Cries and Truth

We’re all in trouble

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

blessed as Jesus walks with us

Saying We Will Be Saved From All Trouble

Is Like Saying

The Badlands are Flat!

Psalm 34:7

This poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord, and was saved from every trouble.

Matthew 11:28

Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

If I tell you I’m hungry

You’ll tell me to eat.

If I tell you I’m tired

You’ll tell me to sleep.

If I tell you I’m sick

you’ll tell me to see a doctor.

If I’m sick and tired of being hungry even after I eat

I can’t tell you because

You’d tell me to eat better, sleep more, see a doctor, and get a psyche-eval.

So I’m OK, OK? I’m just fine!

It’s the world’s that going to hell in a hand basket

again.

But me, I’m just fine. Don’t pay me no mind.

…

And I just know it’s like that for nearly everyone else who is alive. It’s the state of being human and sinful.

We’re all in the same boat.

Well in the same ocean. Some in cruise ships and yachts, others in submarines and sea going sailboats, but most of us are in dinghies not meant for the sea, hanging on to flotsam, or just swimming with or without life jackets, hoping the sharks stay away.

…

Now Jesus, Jesus knows I’m how I am which is not OK or fine, and He pays me great mind, calling to me, weary and burdened as I am, to come and find rest.

‘course I don’t know about that other fella, who cried to God and God saved ‘em from all trouble. Now that sounds like a dream or a wish, and there ain’t no way that’s true.

We’s all got troubles, and no angel gonna save us from ‘em.

But Jesus walks through ‘em with us. Yes he does.

And for that we’s ever grateful, yes sir. We’s all greateful to the bottom of our hearts.

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.’

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.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

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.

Singing and Saying

To Be Known and Loved

Sunday, March 23, 2025

By God – Nothing Is Greater.

See the Light? The Light Sees You!

Psalm 59:17

O my strength, I will sing praises to you, for you, O God, are my fortress, the God who shows me steadfast love.

Acts of the Apostles 26:22

To this day I have had help from God, and so I stand here, testifying to both small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would take place:…

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

We all have a basic need to be seen, known, and loved for who we are, just as we are, warts and all.

When we accept that God sees, knows and loves us, just as we are

Then life becomes very interesting, very challenging, very rooted, and wildly unpredictable,

for God not only sees, knows and loves us, but also

sends us

to engage all kinds of people, to see them, know them, and to love them as God does.

Engaging with others does change us at our roots, and gives us a little better view to God’s perspective on us (all people), our lives, on this planet, and on the entire universe.

Singing and Saying what the prophets and Moses did …

Singing and Saying what God does in the past, today, and promises to do in the future …

Singing and Saying like that reflects that when we engage with others, actually keeping silent and listening intently, there is nothing predictable about where, how, and why God will take us today and all our tomorrows,

only that God’s love will always be there, as God walks right beside us into and through it all.

Yep, that brings us to Singing and Saying, all day and all night long.

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.

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.

…

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.

The Lines

Of Sorrow and Mercy

Monday, March 17, 2025

Are so long

Across the face of all creation.

Micah 7:18

Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of your possession? He does not retain his anger for ever, because he delights in showing clemency.

Luke 1:54

He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy,

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

When God hides from us, there is nothing more than despair left.

Joy has taken wing, along with hope,

and the wear and tear of life eats away at our hearts, minds, and strength until nothing is left, except

a prayer of desperation.

Phillip John Hanseroth wrote it in The Story for us all.

All of these lines across my face

Tell you the story of who I am

So many stories of where I’ve been

And how I got to where I am

But these stories don’t mean anything

When you’ve got no one to tell them to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP0BZ9P4gdA

…

Then a year ago, @Malindams, told her story commenting under one of Brandi Carlile’s renditions of The Story: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8pQLtHTPaI)

“All of these lines across my face, tell you the story of who I am, so many stories of where I’ve been and how I got to where I am”.

These words saved me during many rounds of chemo and radiation. I was diagnosed with breast cancer when I had a kindergartener and a 4th grader. My boys were so young, I told my oncology team, bring it on, I can take it…I just have [to] live long enough to get them through high school.

The chemo took it’s toll and aged me so much faster than my friends, it was hard to deal with. Now I know the lines across my face tell the story of where I’ve been. 15 years out and one boy has graduated from college and one who is a junior…both are thriving and I celebrate life every day.

Thank you, Brandi for putting into words, what I could not.

So it is with many of us, and for me:

The grief engulfed us and took us down, as God hid from us,

or so it seemed.

What then, but to take the advice

what can you do when you find yourself in hell, day after day?

Just keep going.

And on the other side of the dark dark blue blues, there are the days of brilliant sunshine, and blessings that were there all along,

just hidden in the grief,

holding life out in all it’s wonder for us to be grateful for.

…

so we thank everyone who had words to help us keep going through the hell.

It’s still there, it never goes away,

but the promises are truer now than before,

for there is no better way to know there is light,

than to see it from the darkest moments of the darkest wildernesses.

…

Thanks to all those who had the honest words

of God’s love for us all along…

You see the smile that’s on my mouth

It’s hiding the words that don’t come out

And all of my friends who think that I’m blessed

They don’t know my head is a mess

No, they don’t know who I really am

And they don’t know what I’ve been through like you do

And I was made for you.

Special thanks to the few who were always there …

And God, full of mercy and steadfast love, who sent them …

For whom we were made.

Finding God

Or?

Friday 28 February 2025

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_Everest_as_seen_from_Drukair2_PLW_edit_Cropped.jpg

Mt. Everest, The Highest Place On Earth

But Not The Closest To God!

Psalm 66:12

You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.

2 Corinthians 4:9-10

… persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

When I was much younger, I had two older friends, a married couple, who kept suffering the same loss, over and over again. They lost their glasses. I experienced their searches a few times before I realized that most often they had their glasses in a pocket or even on their head.

That’s us when we search for God. God is always with us, night and day, though God doesn’t allow our expectations to determine how God is with us, or how we can know God is there. We certainly don’t need to go find God, not even on a mountaintop, though sometimes after being on the summit we see life and God and all God’s wonders more clearly. We get a bit closer to God’s view of us.

No matter where we end up in life, through fire and water, persecutions and exiles, God is always with us, giving us the abilities to show Christ through our hardships

and our joys.

Solitude or Not

Blessed

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Is This The Promise or

The Curse,

The Bleak or

the Peaceful

Solitude?

Psalm 18:49-50

For this I will extol you, O Lord, among the nations, and sing praises to your name. Great triumphs he gives to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his descendants for ever.

Revelation 15:4

Lord, who will not fear and glorify your name? For you alone are holy.
All nations will come and worship before you, for your judgments have been revealed.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

“These words and mysteriously similar paraphrases of them have been found in the writings of 50 hermits, spanning time from years before Christ, likely around the times of Jeremiah and Isaiah, all the way through to these recent years. And even more mysteriously from the writings of a hermit found just last year, that seem (according to the experts who date paper, ink, and other things) to be from 500 years in the future:

I never chose to become a hermit. It’s just after the betrayal and suffering caused by ones who professed to love me, this is where I ended up. Alone. It’s not that I don’t like the solitude. It is holy, sacred. It feeds me well as God provides in many and various ways. Most remarkably I’ve come to know that I am never alone, really. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit never part from me, walking through each challenge of surviving as I age, each provocation and threat by people who do not understand solitude as a gift or who believe the lies spread far and wide by my betrayers.

I have learned to be thankful for the little things: Clean air. Fresh water. Simple food. Clothing. Protection from the elements. Labour that is purposeful even though I seldom see any results. Most of all that there are a few people (very few really) who I still can safely love, who love me, with whom I communicate.”

When we know that God shows steadfast love toward us, then alone or in the multitudes, we can find peace, and

know that God walks with us

each day.

…

Where is God today for you?

Do you see, taste, smell, hear, and sense God walking right there …?

Thanks

For the flow?

Sunday, September 15, 2024

Welcome to Paradise,

is it the Wilderness?

Deuteronomy 6:10-12

When the Lord your God has brought you into the land that he swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—a land with fine, large cities that you did not build, houses filled with all sorts of goods that you did not fill, hewn cisterns that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and when you have eaten your fill, take care that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

John 6:32

Then Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

Poverty is a wonderful lesson in humility,

or so they say,

Those who are not poor.

Thankfully the food bank is a steady and good supply of most basic foods and some others,

actually some very odd food that I’d never try or eat if I didn’t get them there.

Take Cookies and Cream Oatmeal.

A treat in a breakfast food.

Well I suppose they’ve made and sold lots of sugar cereals for decades, so why not this, too?

With

all

this

food

I easily forget

how hard it was

before

the food bank.

Not that I forget (life is too hard) how much God provides.

Every morning I thank God for everything that keeps me alive, and it’s more than just enough.

Lately there’s been so much meaningful labour

it’s hard to keep up

as winter is coming

and autumn is not that long

And there’s still wood to start collecting.

But,

little by little

a thing here and a thing there gets done

and

I start to think

I may even be ready, for winter,

‘God willing and the creek nor rising’.

So today

first the thanks,

then the celebration,

then the meal

then

flat out work

if the rain is not too much or

the smoke too thick.

And how is your day shaped? With thanks, remembering who supplies all that keeps you alive, celebration, meal, and work?

Or is it something else.

Whatever, may it be blessed,

and may you remember who blesses it,

even if you live in the land ‘flowing with milk and honey.’

Making Way

Through uncharted, turbulent waters

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Where Will Our Journeys End?

Buried in Cold Graves?

Or …?

Isaiah 43:16

Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters,

John 14:3-4

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

We try to make our way through the days ahead, not knowing what will come for sure, for the future, though it repeats the past often, is not at all predictable, not at all.

Only God can part the waters of the Red Sea for the rag-tag group running for their lives from Pharaoh’s army. Only God can part the water of the future’s chaos to show us the greatest and only security there is for our lives: that God walks with us into each new day. God walks right there along side us through all the frightful unknowns and challenges, the temptations and our failings, and the offering of joys and small triumphs. Hearing God’s footfalls beside us give us courage like none other.

For we know, that, no matter how circuitous and daunting our paths may turn out to be, the end of our journey will be at home with Jesus.

Smarts

Or Smart-ss, or rather Wisdom?

Thursday, March 21, 2024

Finding Our Way,

Following the Path of …?

Daniel 2:21

He changes times and seasons, deposes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.

1 Corinthians 1:30-31

He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

Oh, we try!

We try to be as smart as we can, but

the results are often that we are just pretending, having missed the boat on wisdom and instead having jumped aboard the ship of fools.

God, by comparison to our futile efforts, gives some great capacity for knowledge and others for wisdom. Seldom do the two overlap, but when they do …

Then we enjoy pearls of wisdom that are precious, and never do they call attention to the one so gifted, but rather point to the giver of everything, especially wisdom, – God our Creator, Saviour, and Sustainer.

To give God thanks, pointing to all things evil and life ending for others, is a sign of true evil and foolishness.

To give God thanks, and point to God for all things good, this is a sign of true wisdom.

Let us pray today we may be gathered in by the Holy Spirit in the second category, able to share all we are and have with those in need.