seen and known for who we are.

Most often we seek to be seen and known by other people. This is not misguided, for God created us people to be for each other God’s presence, God’s voice, heart, hands, and feet, graciously sharing all God’s gifts.

And as Jesus taught, to be God’s loving presence especially for the poor, the ill, the lost, the outcast, the foreigner, and even for our enemies.

What does God do for those, like Job, whom all others have rejected and there is no one to be God’s presence?

God comes and makes God’s own self visible, palatable, healing, loving, and enlivening in mysterious ways, in ways mystics have spoken of for generations.

Just as Paul knew there was no danger in not being seen by other people, because God still sees us, and knows us.

We need not bring our protests to God for how terrible the world has treated us, though we may. God can take it. We can know that God is Great above all, and we are but dust given spirit as a gift from God,

and we therefore can, especially during our Lenten journey, remain humble and still, bending low before the wonders of God all around us,

witnesses to God’s steadfast love for us.

And when we pray it can be in thanks in words the Psalmist gives us this Sunday:

For you have been my helper, and under the shadow of your wings I will rejoice.
My whole being clings to you; your right hand holds me fast.

Responding to

Encounters With God

Tuesday 25 February 2025

When was the last time you encountered God?

How did you respond?

Or did you not notice?

God Encounters happen many times each day for everyone!

Psalm 118:14

The Lord is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation.

James 5:13

Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise.

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Words of Grace For Today

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Scripture reports people responding to their encounters with God in many different ways:

Glowing faces (Moses)

Glowing clothes (Jesus)

Humility (David)

Astonishment (witnesses to Jesus’ healings and calming of the sea)

Thankful Survival (Elijah and the Widow)

Gratitude (Psalms and many others)

Naming God as one’s Rock, Salvation, Helper (Psalms and )

Calls to prayer and praise

…

So how can we respond with indifference as if God were irrelevant?

Or with Ho-Hum, business as usual?

…

Too used to miracle stories, we reduce them to elements of science and explain them away or dismiss them as false reports by fanatics.

Too successful in our own endeavours we choose to ‘rely’ on ourselves, while sinking into profound sadness as individuals and as a people, since no matter how we succeed (wealth, power, fame, or supposed freedom) our achievements remain unable to ‘pull us up by our bootstraps’ into joy at being alive.

…

Scripture is full of acknowledgements that we think, speak, and live in such fogs of denial about God.

Thus Scripture and Tradition is full of Wisdom of the ages admonishes us to

Breathe.

Be still.

Listen.

Be humble.

Be thankful.

Be contrite.

Be bold.

Be as God created us to be, those who embody God’s Grace for us all… again today.

Shepherding The Flock

Equipped for Grace

Friday 21 February 2025

See the Light of Christ,

Let It Guide Us

To Be God’s Own

Micah 7:14

Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock that belongs to you, which lives alone in a forest in the midst of a garden land.

Ephesians 4:11-12

The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.

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Words of Grace For Today

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There are lots of callings, all according to the gifts we receive. All given to be shared so that others will have life abundant, knowing God loves them.

So God guides us all.

Let us be guided by the Spirit, this day, too.

For that is who we are, Spirit led saints, God’s voice, feet, and hands in this world.

Working in Vain

Working for Bounty or Being Still

Wednesday 19 February 2025

Where Do You Find Stillness Before God?

Psalm 127:1

Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain.
Unless the Lord guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain.

Luke 5:5-6

Simon answered, ‘Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.’ When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break.

Psalm 37:7a

Be still before the Lord.

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Words of Grace For Today

…

He told his wife he’d be back the next day. Just a little business to take care of so that they’d have the money for that great retirement home they’d looked at. Well, he’d looked at for them. She was too sick that day.

She said they should spend time together. She was feeling exceptionally well. We don’t want to miss out. Not like before.

Before. I was there with you for every birth, every birthday and milestone. Well, most anyway.

Really?!, she said.

Well, I was right there with you, for the birth of our first two children. Though I had to leave for that business meeting and then your water broke. Still I was there early the next day to spend the first day with you and our youngest.

Time flies. Now they’re all grown and have families of their own.

So that’s what you think being there is? Then go, go do your business. But remember I invited you to stay with me today.

So off he went.

She had a massive heart attack six hours later.

When he returned ….

…

There wasn’t a thing now he wouldn’t give to have those six hours with her. To be wise enough to not run off when she invited him to stay with her. They could have played chess, gone for a short walk out around the yard, listened to all the birds, squirrels, maybe seen a deer.

Instead, he’d gone to finalize the sale of part of his business. It had to be that day for the extra bonus, the unbelievable bonus of nearly 50% more than he’d gotten otherwise.

Now that extra money meant nothing. He certainly didn’t want to move into that retirement home without her. He didn’t want to do anything, not without her.

…

No matter what we work at, when we take no time to be still before the Lord, we run off like chickens without their heads. We cover lots of ground, and it’s all for nought. We build great homes, and it’s all for nought. We make great plans for our future, and it’s all for nought.

…

Be still.

Listen to Jesus’ heart beating in your chest.

Feel the Spirit moving through your mind.

Sense God All-Everything flowing in your veins.

Be still and know God’s Word in you, around you, for you, for all people.

And then give it your all.