Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye wastes away from grief, my soul and body also.
Ephesians 1:18
so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints,
Words of Grace For Today
The greatest distress that any human can face (since it covers for so many lesser distresses as well) is to not be,
to not be seen,
to not be heard,
to not be known,
to not be remembered,
to not be loved,
to not be anything at all.
…
God promises to protect us from the evil that would make this be for us.
God sees us.
God hears us.
God knows us.
God remembers us.
God loves us.
And God makes sure we are something to God, and
that many other people
see, hear, know, remember, and love us.
And God sends us out to see, hear, know, remember, and love all people,
so not one person need cry
Lord, see me, hear me, know me, remember me, love me.
Makes for a full day every day, and a full life lived,
when we work so that all people are seen, heard, known, remembered, and …
Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.
2 Corinthians 1:20
For in him every one of God’s promises is a ‘Yes. ’ For this reason it is through him that we say the ‘Amen’, to the glory of God.
Words of Grace For Today
We all know too well the ‘no’s that the world throws at us and so many others. We are well practised at tossing our ‘no’s into the mix … where they do not belong (for they rebound back on us more than they impact others).
God has always had a contrary way (contrary not to the universe, but to our perverted way of being in it) of working with creation and us creatures.
God says Yes! Yes! YES! And forever YES!!
To all of life’s goodness and to us in it (though we are full of so much that is not good) God says YES! And forever God says YES!
While we waste away life filling it with ‘no’s, God calls us to be those who also proclaim God’s YES! to all people.
And that starts by confessing our sins, accepting forgiveness and renewed life, and accepting that we are God-sent to say AMEN! to all God’s YES!’s.
Just another little challenge for this day, too, again, and again, …. forever.
Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers.
Luke 1:46-48
And Mary said, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;’
Words of Grace For Today
The world is in trouble, and it appears more dire than ever before. War, Climate Change’s storms and upheavals, Nature’s Fight Against Human Overpopulation with Disease new and old, More and More Lies and Deceptions that Polarize Populations into Chaos Making Room for Fascist Rulers, Greater and Greater Inequity Between Peoples, Swings for Correction like Me-Too that have become just as destructive as the horrors they try to rectify, and on goes the list!
And personally for us all. I’m sure that you have your own list of disasters just waiting to blossom like nuclear mushrooms in your life, just as I do: thanks to a justice system gone amuck, and drugs and greed bending weak minds towards homicidal endings of me like I’ve never encountered before.
So why should we sing thanks to God?
Like Mary, when God steps into our lives in a visible and undeniable way it usually does not produce wealth, power, and privilege the likes of which we’ve only dreamed. On the contrary it usually brings great hardship to our mornings, noons, and nights.
So how on earth are we to sing God’s praise for all this?
Simple. Start by recognizing that the everything we are and have and can do, starting with breathing, is a gift from God – that we invariably mess up – and that we only continue to breathe at all because God’s wondrous Grace and Love reach out to us to forgive us and give us new life, as God has done for all the needy in every generation …
no matter what comes our way, or we throw in our own way.
So sing, and give God praise, and dance a jig of thanks
Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, saying, ‘I called to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.
Luke 12:7
But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.
Words of Grace For Today
I don’t know about you but if I were thrown overboard by a fearful ship’s crew, who saw me as the cause of a storm that threatened to take their ship to the bottom (where the people of that time understood it was the primordial chaos of precreation void!), and I ended up getting eaten whole by a huge fish, I might have good cause to be a tad frightened. Okay, let’s be honest I’d be in a full out panic once or twice over.
I’m not so sure I’d have time to pray in any coherent manner.
Life for the common folk in Jesus’ day was no different in analogous ways, tossed ‘overboard’ by the ruling foreigners, or by the religious lackies, and then ‘swallowed up whole’ in the morass of being poor, where nobody cared for the poor, except what could be gotten out of them to make the rich and ruling classes more comfortable in their exquisite lifestyles.
Life for most people today is really still the same.
So how are we not to be filled with fear? At any moment life can be torn from us for no good reason other than we are in some rich or powerful person’s way.
That can happen in a blink of an eye, getting pummeled in any number of ways by bullies (that hide even as respectable people), being pulled over by a cop, or falsely accused by a woman (who in this ‘me-too’ attitude is always to be believed – unfortunately the truth is some of what women have suffered more than deserves getting brought into the spotlight and dealt with. But the lies do not deserve the same blind acceptance as truth. Not ever, no matter who tells the lies!) or slowly ruined by jealous others who wish not to see one’s success for against it they measure themselves as utter failures (which they are, worse than they imagine!)
So how can we not be afraid?
God has ‘counted the hairs on our heads’ since before we knew how to remember from generation to many generations later with writing.
Of course, it has to do with today. Does God counting our hairs do any good for us? It is less a question about our hair, without which we can live. It has to do with whether God walks with us, carries us when we falter, and revives our hearts when they have succumbed to the chaos and evil of life all around.
And to answer whether or not God does that, God sent Jesus, whose story makes clear that God treasures us, each and every one of us.
So take that, you agents of evil who would try to teach us poor masses that we do not count. God has taught us to dance, even as we count, 1,2,3; 1,2,3; … in celebration for life renewed … by grace alone.
On the wretched marred surface and depths of our lives, God works miracles for us with forgiveness, making us precious, just as the golden sunset turns glazed, rutted, treacherous ice into a wonder to behold.
Psalms 51:13
Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.
Luke 18:13
But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
Words of Grace For Today
It’s hard to be that tax collector, so out of character, beyond anyone’s expectations, actually humbly, desperately begging God for mercy.
Yet that is God’s intention for each and all of us, to be the outsiders, the ones done in, the ones rejected … and yet for us to be the ones most blessed by God’s mercy. The deeper the hole we get ourselves into, the greater God’s mercy for us is an obvious demonstration of God’s grace for all people to take note of!
Starting there, recognizing the hole of sin we’ve dug ourselves into, each day, each worship service, each moment allows us to humbly and desperately beg for and accept
God’s strength in weakness,
Christ’ sacrifice on the cross to give us new life,
and to meet other people’s sins with that same humble forgiveness fuelled by God’s mercy for us and for them.
Our teaching and inspiring is not about bringing people to be good, or better or less bad. That is the work of the Holy Spirit, which is evident all around us and in us … if we take notice.
Our teaching and inspiring others is only to teach all people of God’s ways, God’s ways of mercy, forgiveness, and renewed life for even the most wretched of sinners.
That will keep us more than busy this day, and each day gives us breath.
Bring me out of prison, so that I may give thanks to your name. The righteous will surround me, for you will deal bountifully with me.
John 8:36
So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
Words of Grace For Today
Of course, you, yes proud, upright, self-righteous you, have never been in prison, so to be set free, and to be free indeed is nothing, right! Not to you.
But let me tell you as one who spent time in prison, put there by lies about a crime that did not even happen, by judges, prosecutors, lawyers, RCMP, and witnesses who all knew they were lying, for it was that blatant, being set free is an experience one does not ever forget. Nor does one forget the time spent as an inmate. Life threatened in various ways at least once a week, by real violent inmates prompted and setup by guards, and by nurses, and by the brass, but protected by real criminals and maybe even a few honest guards … and by God and God’s people. Food and medication that were not tolerated by my system. The noise. The predictable and irregular inspections and demands and new impromptu ‘rules’ and the lack of horizon and photography and intelligent conversation … and the boredom.
The real prison that we find ourselves in does not have brick and mortar walls and evil people attacking us, and uncommitted crimes dumped on innocent scapegoats, and other ‘real’ criminals (guards include) so unpredictable and demanding. The real prison we find each find ourselves in is the one we make out of our own sins. Lies that corner us. Deeds that destroy others (as we intended) but that also haunt and destroy us. Words that we used to try to create a new reality for ourselves, and in denying God’s real creation we step right into the Devil’s playground, where a physical jail would be millions times more preferable!
This is the prison that God has always offered to free us.
This is the prison that the Devil has sent so many ambassadors to, to offer us yet again another way out, which is really another shackle to add to the many that choke the life right out of us.
This is the prison that we try and try and try to free ourselves from, and too often delude ourselves that we have succeeded, only to see the Devil’s playground has expended again around us and our lives and around those we love.
This is the prison that Jesus frees us from. And when Jesus frees us we are free indeed.
So we breathe.
So we dance.
So we take photos.
So we enjoy the horizon.
So we delve into intelligent conversation when it is possible.
So we worship each day to begin the day.
So we sing God’s praise and give thanks for all that keeps us alive, by God’s grace alone, for obviously we do not deserve any of these blessings.
Our task is simply to extend these blessings to as many other people as we possibly can.
That’s life lived richly, abundantly, as God created us to live.
Be silent before the Lord God! For the day of the Lord is at hand; the Lord has prepared a sacrifice, he has consecrated his guests.
Matthew 24:44
Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.
Words of Grace For Today
When we are still, quiet, calm, and silent what do we hear?
The traffic pounding the pavement, going back and forth, who knows why so many of us have so many places to go, just because we can or others will pay us if we do or we have learned that we must in order to eat (the things we want to eat)?
The bells ringing across the countryside inviting people to worship, or tolling to mark the funeral of yet another person no longer breathing, or clanging in alarm as the war reaches the outskirts of this area?
The manufacturing cascade of sounds of machinery churning, pumping, grinding, and wearing themselves out before their time?
The wild music of alcohol and drug induced partying that can erupt into all kinds of behaviour and violence spilling over into others’ safety?
The squirrels sounding alarm, crows cawing, an owl hooting, and the lynx silently invisibly avoiding the stinky skunks?
The ravages of a brain fully engaged in multiple tracks of problem solving stuck spinning against the slings and arrows of time?
Sometimes, not wanting to be silent is a reasonable protection from the cost of our times of industry chugging along to sustain an unsustainable life-style, nature fighting us into extinction with climate change, viruses, and fungi, and our inevitable defences of rampant escapism.
But
every once in a while for most of us (and always for some ‘blessed’ mystics), when we are silent, we not only hear that silent lynx, but we see that God walks with us crunching footsteps into the snow-pack.
God’s day is here, with us, always has been. Best is to get used to it.
For whatever we are up to, God is up to it with us, celebrating our thinkings, sayings and doings, or suffering the same.
Smile you are on ‘candid camera’, God’s view of us each and all, as it has been since before we were born, and even before time was created
Our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-17
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing …
Words of Grace For Today
Lots of things can make our hearts glad, like our solitude respected, the warm winter weather, the sunny skies providing great solitude, and … repairs finished to the water pump so that water now flows if we give our all to haul water and pump it where it belongs.
The wonder of life is that even if nothing is so to be enjoyed, God walks with us, and we are glad for God’s presence.
Therefore we have reason to rejoice and pray always, perhaps not unceasingly since it takes a bit of concentration to repair a pump and supply water to it, for instance, but in our pauses most certainly.
On the day of prosperity be joyful, and on the day of adversity consider; God has made the one as well as the other, so that mortals may not find out anything that will come after them.
Matthew 6:26
Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
Words of Grace For Today
It is pretty near impossible, but the only way to be assured of one’s own worth is to find that worth only as a gift from God.
The birds may not sow and they eat, but they starve, too.
We may sow, and work extremely hard to provide for ourselves and ours, and we may think we are worth more than the birds, but we to will succumb and it may be much sooner than we anticipate.
There may be days when we are quite sure that as a result of our own work we have succeeded and we prosper … and we do well to celebrate. There are for every human days when no matter how hard (or not) we have worked we will fail and fall into great need, and suffer for it.
So God sends us both? And of course there is no way of knowing what will come next.
As long as we measure our days and reasons to celebrate by the ‘success’ of our own labours, then we have no way of knowing if tomorrow will be a day to celebrate success or to suffer our losses and great needs.
When we place our worth into God’s hands, and rely on God alone to determine our worth, as God does with love, forgiveness, renewal, and purpose (called and sent out to be little Christ’s in the world for all creation), then we can know with unwavering certainly what will come tomorrow. Tomorrow God will succeed, and since God accompanies us through each day, we also will succeed at God’s work (by grace alone, of course.)
Another day to celebrate how valuable God deems us to be (by grace alone, of course.) Ditto tomorrow and each day thereafter.
