Perspective – Page 18

Out of Our Distress

God Gives Us The Horizon

Wednesday, August 2, 2023

Breathe In The Broad Horizon

Of God’s Steadfast Love

Psalm 118:5

Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me in a broad place.

2 Corinthians 1:7

Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our consolation.

Words of Grace For Today

When we auger our way into deep holes of whatever kind, we are not able to see even our own dreamed of horizons, our goals, or our hopes. We want God or someone to come and pull us up so that we can see our horizon again, so that we can walk forward towards our goals, so that we can realize our hopes.

God comes all right.

God comes and pulls us out of the holes we get ourselves into.

God comes and places us in broad open places,

But NOT so that we can see our own horizon, goals or dreams realized.

God places us in the broad open places of God’s creation so that we can see, not only our own lives, but all of God’s universe from a bit of God’s perspective. We never see as God does: all things, from all times, all at once, fully knowing and understanding everything. God does share with us a glimpse or two of the broadness of God’s creation and our place in it.

God sends saints to guide us,

Then God sends us saints to guide others,

Always in God’s good creation according to God’s good will, grace, and steadfast love for us all.

Just another day. In the Hole. God plucking us up. Glimpsing the broad view. Sharing it with others.

Always God’s steadfast love surrounds us, so we dance a step or a jig of thanks.

Remember?

Remember Me?

Remember Us!

Monday, July 31, 2023

Memory Fails Us

Both by Forgetting

and

Remembering

Psalm 25:7

Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for your goodness’ sake, O Lord!

John 3:7

Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.”

Words of Grace For Today

One of the most difficult things in life is to accept that we will be forgotten, and worse, that we will forget other people and events, both good and bad.

Truth disappears when we cannot remember.

And only truth provides a guide through the weeds that lie ahead.

So we pray:

God, remember … Remember me. Remember us.

But then we realize that much of what we have been is not something we would have anyone remember, least of all God.

Yet, God alone remembers everything about everyone.

God remembers everything, including the things that make for nightmares as our subconscious lifts up issues and conflicts and problems and failures and shame into our dreams, dreams that haunt us, and dreams that supposedly will free us from our past we would forget.

So we pray: God, remember … Remember me. Remember us. Remember not our sins, sins of our youth and sins of our middle age, and sins of our present old age.

Instead God, please we beg of you, remember us according to your steadfast love and mercy.

And in God remembering us thus, we are born from above, in the record of all time for all time for all people and for God remembered as if we were without sin.

And to be remembered so is a gift most precious

for it allows us to set aside our fear of being forgotten, or remembered as sinful as we are.

Instead we are freed

also this day

to live out God’s steadfast love and mercy for others,

as impossible as that is sometimes.

This Again!

AND Again!

Really! @#$#%#%$!!

Saturday, July 29, 2023

Blues Musician Mississippi Fred McDowell in 1960

Psalm 77:3

I think of God, and I moan; I meditate, and my spirit faints. Selah

Matthew 26:38-39

Then he said to them, ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.’ And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.

Words of Grace For Today

Some days the weight of Shtako, of Evil playing so freely all around and in our lives, and even in our own hearts, leaves us wondering if God can ever reach us, helps us, save us.

It’s too damn often that we are left so damn alone!

Even the thought of God, our prayers, our meditations, our efforts to sleep leave us grieving and moaning at how cruel the world is and how cruel everything in our lives can be to us and those we love.

…

We may well sing along with Steve or the Proclaimers

“Just when every ray of hope was gone, I should’a known that you would come along. I can’t believe I ever doubted you, my old friend the blues.

“Another lonely night, a nameless town. If sleep don’t take me first, you’ll come around, ’cause I know I can always count on you, my old friend the blues.

“Lovers leave and friends’ll let you down, but you’re the only sure thing that I’ve found. No matter what I do I’ll never lose my old friend the blues….

“Just let me hide my weary heart in you, my old friend the blues”

My Old Friend The Blues by Steve Earle, covered by many!

Only faith

Only faith given to us

Only faith given to us and renewed in us by the Holy Spirit

can assure us that God is with us, along with our friend the blues.

This is the faith that the saints have shared with us, and we saints today share with all people, especially those so often left in the company of the blues.

Then when the dark, blue silences catch up with us and we sing along with Simon and Garfunkel:

“Hello darkness, my old friend I’ve come to talk with you again because a vision softly creeping left its seeds while I was sleeping and the vision that was planted in my brain still remains within the sound of silence …”

We know the song does not end with us, and these dark, silenced times.

God sings along with us …

until we see we stand in the light of Christ again, the choir of saints singing with us

and

we can give God thanks, once again, and again.

Even today Blue is also the colour of hope, after all.

Two Headed

Monsters

Friday, July 28, 2023

When Everything

In Our Lives Looks Like An Obstacle

Blocking Our Way

…

Does Money

Really Rescue Us?

Psalm 97:10

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.)

Getting It Right

Or Esle!

Thursday, July 27, 2023

Think You Can Find The Right Path?

Fools Alone Think So!

Isaiah 43:11

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.

But God has the rest. God is our Saviour.

Fear

To Love?

Wednesday, July 26, 2023

The Whole Universe,

Determined By

God’s Judgments

God’s Love?

Genesis 3:8

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.

Sing?

Sing When

It All Is NOT Going Well?

Tuesday, July 25, 2023

Like A Camper Left To Rot In the Field, When Junk Is All We Are, Also Then … ?

Psalm 35:18

Then I will thank you in the great congregation; in the mighty throng I will praise you.

Ephesians 5:19

… as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts,

Words of Grace For Today

“Then I will thank you …” When will we give God thanks?

Do we do this when, finally, in one of those rare moments, everything seems to be in order in the universe (or at least the small part we are aware of)?

Well, those moments are worthy of giving God thanks and praise, worthy of singing among ourselves and in our hearts.

But those moments are rare, maybe coming once a week, or even once a month or once a year. For some it seems they come once in a lifetime.

What about all the other times? The real shtako times, when the universe is dumping all the rot of garbage in our laps, all over our lives, in every path we try to walk forward on until we slip and slide, collapse and can at best cry for help? What about all the other mediocre times when nothing is good and nothing is really bad, except we just don’t really have a good reason to struggle again to try to make things better, since we’ve tried so many times in the past and nothing changes? What about all the times when we are just about to celebrate a tiny step towards better and someone stomps all over the possibility like someone stomping out a troublesome ant?

Can we really sing among ourselves and to ourselves, filled with thanks and praise for God?

Nope.

Not on our own.

Not at all, Not at all.

But …

…

but by the power of the Spirit in us, given to us by God, even in the slippery, gooey times of shtako, dumped on us by the universe, we can and do give God thanks and praise

for breath

for faith

for love

for hope

that sustains us through it all.

So also today, we sing our thanks and praise to God from our hearts.

Special?

Special Favours

For the Righteous, Really?

Sunday, July 23, 2023

We May See the Obstacles.

God Shows Us the Light

that Gives Life Abundant to All.

Psalm 5:12

For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover them with favour as with a shield.

1 John 5:18

We know that those who are born of God do not sin, but the one who was born of God protects them, and the evil one does not touch them.

Words of Grace For Today

Sometimes it just ain’t so, as Scripture seems to tell us.

The righteous are not blessed with special favours. In fact there are few if any really righteous people.

And all people seem to get the same challenges and shafts, enough to send us to the grave happy to escape this mess.

Except the wealthy, powerful, and privileged seem to get away with ‘blessings’ that are really not theirs to have, stealing the necessities of life from others so that they can live in comfort and privilege they certainly do not deserve, unless evil rewards them so!

Except …

Yes, this is the first EXCEPT:

We do not make ourselves righteous. Only God can do that, and God did do that, in our baptisms, as promised through the life, teaching, healing, death and resurrection of God’s son, Jesus, the Christ.

So the righteous do get special favours, not that we’ve earned them, but that God has chosen us and chosen to favour us, even though we do not deserve anything but death.

As for the evil one touching us … well, we remain sinners and therein the evil one gets us each day, also.

So we live blessed and captured by the evil one, both at the same time, all the time, fully so both.

No wonder life never seems simple, except

except when God has us see clearly, God’s grace, God’s love, God’s mercy, and God’s will for us … to share all the blessings we have with others.

Sharing all we have with others is the foremost special favour God shows us.

Simple.

Simply Wonderful.

Simply Beautiful.

On That Day

But Not This Day?

Saturday, July 22, 2023

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,

and we can breathe, and live, and laugh, and love

also this day.

Beautiful.

Sometimes.

Sometimes God!

Sometimes God Simply Astounds Us.

Friday, July 21, 2023

The World’s Wonders Are Visible In Just A Drop

…

Of Love.

Second Chronicles 5:13-14

… it was the duty of the trumpeters and singers to make themselves heard in unison in praise and thanksgiving to the Lord, and when the song was raised, with trumpets and cymbals and other musical instruments, in praise to the Lord, ‘For he is good, for his steadfast love endures for ever’, the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.

Revelation 21:2-23

And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.

Words of Grace For Today

The dull-drums of ho-hum life are never more persistent then when problems overwhelm us and we see no progress towards improvement. We have no hope, so we struggle to make ourselves get out of bed. We struggle to get on with any task at all. Getting to work is necessary but we barely make it. Getting home is an insurmountable chore, day after day. Especially if we have no home! Finding a reason to sleep is beyond us.

Not every life is this way. Not every day is this way for most of us.

And then God

Then God shows up in awesome splendour!

Then God shows up in awesome splendour and astounds us!

The trumpets and cymbals may play, but God out plays them all, with stars dancing, winds singing, and creatures humming along.

And the light show prickles our skins and pierces our hearts with colours we’d forgotten if ever we’d seen them.

Just a bit

of God

dancing

for us

to break the dull-drums

off of us

and get us back to thankful living.