Category: Lake

The Personal Ad,

The One Determinative Thing

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Can We See What’s Coming

Psalm 51:12

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.

1 Timothy 1:5

But the aim of such instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

A personal ran in the newspaper, back when there were such things, that read: Lost, missing for hours or days, it’s hard to tell, last presence evidenced by a note to myself last week. Reward unknown. Oh, lost is my mind. Call me if you find it.

The next ad read: oh, forgot my number, too.

Two days later another personal ran: Found one loose and lost mind, wandering about the back avenues of 3rd and Park, near the Bowling Alley. Call 412-384-9012 if you know of it’s owner.

Three days after that an article on page three ran a story about the happy ending of an old man in his early 90s reunited with his mind that had wandered off during a boring TV program on shellfish, and the young mother of three who had found it engaging her oldest boy over the fence to the alley behind their house.

…

Sometimes, all too often really, it seems we get separated from the one thing that makes such a determinative difference in our lives, the joy of our salvation, namely being found and saved by Jesus. Our stories make about as much sense as the ads and story in that newspaper that summer in New York when it was hot and smoggy and crime was at its worst.

…

So, even when we are not so lost in a fantasy world of liars posing as politicians and people hoping for the impossible (which will lead to the loss of many things basic to democracy and human rights), we too pray,

restore to us the joy of your salvation Lord. For this is the one thing that does not change or get taken from us.

Help us to love You, our neighbour as ourselves, and even our enemies … and all creation (we have to add, since it’s been on the endangered list now for oh too long.)

Hemmed In

On All Sides

Tuesday, September 3, 2024

Finding the Path Home?

Out There Somewhere?

Psalm 139:5

You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

Acts of the Apostles 17:27-28

so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said, “For we too are his offspring.”

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

Trying to escape from the Wildernesses

of poverty

of hunger

of harassment

of threats

of apathy

of depression

of other people’s wildernesses

of the desert of a parched soul;

We’ve all tried at one time or another to escape

or at least minimize the parched heat, or the soppy wet floods, or the thunder, lightening, and wind storms of an angry planet or soul that seems out to do us in.


While we may try on our own, in real desperation, as even the least of believers to seek God,

yet God is not to be found, for God is before us, behind us, above us, under us, and to each side of us, walking with us through all the deserts and wildernesses that we traverse.

For we are God’s children, also this day, with all it’s challenges and things to be rightfully feared.

No other solution is needed, and we do not escape at all. God gives us what it takes to make it through, for even if death finds us, and takes us, there God gathers us in

to a home like none we have yet known. Home.

Be nice to have a home even in the wilderness, or maybe especially in the wilderness, eh?!

Fresh Start?

Ailments No More?

Monday, September 2, 2024

Rain Drops Clear The Air,

For a New Day.

Psalm 147:3

He heals the broken-hearted, and binds up their wounds.

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.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

It is an odd, illogical thought, that we can be healed because someone else is wounded. That is the illogic of sacrifice. It is the illogic behind living organ donors (like kidney transplant donors).

The obvious truth is that we all need and want to be healed. Our physical ailments may come to mind first. Old people know ailments of many kinds that seem to multiply as the years pass. Far too many younger people suffer the cruel, random selection of genetic, developmental, and accidental ailments. While medicine makes advances each year, we still cannot heal all these ailments. We simply suffer them.

The most severe, and life-robbing, ailments we suffer are not the physical ones. They are our psychological and spiritual wounds and ailments that reek havoc in our lives, and the lives of many around us. The ‘science’ to heal us of these ailments, or at least mitigate their disruption to our lives makes advances to be sure, but the progress is minuscule for those who suffer.

How can God promise to heal the broken-hearted, and bind up their wounds.

Or to heal us by his wounds?

Yet both the Psalmist and the writer of 1 Peter don’t make that promise. They state it as an accomplished deed.

Oh, to live knowing our broken hearts are healed, and our wounds have been bound, that we have been completely healed so profoundly that it has cost someone else his life.

By faith we know exactly these things to be

how, since our baptisms,

we start each day,

each encounter

each challenge.

Good Morning!

A Fresh Start, Again!

Wounds and sins have no power over us.

The Difference

God’s Because-Therefore

Saturday, August 31, 2024

Can We See Through the Fog Of Demands Laid On Us, To See God’s Love for Us ALL!

Malachi 3:17

They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, my special possession on the day when I act, and I will spare them as parents spare their children who serve them.

Matthew 5:9

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts!

The Ten Commandments start with BECAUSE. Because God is our God. What follows is many THEREFOREs. Therefore we will keep the Sabbath, honour our parents, and so on, showing us that our relationships are most important. God’s “Because-Therefore” laws begin with God’s love for us, followed by a guide to how we can return God’s love and love one another.

When we live, assured of God’s love for us – not striving to meet the demands of the Laws as if they were all and IF-THEN proposition: If we follow, then we are God’s people. And if not, then not! When we live, assured of God’s love for us life becomes a project of bringing God’s love to all people, and that converts us into peacemakers, those people who bring peace, by assuring people that they are loved, and can love one another,

no matter their differences.

What a blessing to be able to share in today’s polarized and fractured world.

Time for ‘Show and Tell’

Of God’s Name

Wednesday, August 28, 2024

Fishing For The Catch Of One’s Life

…

And Then Sharing It With Everyone In Need.

First Chronicles 22:19

Now set your mind and heart to seek the Lord your God. Go and build the sanctuary of the Lord God so that the ark of the covenant of the Lord and the holy vessels of God may be brought into a house built for the name of the Lord.

John 1:45

Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

The sanctuary, the temple, is not built for God to inhabit it, but for God’s name to dwell there! What a treasure, to know that in this new and holy place one could go and call on the name of the Lord and

…

be heard!

What a treasure for Philip to share with Nathaniel, that they have found the Messiah promised in the Holy Scriptures, wherein the name of the Lord is to be encountered by one’s mind and heart … and soul.

And then to be able to go and encounter the Name of God, the Word wherein the Name of God dwells as surely as God’s name dwelt in the temple. And to encounter the Name of God, the Word of God in a living person.

And for us today to encounter the living Word of God in so many ways

in Scripture,

in Worship,

in Sacraments,

in Fellowship,

in Works of Love that give the basics of life to others in dire need,

in the Wonders of creation,

in the Wonder of love

and hope

amidst the present darkness.

Come! Come and see the Living Word!

Can you invite those in such great need to encounter God’s Name, God’s Word, God’s Living Presence?

Return

To God

Thursday, August 22, 2024

See and Acknowledge God’s Gifts Today

Jeremiah 15:19

Therefore, thus says the Lord:
If you turn back, I will take you back,
and you shall stand before me.

Matthew 10:32

Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

After years of having barely enough water, food, supplies, shelter, heat, and transportation to get to town, the old man had developed habits to not waste any thing. Bits and pieces cluttered the ‘resource pile’, a place to go for raw material to be cut, bent, and drilled in order to fabricate a piece of something needed to keep things working, or to improve his situation and chances of surviving. Every morning he had cereal with berries on top, with coffee. When the bowl of cereal was empty, instead of just washing it or wiping it with a paper towel before washing it, he rinsed it with coffee, and then carefully wiped all the remaining traces of berry juice around the bowl into the coffee in the bottom of the bowl. This he drank with gratitude for all he had.

His morning prayers before Eucharist started with, ‘thank you God for everything that keeps me alive.’

Turning back to God comes in countless ways, even for each of us.

How, today, will you return to the Lord? How will you turn back and give God thanks for all that keeps you alive? How will you acknowledge before others your Saviour who gives you faith, though none of us can do anything to deserve such Grace?

Proclaim

With Patience …

Monday, March 25, 2024

It May Have Seemed A Good Idea,

But Then We Find Ourselves Out on a Limb

of A Tree

Ready to Tip Into the Waters

of Death!

Second Chronicles 18:13

But Micaiah said, ‘As the Lord lives, whatever my God says, that I will speak.’

2 Timothy 4:2

proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favourable or unfavourable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

Proclaiming the Good News ought, it seems, to be a wonderful experience,

but

humans don’t like to have their ‘apple carts upset’, ‘their cheese moved’, ‘their boat rocked’!

Surprise surprise

not!

Most often the Good News messenger is ‘shot’, vary rarely with a camera,

or hung

or burned at the stake

or buried alive

or crucified.

So do we really want to follow Jesus?

…

Well, to whom else shall we turn.

For only Jesus has the message that brings life,

true life to all who hear and follow

a rather humbling path

of service to God’s will

in service to others.

It’ll take all the patience we can muster to face down the opposition and derision others will throw at us,

but God walks with us,

and there is no greater blessing.

So onward, One Step, One Word at a time.

The Whole Shooting Kaboodle-dom!

Not for us! But for Christ!

Friday, March 22, 2024

Just When We Thought

It Was All Ours!

We Pass Away Into Oblivion.

Psalm 102:26

They will perish, but you endure; they will all wear out like a garment. You change them like clothing, and they pass away;

Colossians 1:16

… for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

We’ve taken dominion over the earth

and darn near ruined it into being an inhospitable wasteland, wherein we cannot survive much longer, or maybe we’ve crossed over the point of no return and it’s a done deal.

Our error, made new each day, is to assume God made it all for us.

But

God created it all for Christ!

Even us.

So that’s our place, not rulers but servants.

And once we surrender to that truth,

then Christ shares the blessings of life with us,

first and foremost the blessing of being blessings for others.

Walk On

Toward Justice and Love

Monday, March 18, 2024

Take a step in the right direction,

Towards the Light and Love

of Life.

Isaiah 10:1-2

Ah, you who make iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be your spoil, and that you may make the orphans your prey!

Matthew 7:12

‘In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

What do we want?

What can we do?

Is it so hard to do for others, what we would want for ourselves,

and to do it first for others,

before expecting it will be done (by us or others) for us?

A small step away from injustice and towards the love that holds the universe together,

and gives life to every heart.

Ready

march

or rather walk on

by Grace alone.

Freely Flow The Waters

Of Salvation

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Let the Waters Flow, To Us, and From Us

To All In Need

Isaiah 44:3

For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my spirit upon your descendants, and my blessing on your offspring.

John 7:37-38

On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” ’

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

Water pouring over the thirsty land!

Streams on dry ground!

Anyone who is thirsty go to Jesus, for all who believe can drink for free!

In the drought struck prairies and woods around the world, for us starting in our backyards, this is great news,

even as we read that wildfire season has started even before the snow has melted, so little of it that there is, but

then the forecast calls for a dump of 15-45 cm of snow this coming week,

for which we are thankful.

The thirst that is more pronounced and dangerous is the thirst for meaning, purpose, and worth in life. There are so many people and international conglomerates and criminals who have worked with un-regulated ‘free’ press to instill fear deep into the hearts and bones of so many people, and they can not help but look to have this fear relieved.

Of course what is offered them is more and more dictatorial politicians, who will promise to ‘save them’ from all they fear, but in truth will serve the interests of power and wealth with total disregard for their well-being.

And from this we can only turn to Jesus and beg, come, pour the saving waters on these ‘thirsts’ that will enable others to destroy us.

Come let us drink, today, the waters offered freely by Jesus: a faith that knows God’s promises and trusts them, which no conjured fear can steal from us.

Let us remember the many saints of the past, like St. Patrick, who gave so much to bring that faith, solid and clear, to us even in these days of troubles and challenges.

Let us drink

the water

of our salvation.

And let that water flow freely, abundantly to all who thirst.