Category: Time of Day

The New Year Winds

Bring In the Blues

Sunday, November 30, 2025

And All Will Wake in the Love and Light

Of Christ,

Like Children Filled With Expectation of

Impossible Things,

for These Impossible Times.

Jeremiah 31:34

No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

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Matthew 21:15-16

But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became angry and said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,
‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies
you have prepared praise for yourself’?”

…

Words of Grace for Today –

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As another New Church Year begins, the wind blows and the colour blue for Advent arrives. The blue of waiting and boredom, the blue of royalty, the blue of despondency, the blue of deep yearning, the blue of hope, the blue of clear skies, the blue of the water into which we are baptized. These are the blues of Advent, four Sundays of preparing, as sombre as our other season of preparation, Lent. Just as Lent is more than giving up things, so Advent is more than waiting for the celebrations to begin.

These are the days (once again and always) to acknowledge

that in our baptisms

God has equipped us to know the Lord, for our sins are forgiven.

And we are freed to share God’s good things with everyone, especially those in need, and to sing God’s praises

unending.

Morning

Satisfaction

Saturday, November 15, 2025

Entering the Day, Loved,

Looking to the Light.

Psalm 90:14

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

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1 Timothy 1:5

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

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Words of Grace for Today –

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How do you start each day?

Sure we all wake up each day. But how do you wake up?

Very few of us are so blessed to wake up simply so, no alarm needed, always on time, refreshed, raring and ready to go.

More of us wake only to an alarm, groggy, unwillingly, needing coffee first before the day becomes real.

Some of us only ever sort of wake up, with or without an alarm, remaining groggy. Even coffee doesn’t help.

…

All that matters less than whether we wake up aware

that God loves us

and gives us

faith strong enough to make blessings pour out on others.

…

Are we up to the tasks?

Trusting

What is Worthy of Trust

Wednesday, November 5, 2025

Will It Be So?

Enjoy, All That Is.

It Will All Change.

Soon.

Psalm 119:6

Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.

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Luke 8:15

But as for that in the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Bear Fruit.

In other words: be good, do right, be just, do good.

Tall order for humans who are caught in being bad, doing wrong, being unjust, doing bad.

Hearing (well we can do that), holding it fast (well that’s more quesionable, our grasp is always wavering), having a good and honest heart (well we all fail that one) and bearing fruit with patient endurance (bomb.)

So how are we to live.

Last week the forecast came out: snow Wednesday evening to Thursday, enough to cover and put to rest thoughts of a snow free fall for a few more weeks.

So into high gear I went, working as many hours as the sun provided light (and a few more) and (more limiting) how much energy my body could exert.

Now if such focus (at expense of lot of other things, mind you) were available for weeks on end I’d have more than enough wood for the winter.

As it is, it’s kind of touch and go. Lots of the wood in the stacks will either burn real fast (it’s about as good as sawdust) and some is so wet it may not burn at all, until after the coldest of winter (which may pull some moisture out of it, hoping).

…

No matter.

The fore cast now calls for freezing rain, followed by sleet and then ice, followed by close to a foot of snow.

All gathering wood from the woods will cease: no traction for the truck and not enough umph any more in the body. So what’s in will have to do, though I’ll add bits and pieces as I can still.

The sun shines. The temperature is a pleasant 3⁰ above. The wind is calm. The sun shines clear.

It’s hard to believe in a few hours the firm grasp of winter’s snow will grab this browned grassy area, and hold it for months to come until Spring springs.

….

Trust.

Trust it will be so, even if it will make things tougher.

But focused me it did. To use the time available for what will not be possible later.

So Trust.

Trust the Word.

For what life is may not be what we hope for,

but God’s Word is that it is GOOD.

In the end it will work out for us,

Jesus has a home waiting for us.

And those we love will be better for it.

Thank God.

Gone Degenerate and Wild

Will Anyone Plead for Us?

Friday, October 10, 2025

Surely Someone?!!

Sunset Glory.

The Colours Are Not Real.

But God’s Blessings Are!

Jeremiah 2:21

Yet I planted you as a choice vine, from the purest stock. How then did you turn degenerate and become a wild vine?

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Romans 11:2

God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?

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Words of Grace for Today –

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If we are at all honest with ourselves we know that we have at least taken the good vineyard God planted in us and chosen to bring in wild weed seed, and degenerative thoughts, words, dreams, and deeds,

to much so that they choke out life in and around us.

…

Elijah, as powerful as he may be, cannot save us.

Thankfully, God has not rejected us and deserted us to ourselves and all the evils we dream up.

Instead

God sent Jesus to save us

and save us he did and does

each day.

…

Thus we may live this day

as the ones God blesses,

all in order that we share those blessings will all.

…

Breathe.

The Spirit

Always in and around us, for life.

Betcha Can’t

Betcha God Can!

Tuesday, October 7, 2025

Thwarts and All Cannot Stop God’s Love

Canoe at 72?

Possible.

Be Saved Yet Again?

For God All Is Possible!

Job 42:2

Job to God: I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

.

Luke 1:37

For nothing will be impossible with God.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Trusting that God will not be stopped, that all things are possible for God, is the first good half of trusting God.

The other half is knowing, from experience (one’s own and those of the God’s people since the beginning of time) that God intends good for us, that God indeed loves us like we can only dimly imagine possible.

That’s seemingly impossible:

loving such miserable sinners as us,

mere blips in time,

vulnerable to

the smallest

bugs,

and so capable of

ugly and hateful destructive things

against the earth that supports life for us all,

towards people different than, and especially those so like, us,

and even to ourselves!

Yet there it is to see: God loves us, forgives us, and does the impossible:

God gives us life, and then renews life for us when we botch it so badly.

Deliver Us!

Send Us

Wednesday, September 24, 2025

to deliver us all.

As We Get to Reflect Christ’s Light

to Strangers and Friends Alike.

Psalm 79:9

Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and forgive our sins, for your name’s sake.

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Luke 24:46-47

Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Psychology professor Gillian Sandstrom was a lonely graduate student in Toronto when she … and a woman who ran a hotdog stand on her way to university around 2007 would wave hello and smile at each other. Their interactions were so small that Sandstrom uses air quotes to even describe them as a “relationship.”

And yet “it really meant something much bigger than it seemed like it should, and it made me feel like I belonged there,” said Sandstrom.

From https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/micro-relationships-and-talking-to-strangers-1.7636486?cmp=newsletter_CBC%20Edmonton_1646_2029080

In the drudgery and loneliness of life God finds us.

Most often God uses another person, intentionally reaching out to us,

and even more often another person unintentionally reaching us

exactly where it hurts so much we barely can describe the pain.

…

Psychology professor Gillian Sandstrom was a lonely graduate student in Toronto when she began what she calls “a tiny, tiny micro-relationship.”

Today there is a whole surge of people recommending that interacting with strangers is exactly what we are missing in the technology driven and ‘stranger danger’ driven world we’ve created.

…

In the drudgery and loneliness of life God finds us

and sends us out to share the Good News, even with strangers.

We need not start, nor should we start by mentioning Jesus’ name or forgiveness or sacrifice and atonement for sins, or even sins.

We start by being the saints God makes us, acknowledging, sharing, addressing, listening, smiling, thanking the stranger for being.

In that interaction God will bless them, and us,

and maybe we will have opportunity to demonstrate and explain that Jesus makes us possible to be

today’s saints

just a bit

for

them.

It Ain’t Easy

And Only One Thing Is For Sure

Wednesday, September 10, 2025

Rising and Setting, All A Wonder.

Smoke Gets In Our Eyes, Noses, and Lungs, Giving Us Beautiful Sunsets.

Nehemiah 9:32

“Now therefore, our God—the great and mighty and awesome God, keeping covenant and steadfast love—do not treat lightly all the hardship that has come upon us, upon our kings, our officials, our priests, our prophets, our ancestors, and all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria until today.

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Romans 8:38-39

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Life is full of crap, hardships, disappointment, loss, great cause for despair and resignation and sorrow, … and death.

The only thing that is for sure, that is good,

– there are so many things that are downright ugly, and evil which one can count on –

is that God loves us, and will not let us go it alone.

So it is,

that the most important good thing in life is 100% guaranteed

to be steady as a rock

for us.

Makes it possible to endure the crap, hardships, disappointment, loss, great cause for despair and resignation and sorrow, … and even death.

And more than enduring,

through it all we live blessed to see great beauty, goodness, and wonders,

each day.

The Learning Curve

Yearning Enough

Sunday, July 13, 2025

To Go Out As The Sun Goes Down

To Pray: God Save Us!

Isaiah 26:9

My soul yearns for you in the night, my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

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Mark 1:35

In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Oh that it were so.

Or so.

So that we could climb the steep curve to learn justice.

And that we could make justice be equal for all, and life be abundant for all, and all be able to enjoy the basics of life, and …

well, that God’s will were on earth as it is in heaven!

We yearn for lots of things,

but our greatest, rightest, most worthy yearnings are that God’s judgments to be applied for all on earth,

for we trust God’s mercy and abounding steadfast love, to forgive when we need it, and when do we not need it!

Yet

so much interferes

each day

so

we seek the calm of the approaching dark to beg God

to come

and save us

also this day

and this night.

Things That Go Bump

In the Night

Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Can Be Deadly

God Knows

And Brings the Light.

Daniel 2:22

He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with him.

.

John 17:25

Jesus prayed: Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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In the cold dark of night

intruders, hollering, laughing, snickering, partying drunk and high,

on an adventure, the think,

enter the meadow, my home, such as it is.

Home Invasion, almost, as threatening.

What they do not know is …

is what is hiding in the cold dark, out there.

…

Skunks meandering after a meal of mice.

Coyotes laying in wait for whatever moves slowly.

Lynx, the hunter predator that silently stalks its prey, including vulnerable humans.

…

Life treats us similarly.

Venture into the cold dark,

into the dark of human sloth, scheming, striving, or revenge,

into the dark of the soul, where past sin accumulates a semi-truck overwhelming load of dark-matter, where regret rules and all hope is lost,

into the dark of the valley of misery, disease, and death,

venture into the cold dark,

and one is likely going to lose it all, entering the vortex that sucks one down, down, down forever …

unless

God sends the light into the cold darkness.

Caught in the darkness? Pray for the light to come, and soon.

Searching??

Or Following

Sunday, June 22, 2025

The Guide Already There!

Seeing

The Wonders, Truth, Hope, Guide, Joy

Right

In Front Of Us

And All Around Us.

Exodus 13:21

The Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night.

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John 5:39

You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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So often we realize we ourselves or others spend our time and energy searching, searching, searching for

searching for truth,

searching for guidance,

searching for love,

searching for joy,

searching for God!

.

Then someone points us to the scriptures that show God has been with us all along, guiding us onward, like fire at night and clouds by day, showing us truth, loving us completely and unconditionally, giving us innumerable causes for joy, being right there with us

through it all.

By Grace alone the Holy Spirit enables us to have clear minds, open hearts, and active hands, always leaning on God.

Each day

clear minds

open hearts

active hands

always leaning on God