Wrinkles

in Time

Preciously Lived

Saturday 13 January 2024

We Make Tracks That Disappear,

Just as We Do,

Quickly Forgotten?

Psalm 39:6

Surely everyone goes about like a shadow. Surely for nothing they are in turmoil; they heap up, and do not know who will gather.

2 Corinthians 4:16

So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.

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Words of Grace For Today

…

We can work all we want, as hard as we want, successfully (as we might think), gaining wealth and assets and stocks in the future (financial, power, or fame stocks, it matters not)

but we cannot know if we will be around to take harvest of all our hard work.

As each day passes our bodies (after 30 or so) stop growing and renewing themselves and slowly the process of dying takes over. While it can take 30 or so years before we are forced to notice how much dying has caught up with us, the process marches on, in step with the passing days, until

all that is left is a banana peel next to a grave and we slip away, to be food for the bottom of the food chain critters.

If we are aware of our slipping towards that banana peel moment, we may be somewhat aware of a few things more than most, yet

no one can see the flow of time in all its wonders encompassing galaxies and the tiniest parts of atoms.

We move like shadows against the cave wall, so unable to ‘see’ the full truth of life in this universe.

We live for a few years and then pass away, mere breaths in and then out by the universes billions of years.

Thankfully, amidst all our efforts to make our marks on the timelines that may even so be well forgotten so soon, God gives us purpose,

calling us

to receive great gifts, like breath, air, water, food, clothing, shelter, meaningful labours, and the ability to love and be loved.

All God asks is that we find our purpose to be to share those with others, so that no one passes through their wrinkle of time uncared for, unloved, un-valued as one of God’s creatures.

Another day, a wisp of time,

made real by love, real love.

Guests?

We Are All Guests

Some Desperately Need Homes, NOW!

Friday 12 January 2024

globalnews.ca/news/10213526/edmonton-rowland-road-homeless-encampment/

“Edmonton police officers and city crews could be seen at a homeless encampment in the area of 95th Street and Rowland Road on Tuesday morning [9 January 2024]. Police and cleanup crews were met with resistance from people who live in the camp and from advocates who showed up to support them.” Global News

Psalm 119:19

I live as an alien in the land; do not hide your commandments from me.

[or another translation: I am a guest on earth.]

2 Corinthians 5:1

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

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Words of Grace For Today

…

Just because we know that we have a home waiting for us

after life

even if the earth is destroyed

even if the universe is destroyed,

does not give us an excuse to destroy

life

the earth

this universe!

These are gifts from God

to be treasured.

Life to be lived with integrity, kindness, and mercy for others.

The earth to be used and guarded from destruction so that future generations have a better earth to live on.

The universe to be explored and admired and guarded from destruction of all kinds, because this is our home now

And God said life, the earth, and all the universe are Good.

So we ought to keep it all that way.

Instead of bulldozing tent cities, the last, most secure place for many people who find themselves homeless in the cold of winter and the heat of summer,

How about making a home for them as well,

a good, safe, nurturing home

on earth?!

Hey You!

Ya, You! You know who you are!

Wednesday 10 January 2024

Do We Dare Depart From the Worn Path of Evil,

and Follow the Light of Christ?

Psalm 34:14

Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.

Romans 14:19

Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual edification.

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Words of Grace For Today

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Depart from Evil …

Well to depart one must first be engaged in it, right?

So, you out there, who are engaged in evil, you know who you are, depart from it!

It does you no good!

It destroys other people, as you intend, and even beyond what you intend. And it also destroys the goodness of life for you yourselves, blind to that as you may be. But the Devil has your hearts and souls wrapped up like a hot sauced enchilada. One bite into your way of life and it’s curling sweats, gasping for breath, grabbing for water that does no good, (not even fruit juice can help against the Devil’s hot sauce) and then it’s lights out ….

Oh, you may still be breathing, but it’s the fire of the Devil that consumes everyone around you and yourself.

The only escape is to depart from Evil and seek peace so diligently that it becomes one’s life’s pursuit.

Well, that won’t work either.

The only escape is God’s Grace promised of old, promised to each of us in our baptisms, and demonstrated most clearly in the life, healing, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God’s own Son.

Thankfully, we receive that Grace each morning, noon, and night (and all moments in between!) Therefore we are able to purse peace and what makes for mutual edification, mutual among all people!

What a day God has open for us today?

Dare we step into it?

Knowing

Knowing Power

Or Knowing God?

Tuesday 9 January 2024

Do We See the Power of Machines,

or the Beauty of Nature,

as Gifts from God?

First Samuel 2:10

The Lord’s adversaries shall be shattered; the Most High will thunder in heaven. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king, and exalt the power of his anointed.’

John 1:29

The next day he saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

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Words of Grace For Today

…

It is one thing to recognize power that overcomes one’s adversaries with might, thunder, and violence, and then to attribute that same kind of power to God.

It is a completely other kind of thing to recognize the power that God exercises for us all.

Of course, God could exercise that power might, thunder, and violence, again and again and still not bring us to know peace or a blessed life.

Instead God, sends Jesus, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

Only when we know we are free from the guilt and destruction of our sins are we able to know peace and live a blessed life, not just for ourselves but for all other people as well.

That is the kind of power that God has and exercises,

for us all.

So with that freedom each morning, what will we do?

Epiphany!

New Year’s Resolution Worth Making (an eye opener)

Saturday 6 January 2024

Finding Our Way Through the Brambles of Life,

Alone?

Psalm 25:12

Who are they that fear the Lord? He will teach them the way that they should choose.

Matthew 2:12

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

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Words of Grace For Today

Going a different way.

I suppose New Year’s resolutions are the imagination and statement that one will go a different direction going forward.

The three wise men, being warned in a dream, take a different route on their return home after presenting gifts to the child Jesus.

How many times are we going to try to ‘go it a different way’, forward or back, and it will be merely another futile attempt, a classic demonstration that we are not quite in complete control of our lives, not even when we make choices to become better people.

Thank God,

like the dreams sent to the three wise men, like the Law given to the people new to the Wilderness on their way to the Promised Land, like the Prophets sent to guide the nation Israel and it’s people overrun by more powerful neighbours, like the science that can tell us the consequences of our actions (like burning fossil fuels in the extreme we have and still do, and seemingly cannot stop doing),

God does send us notice and guidance.

But that is never enough.

We need to be convinced that 1. God will forgive us our failures (or else we are frozen by guilt past, present and especially future), 2. God will renew our spirits so that we can possibly do something right and good, and 3. God will help those, who we harm and those of us who are harmed by others, to heal.

A New Year’s Resolution worth making each year:

We will pray: God help us to accept forgiveness and boldly go out to do your work in this precious creation, and help us all heal from all the harm we’ve done and is done to us.

And then go boldly into the days’ ‘breach’, so to speak, bringing God’s grace to bear on others’ lives.

Return,

Repent, Believe the Good News

Friday, December 29, 2023

Our Well Worn Paths, Beckon,

But God Calls For Us To Turn,

And See Anew.

Deuteronomy 30:2-3

… and return to the Lord your God, and you and your children obey him with all your heart and with all your soul, just as I am commanding you today, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you, gathering you again from all the peoples among whom the Lord your God has scattered you.

Mark 1:15

… saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

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Words of Grace For Today

We think all too often that we do not need to repent and return and believe anew the Good News.

But

in this in between time

we remember

humbly

that

we need start each day

with confession,

followed by repentance,

Then returning to God

and believing anew

the Good News,

That

promises us that God is eagerly waiting for us to repent, return and believe anew.

Another day

A new beginning

again.

Boxing Away

Boxing Day Failure

Tuesday, December 26, 2023

One Day In and

Our Memory of Jesus

is More Faded

Than the Morning Moon

Setting

Isaiah 60:16

You shall suck the milk of nations, you shall suck the breasts of kings; and you shall know that I, the Lord, am your Saviour and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.

2 Timothy 1:9b-10

This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

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Words of Grace For Today

Boxing Day

brings to the fore the obvious

necessary

failings of Christmas.

It’s when the commercial xmas takes over, crowds rush to the stores, sales and stock are piled high and wide, and money flows like smoke from a huge, hot wildfire.

Many retail stores turn a profit only because of the huge boost in December, and particularly on Boxing Day. Large stores turn extreme profits on this day, adding to the wealth they collect for stock holders and executives with huge bonuses.

Year after year, we attempt to remember that God is the sole source of our well-being. That God is the only source of a life worth living.

Christ comes as an infant, a sign that God’s true power is not in force or wealth or in possessing or possessions accumulated, but rather in the love that is pure, true, and steadfast.

We gather with small candles lit in the darkness and sing our faith on our sleeves of God’s wonders for us all, and then …

we run to the store the second day of Christmas to spend and get and possess all that we can.

What a huge failure we all are.

Our only rescue is in God’s Grace. God’s forgiveness.

So much for sucking life from the nations of the kings of the world. All that is is poison for our souls.

Pause, amid the hectic, and remember

God’s goodness in the simple, pure gifts of love

that sustain us each day.

Christmas!

Blessed Christmas!

Monday, December 25, 2023

The Light At Noon,

Is Enough To Show Us

God’s Bright Love.

Isaiah 38:14

Like a swallow or a crane I clamour, I moan like a dove. My eyes are weary with looking upwards. O Lord, I am oppressed; be my security!

Luke 2:11

… to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

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Words of Grace For Today

Blessed Christmas,

May we not get lost in our efforts,

and let God’s wonders wash over us,

transforming us

and our views

or this world

with love.

Not to Come Up Short,

Remember!

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Remember How God’s Grace

Lights Up Our Lives and

God’s Whole Creation!

Psalm 103:2-3

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits— who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases,

1 John 4:10

In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

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Words of Grace For Today

As the days get shorter and shorter and the darkness longer and longer, it is time to remember:

remember how hard we’ve all worked to get where we are.

How arduous the journey has been.

How competitors and enemies have taken possibilities and resources from us, leaving us with so much less.

And still we have come out okay, or so we say.

For we could have gotten more if we’d been like our enemies, vicious, uncaring, unscrupulous, deceptive, and downright dishonest about anything and everything that would give them an advantage, damned by the cost to others.

But we did not.

Some would say we suffer now because of it.

They are right of course.

Kindness, honesty, and fairness are always rewarded with suffering, even being cast out and labelled as abominations.

But remember

remember

that we have come so far by God’s Grace alone,

and this day we survive only by Grace,

and living in God’s Grace is more wondrous than all the advantage our enemies have stolen from us, as we have worked to save the most vulnerable from destruction and disaster.

Remember

That we live in the love of God for us, enabled only by that love to be anything good at all, and able to love others, creation, and God above all.

Short days, long nights.

Remember

God’s love shines brightest in the darkness.

Left to Beg

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

We Can Do As Much To Bring the Rains, As We Can to Bring Evil It’s Due.

Psalm 34:16

The face of the Lord is against evildoers, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.

Romans 12:12

Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.

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Words of Grace For Today

Well, would it be so already today, that the remembrance of evildoers were cut off from all creation!

But it is not so, and will not be so, in spite of any and all efforts we may spend and waste toward that end.

We are left to rejoice in hope, be patient in our sufferings, and persevere in our prayers that Jesus will come to judge the living and the dead,

and in the meanwhile we pray as beggars, for we have nothing else, God resuscitate us from the dead, that we might live the few short days we have left on this blessed and condemned earth (blessed by God and condemned by us all.)

Another day, full of challenges, full of blessings, full of waiting and letting God do God’s new things with and to us, and full of our efforts to answer God’s call and sending us into the world to be God’s grace

for all.

Another day.

Another ….