My Life

For a Light!

Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Just a little light can make a big difference.

And God’s Light

Makes ALL the Difference

in the World.

Isaiah 66:18E

For I know their works and their thoughts, and I am coming to gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and shall see my glory,

2 Corinthians 4:6

For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Words of Grace For Today

There are three ways (maybe among many others) that we take to deal with darkness in and around us:

1) we shine a light into it to change it.

2) we wallow in the darkness as if it were all we have or could have.

3) we deny the darkness and bruise our shines over and over again until we die, having bled out from our open shine wounds we cannot see in the darkness and refuse to acknowledge, for fear we will have to admit we are in the darkness, or worse: that we are the darkness.

What do we do, though, when we do not have a light, and we know the darkness too well to either deny it or be willing to wallow in it?

We trust that God will bring the light that we cannot find, shine it in the darkness and in our darkness, and as painful and disgusting as it may be to see what up until then festered in the dark, God also brings forgiveness, renewal, and a mission for us: to share the light with everyone caught in darkness.

Light work for this day as well, ready or not.

Curses

From not obeying?

Sunday, March 12, 2023

Think The Brambles and Branches

Of Our Sins Are Too Many

For Us Weak Sinners

To Find God?

Think Again!

God Is Always With Us!

Deuteronomy 30:9

and the Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all your undertakings, in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your soil. For the Lord will again take delight in prospering you, just as he delighted in prospering your ancestors,

Philippians 2:13

for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Words of Grace For Today

Roxy, not unlike the character in that fancy, up-beat, perverse show Chicago, did everything she could to get some pleasure for herself out of life. And she ruined every relationship she had in the process, and as the cost of her high living came to roost in her late 30’s she lost control to her alcohol and drug consumption. Life was no fun at all any more. One morning she woke with her face in her own vomit, her clothes dirty from weeks without washing, and a splitting body ache that felt like she was on the rack.

If she had ever heard of Moses’ blessings and curses, and Jesus’ abiding in God’s love, she would have known that she suffered outside God’s love and dead centre in Moses’ curse, and pretty much every other curse ever spoken or dreamed up.

But God planned for all that, too.

Roxy crawled all of three feet towards the cheap wine bottle before she passed out from the pain. It was more than luck that a person passing the construction shack she’d passed out in noticed her, called an ambulance which got her to the hospital. She woke up in the ICU unable to move or speak. She found herself wondering what great miracle had landed on her that she was still alive, and sober for the first time in longer than she could remember. She knew she was sober because she ached all over, her mouth was dry, her head pounded, but she could see straight for the few moments she could endure the pain of keeping her eyes open. That all slowly subsided over the whole 7 days it took before she was finally able to speak her first word, and ask what had happened to her.

Each moment she realized she was still alive, she gave God thanks. The awareness of God as a merciful, gracious God welled up in her from her childhood at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church.

So much for dis-obeying God’s commandments and reaping only curses!

God planned for that, too.

For us? Yes, for us, too!

Our days, whether we obey or disobey God, whether we humbly repent or remain stubborn and proud, will be determined by what God chooses for us. And God chooses that we will be so blessed without rhyme or reasons.

Will we notice?

That’s the challenge of each day.

Why Sing?

Or Dance?

Wednesday 22 February 2023

It’s Cold.

It’s Dark.

It’s Frosty.

It’s Brambles even!

It’s Just the Moon.

And It’s God’s Gift of Beauty

For Us Again!

Jeremiah 20:13

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

again this day.

And breathe, wondrously.

Inversely

Proportioned Grace

Monday 6 February 2023

We, at our best, are like the moon,

(that shines fullgolden, mysteriously down on us)

wondrous reflections

of God’s Light.

Jeremiah 17:9-10

The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse— who can understand it? I the Lord test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings.

Galatians 6:9

So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.

Words of Grace For Today

Francine gave most of her bountiful produce from her raised garden beds each year to others in need. But one person received the most. He lived in an old folks home. She would visit him each Sunday afternoon. During the harvest she’d bring bushels of produce and set them in his room. She would tell him each time that the vegetables were good for him, he should eat and enjoy them and the life they gave him. This old man had not lost any of his sharp mind, though his body was slowly giving out on him so that his mobility and daily care were always an increasing concern.

As she left, his friends would come to visit him. She was glad that they did, though she knew that this visit was more than a visit. It was an exchange. For her fresh produce he would trade them for all sorts of treats, sweet breads, pastries, and chocolates. She had known this was the deal for almost as long as she had been bringing him the produce. But what was she to do? He was a grown man, still with a sharp mind. It was his choice to give away the good produce for food that the dietitian strictly denied him, but which he’d always enjoyed too much, as he had all his life, and as was poisoning what life he had left. It would not be long now.

What was she to do? Her mother had died decades ago, and this man was her father, who had raised her, cared for her, protected her, and taught her to be generous with everything she had. Her Pappa got everything she could give while he was still alive. He certainly did not need ‘advice’ from her. He’d call it and it would really be nagging.

He had also taught her that many people in many ways would try to teach that everyone got according to what they did, good for good, bad for bad. But he had shown her that this was blatantly not true in life, and also not true according to Jesus. For God was always more generous, gracious, forgiving, and merciful than anyone ever deserved or earned.

The only way that we can understand that God gives us according to our ways and the fruit of our labour is the simple truth:

The worse our ways and the more evil the fruit of our labours, the more merciful and hopeful God is that we will turn, confess our bountiful sins, repent, and return, so that God can demonstrate how loving, forgiving, and life-giving God is to all God’s people.

Not that we need go out of our way to sin so that God can make a good demonstration out of us. If we are honest with ourselves and confess our sins, they already are more than enough for God’s demonstration to be an amazing display of the power of forgiveness, so as to astound anyone who cares to pay attention!

So this day, yes, we give it our best effort. Most of all we trust that God will bring from us all that God wishes: that we might reflect Christ’ light, mercy, and love to all people.

Giving Up!

Surrendering to God With and For Us

Friday 27 January 2023

The colours of dawn show the glory of God,

whether we see it or not.

Psalms 1:3

They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper.

Philippians 1:9-11

And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that on the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

Words of Grace For Today

Jonathan worked hard everyday, as he had since he was 5. He remembered what his mother had taught him, that you had to work hard to make it in life. He had definitely wanted to make it in life. First he had wanted to make his mother proud. He may have wished something of his father, but he had left them before Jonathan knew anything about him. Then as he grew older he saw that people with money got to do what they wanted, so he decided that he would have lots of money by working hard.

A quick three years earned him his first degree, another two his PhD and he was on his out working hard everyday. At first he worked for someone else. After a year he figured out that the only way to be wealthy was to have people working for him, so he quit his job and started his own little design and engineering company. Just five years later he had grown it to 1000 employees in 20 different cities. He’d sold that company for his first real billion in his own bank account. He’d invested half in safe stocks and the rest into a new company, this time architecture, engineering, and construction. Within 3 years he had more than 3000 employees in 30 different cities across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Then he’d met Michelle on a worksite in Vereeniging and again on a project outside Dar es Salaam and all the sense of his working everyday dissolved like his nightly antacids in hot water. He’d taken a year to be with her, working every other week or so, getting just as much work done, still adding to his assets and investments, and the value of his company, all privately owned. They’d been married in Cape Town, had a week long honeymoon in Stockholm, Oslo, and Sankt Peter Ording.

Then he’d gotten back to work, even as the children arrived. First Olevia, then Petrus. When he came back from working in Hebron on a new project, his first in Israel, he found Michelle in the hospital. No one knew what made her ill, but she could barely lift her head or hands, and she whispered at most a few words each day. He’d sat by her for 4 straight days, as her condition got worse and worse, until ….

Looking back on the week that had followed, Jonathan could not remember what had happened. He sat on the edge of his hospital bed now. People told him he collapsed at Michelle’s funeral. He had no memory of it at all, or of the previous days in the hospital.

He rubbed his forehead. It did not help the headache or the dizziness. He tried to stand, but the room spun and he sat back down. Minutes later he woke up laying on his bed.

All the money that he had, and he could not save Michelle, and now he could do nothing for himself. Give him a building project and he’d excel, but this! What was this!?

When he found these verses (Psalms 1:3 and Philippians 1:9-11) beside his bed that night, he thought, yes, he’d prospered, but to what good end? He thought his love for Michelle had overflown all limits, and he had acquired great knowledge and wealth. But had he any insight to help himself determine what is best, so that on the day of Christ he would be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness?

It was like another test, and he was failing this one badly.

The pastor that visited his roommate the next morning talked about how we could not do anything good without the Holy Spirit guiding us to do that good. Otherwise it all turned to dust and hopeless evil. We could, of our own freewill, choose to do evil and turn from God; but only God could help us live in God’s good grace.

He was more confused than ever. How could he do what was right if that was impossible? But he could still do what was wrong, because that was fully possible for him?

His roommate got up later that day, and saw that he had not even made it to the bathroom at all that day. He walked over, and saw Jonathan’s confused, hopeless look, and simply made the sign of the cross on his forehead saying, you are marked with the cross of Christ, and you are precious to God. Be at peace.

And then it all changed for Jonathan. He died.

They revived him. A month later he went home. He spent hours, days, weeks and months making no sense at all of what the pastor or his roommate had said. Not until Olevia walked into his study and told him that God walked with her, whether she liked it or not. But it didn’t help keep the bully girl out of her face at school. So she was reading about Gandhi and nonviolence. She knew that what seemed to be weakness was going to be her strength.

And it clicked for Jonathan. He stopped trying to do everything right, to earn enough money, to read the right things, to think the right things. He just prayed to God that he surrendered.

He woke the next morning and for the first time ever, doing nothing except waiting to see the sun rise, paying attention to the glorious colours of the dawn slowing push the darkness away until the deep blue sky shone bright above the pink and cream in the clouds on the horizon … and he knew that God was with him, and had been his whole life, even when he had never paid attention or cared.

For the first time ever life looked wonderful, even while he felt profound guilt for leaving Michelle so often and the grief of her leaving him with an un-fillable hole in his heart.

Dance, Dance

Dancing to the Music of God’s Spheres

Tuesday 24 January 2023

The Moon Dances,

At Sunrise,

Inviting Us

Into God’s Dance of Life

for All

Psalms 91:9

Because you have made the Lord your refuge, the Most High your dwelling-place,

John 14:1

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.

Words of Grace For Today

Were it so simple, that we could make God our refuge, and then we would always dwell in God’s Most Wondrous City, home for all the saints.

Were it so simple, that we could just choose to believe in God and in Jesus, and then our hearts would not be troubled.

But life is not like that. Nor are we able to always seek God as our refuge or choose to life in God’s wondrous city. Nor are we able to set aside all that troubles us and rest secure in our belief in God and in Jesus.

God planned for that.

God sends the Holy Spirit to guide us

into the city of God

into the care of God’s loving hands,

into God’s refuge

into a firm belief in God and Jesus the Christ,

and away from all that troubles our hearts.

Yet we often choose the trouble of this world as our dwelling place and our hearts contents!

God planned for that, too.

And sends the Holy Spirit again and again,

even today

to guide us into God’s dwelling for us, and life abundant, by moving us to share all we are and have with those who are in need.

This day, a wonder-filled day it is, as always, because God walks with us, through our darkness, and gives us hearts that sing and dance and fly

with grace to the mysterious music of our Creator, always with us.

A waltz if you will,

so dance, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three ….

Ice Time, Praise Time

Saturday 7 January 2023

The Quiet Morning Moonset

Over the Fishers’ Ice

Psalms 113:3

From the rising of the sun to its setting the name of the Lord is to be praised.

Romans 15:5-6

May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Words of Grace For Today

What are you going to do today?

What are you going to do this week?

What are you going to do this year?

What are you up to?

Planning on robbing a bank to settle an injustice that resulted in you and many others losing their pensions because of wilful mismanagement and corruption?

Planning on visiting an old folks home to sing golden oldies with the folks?

Planning on escaping the family gathered for the holidays by going fishing out on the ice, where solitude is king?

Planning on writing a novel about the things you know best?

Whatever you’re planning, whatever we’re planning, what God does for us is the beginning and end of every good thing in our lives and throughout all creation, so

however we go about what we go about doing, what God asks of us is that we go about it so that God’s name is praised.

Figure that in to your plans and just maybe it’ll require dropping some plans or at least modifying them substantially.

As for that solitude on the ice being so great, because it is freedom from the chaos of the family gathered, well …

Paul would wish for us all that we could live in harmony with each other, so that we go towards our things to do, and not from the people in our lives.

Tall order living in harmony with some people who bring chaos and unreal drama with them wherever they go, but God asks that we do our best, and

sometimes our best is to take a break from the chaos and drama, to rejuvenate our patience in the solitude on the ice, dangling a lure on a line so that maybe we catch a fish to enjoy eating later.

Wherever we are, God walks with us, and asks that whatever and however we do what we do, we do it to give God praise.

Lifelong Living to the Fullest

Thursday 5 January 2023

God’s Blessings Give Life It’s Fullness,

Even in Our Darkest Times,

as the Moon Brightens Our Night.

Psalms 71:17

O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.

Luke 2:29-31

Simeon said: Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples….

Words of Grace For Today

Living to the fullest may mean hard partying, drinking, drugs, and sex for some. Or working hard to make so much money one cannot spend it all and playing even harder trying to spend it. Or just about everything under the sun in the extreme to the extreme.

All that as if one’s actions, accomplishments and record were worth something at all, when measure by the one measure that counts at all, God’s measure, our human actions, accomplishments and record are worth next nothing, especially compared to what God does, accomplishes and establishes through us and without us.

The fullest life we can live is to continually, humbly, give God thanks and praise.

Living life to it’s fullest in this way we can be ready to greet our death as Simeon did, with thanks and praise for all God’s gifts, especially the gift of God’s Son living as one of us, God’s communication to us that is so clear we can tell the story over and over again and marvel at God’s Grace and Love for us all.

Chaos? Or Giving?

Tuesday 3 January 2023

The clouds cover the light into the future.

Where shall we turn for life?

Psalms 119:154

Plead my cause and redeem me; give me life according to your promise.

2 Thessalonians 3:3

But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.

Words of Grace For Today

Look around and there is not much ‘good news’ out there.

The unjustifiable war in Ukraine continues with civilians and cities targeted for wholesale destruction.

Europe faces a winter without enough natural gas to stay warm and running at full capacity.

The snow pack is a deep as it was at the end of February last winter and last winter it was the most we’d had for a while. Great for skiing and snowmobiling, but hard on snow clearing budgets and especially the snow clearing budgets that only consist of arm and back power to cover kilometre long driveways.

Covid continues to kill people and combined with the flu and colds and RSV emergency rooms are overfilled and hospitals are going into the third year of overcapacity resulting in staff shortages burning out the staff that are there.

Climate change (an example is the snow pack) promises more storms of all kinds and a few new ones tossed into the mix, more disruptions, more destruction, and a cycle where last year’s extremes are this year’s normals and this year’s extremes become normals next year, until one wonders what normal will look like!

While the causes by ‘big business’ are significant, the message is clear that we, the everyday little people, contribute massively and therefore we are guilty, guilty, guilty for not stopping the progress of climate change long ago when dealing with it were possible. Now we are left with guilt and trying to mitigate, minimize, and survive, if we can.

And, if one cares to pay attention, the Devil is playing the board as freely as ever. Fake news, lies in everyday life, and manipulations for power and control over others is rampant. Try to be one who does not participate and people will see you as vulnerable and gang up on you. The attacks may be violent and obvious, or subtle and deadly nonetheless!

It has been like this in every generation (with different flavours and crises), so much so that the Psalmist could write words thousands of years ago that fit our guilt-ridden, fright-filled, weather stricken mornings very well:

Plead my cause and redeem me; give me life according to your promise.

We know that God promises us life, but it seems that life has just fallen out of our reach yet again, and the best we can do is submit to the chaos, and live as long and well as we can, taking what we can while we can, no matter what it costs others!

Oh, the temptations of the Devil are so powerful. They promise ‘good life’ and deliver death for more and more people.

Our only hope is as Paul wrote to the Thessalonians so many years ago, that

the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen us and guard us from the evil one.

With a quiet, breathless prayer of thanks, we submit, not to the empty promises of chaos, but the blessings of God that are given to us to be shared with others.

Now that’ll give us a full day, a busy week, and a wonder filled year.

Last Stand, Forever Secure

Saturday 31 December 2022

As Sentinels

Against All That Would Do Us Harm,

God Stands

Day and Night

By Us!

Zechariah 9:8

Then I will encamp at my house as a guard, so that no one shall march to and fro; no oppressor shall again overrun them, for now I have seen with my own eyes.

Romans 8:31-32

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?

Words of Grace For Today

Looking back at the year bygones and all

I wonder

what will become of

today?

all daze?

looking at the weather

or not to travel on gravel

to the bench the Judge wants order

is not something possible in this world

ways I’ve decided are not to be trusted

thoughts one cannot know so much

is out of my hands

Oi vey! my hands are sore

no more.

So we look to a new year, just like the last,

Knowing that God not only walks with us,

but is encamped with us, protected as a guard the doorways,

to the camp and our lives,

so that those set on destroying us

devil and all

will not prevail

not even in the new year.

We will continue to enjoy God’s blessings beyond imagination,

given to us, not earned, signs of God’s grace for others to see that God is gracious to all people,

blessing that cannot be bought with money or time:

love, hope, peace, joy, faith, fullness of life, and purpose.