Responded With …

Sunday, October 13, 2024

Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press: taken near Cremona, AB sourced 09 Oct 2024 https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/northern-lights?cmp=newsletter_CBC%20Edmonton_1646_1737656

Sometimes

Just Let

Yourself Be

Awestruck

Leviticus 10:3

Then Moses said to Aaron, ‘This is what the Lord meant when he said,
“Through those who are near me I will show myself holy, and before all the people I will be glorified.” ’And Aaron was silent.

Romans 5:1

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

And Aaron was silent.

What a response to such a marvellous statement:

Through those who are near me I will show myself holy, and before all the people I will be glorified.

Hearing good news we usually respond with something loud, a whooop, a full bodied laugh, a noisy smile, a word of thanks, a statement of wonder, a word of thanks.

But, the mouth piece for Moses who does not know how to speak, Aaron, chooses instead of words (which is his specialty)

silence.

S I L E N C E

…

What would it be like if all people, knowing

since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ

responded – instead of with

all the foolishness and spins and lies and conspiracy theories and hatred and, and, and, which trouble our world so much –

What if we all responded

with silence?

…

What’s that you say?

…

S I L E N C E

…

awestruck

S I L E N C E

Forward?

Friday, October 11, 2024

Even as the sun sets,

God renews life again,

and again,

for us

with forgiveness.

Psalm 130:4

But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.

Luke 23:34

Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’ And they cast lots to divide his clothing.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

Any old mean son of a … erm, a gun, can hold a grudge and seek revenge.

Pretty much any person can be that mean, no old or son qualities needed.

But

to forgive.

Now that takes courage, strength, and wisdom beyond normal.

Thankfully (mentioning also it is Thanksgiving weekend) God is not a God of grudges and revenge. Else we’d all be doomed.

Thankfully (it’s that weekend, eh?) God is a God of steadfast love and forgiveness.

We have God’s promise that God will forgive us our sins, all of them, every last one of them, even the really, really evil and ‘unforgivable’ ones.

All we have to do to be forgiven is … well, nothing.

We just get to acknowledge that we are forgiven, and get on living as forgiven people, not perfect people, not evil people, but forgiven people. That’s a humble way to move through life.

Of course,

God also forgives our enemies.

You know, the one’s Karma forgot about, that list that we each keep, those names and events that burn a hole in our pockets, or rather in our hearts, minds, and spirits.

And since God forgives us and them, we get to

– see that, it’s not we have to, it’s we get to, we are privileged to, we are honoured by the Holy Spirit giving us the ability to –

we get to forgive our enemies and all the people who would and have done us harm.

Now that

is quite a way to live,

Quite a marvellous, miraculous, life-energizing, peaceful way to live.

And since we get to live that way,

We also get to revere God who makes it possible.

Just saying,

maybe revering God and giving God thanks

outta be part of our Thanksgiving weekend,

and every day that ends with ‘y’, eh.

Maybe even today,

especially the today

of each morning.

In a Word

Monday, September 30, 2024

Like the Clouds Pouring to the Sunset-Horizon,

So People Have Died Unnecessary and Early Deaths

at Our Hands.

Second Samuel 2:26

Then Abner called to Joab, ‘Is the sword to keep devouring for ever? Do you not know that the end will be bitter? How long will it be before you order your people to turn from the pursuit of their kinsmen?’

Matthew 26:52

Then Jesus said to him, ‘Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

As Jesus and many others have said:

‘Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.’

But that is not the problem for most people.

The problem is that those who live by the sword

have helped thousands of millions to their unnecessary and early deaths.

The truth is

that there are lots of ways we help others to their unnecessary and early deaths,

starting with ignorance and apathy,

a cruel or unthinking word,

an action to ‘protect our interests’

while decimating others’ interests and lives directly.

…

How not to particiapate in this popular project?

Compassion.

Thoughtfulness.

Prayer.

All that Jesus directed us to with the greatest command:

to love our neighbour as ourselves.

…

And how will we do that today,

in a new

and newly effective way?

…

That is every day’s challenge, now isn’t it!

Words, Words, Words

Destructive, Precious Words?

Saturday, September 28, 2024

Words can point us to the Light,

the Light destroys

and gives LIFE!

Psalm 19:14

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Luke 2:19

But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

Words,

Words.

It’s just words, right?

Words given weight over our lives,

when there is no such need.

It’s just words, right?!

Right!

…

Except –

What we say and write can be more powerful than the worst weapons on earth, or the best physicians with the best medicines and procedures.

Words

reflect the thoughts and hearts of us all,

of us few,

of us too few, who actually know how to think clearly.

What we say and write can be most powerful.

Sure –

Words can destroy.

And then –

Words can heal a broken heart.

Words can heal a broken mind.

May we find the words that give life amidst all the evil that permeates creation and us.

Everything

Is Good!? NOT AT ALL!

Friday, September 27, 2024

Some Things, Some Moments, Some People,

Maybe,

But Everything is Good?!?

Com’on, Get Real!

Isaiah 65:18

But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.

1 Timothy 4:4-5

For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by God’s word and by prayer.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

Who can say that everything is good!?

Evil abounds.

Rottenness corrupts even the strongest parts of creation, and people most of all.

(Maybe we are the weakest part of creation?)

So how can all be good?

Except neither writer says everything is good.

Both say that what God creates is good.

Then we go and mess it up, making it evil.

So how to not do that?

Probably, given all that is written and experienced through the ages, that is not possible.

Yet today we have the possibility of giving God thanks,

and in giving thanks we help somethings retain their goodness that God created,

even the goodness that God created in us.

So give thanks

for All that God

has created good!

Before ‘Yet’

And ‘Job answered’

Friday, September 20, 2024

What Came Before All This?

Summer?

Nighttime?

Injustice?

Hope?

Job 9:1-9

Then Job answered:
‘Indeed I know that this is so; but how can a mortal be just before God?
If one wished to contend with him, one could not answer him once in a thousand.
He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength—who has resisted him, and succeeded?—
he who removes mountains, and they do not know it, when he overturns them in his anger;
who shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble;
who commands the sun, and it does not rise; who seals up the stars;
who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the Sea;
who made the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the chambers of the south …?

1 Corinthians 8:6

… yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

There’s something before ‘yet’.

Is it important?

There was something before Job answered.

Is it important?

Context sometimes is everything.

Our context is simple to adduce:

God created everything and can do anything and everything.

We are creatures who live a short time, often suffering greatly,

even at our best when we love, it always ends in suffering the loss of love

or our life.

How can we pretend to take on God?

Yet

(there it is again)

Yet, we do so often,

So often to make good through and through fools of us,

like the ant that tries to escape from the anteater’s tongue.

Or like the mouse that tries to free itself from the trap.

Or the young bird that tries to fly through a window.

Or a person who tries to speak as if God.

What will we do today?

Live humble lives before our Creator?

Live futile lives trying to be our own godlets?

Who

Will Rescue Us?

Monday, September 16, 2024

And The Skies Run Red With Their Blood,

As God Lets Evil

Take Itself To It’s Own Bloody Death?

Isaiah 50:7

The Lord God helps me;
therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame

Matthew 14:30

But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

The OT reading for this Sunday Jeremiah 11:18-20 overlaps in theme with this verse:

It was the Lord who made it known to me, and I knew;
then you showed me their evil deeds.
But I was like a gentle lamb
led to the slaughter.
And I did not know it was against me
that they devised schemes, saying,
“Let us destroy the tree with its fruit,
let us cut him off from the land of the living,
so that his name will no longer be remembered!”
But you, O Lord of hosts, who judge righteously,
who try the heart and the mind,
let me see your retribution upon them,
for to you I have committed my cause.

…

So it is time to ask:

And who is out to get you?

By guile and deceit

in secret

and hidden ways

so that those uninitiated to such devious ways will not see or suspect or ever know

of the evil that is worked against you?

Oh, you say, there is no such effort made against me.

But then how would you know?

And what is all this about polarization of peoples, infiltration of social media to effect election outcomes, hate created fear motivating voters, world domination by fascist dictators, war hungry leaders hiding in war their failing support at home, the economy played for the benefit of the already rich to get richer and the already poor to get poorer (if there is such a thing for many) and for the middle class to sink, sink, sink closer to poverty?

Are these not already a few powerful manipulating what can be to send us closer to our deaths?

Are you paying attention?

…

But God is with us. And we will see our enemies destroy themselves.

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.’

Hemmed In

On All Sides

Tuesday, September 3, 2024

Finding the Path Home?

Out There Somewhere?

Psalm 139:5

You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

Acts of the Apostles 17:27-28

so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said, “For we too are his offspring.”

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

Trying to escape from the Wildernesses

of poverty

of hunger

of harassment

of threats

of apathy

of depression

of other people’s wildernesses

of the desert of a parched soul;

We’ve all tried at one time or another to escape

or at least minimize the parched heat, or the soppy wet floods, or the thunder, lightening, and wind storms of an angry planet or soul that seems out to do us in.

While we may try on our own, in real desperation, as even the least of believers to seek God,

yet God is not to be found, for God is before us, behind us, above us, under us, and to each side of us, walking with us through all the deserts and wildernesses that we traverse.

For we are God’s children, also this day, with all it’s challenges and things to be rightfully feared.

No other solution is needed, and we do not escape at all. God gives us what it takes to make it through, for even if death finds us, and takes us, there God gathers us in

to a home like none we have yet known. Home.

Be nice to have a home even in the wilderness, or maybe especially in the wilderness, eh?!

Fresh Start?

Ailments No More?

Monday, September 2, 2024

Rain Drops Clear The Air,

For a New Day.

Psalm 147:3

He heals the broken-hearted, and binds up their wounds.

1 Peter 2:24

He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

It is an odd, illogical thought, that we can be healed because someone else is wounded. That is the illogic of sacrifice. It is the illogic behind living organ donors (like kidney transplant donors).

The obvious truth is that we all need and want to be healed. Our physical ailments may come to mind first. Old people know ailments of many kinds that seem to multiply as the years pass. Far too many younger people suffer the cruel, random selection of genetic, developmental, and accidental ailments. While medicine makes advances each year, we still cannot heal all these ailments. We simply suffer them.

The most severe, and life-robbing, ailments we suffer are not the physical ones. They are our psychological and spiritual wounds and ailments that reek havoc in our lives, and the lives of many around us. The ‘science’ to heal us of these ailments, or at least mitigate their disruption to our lives makes advances to be sure, but the progress is minuscule for those who suffer.

How can God promise to heal the broken-hearted, and bind up their wounds.

Or to heal us by his wounds?

Yet both the Psalmist and the writer of 1 Peter don’t make that promise. They state it as an accomplished deed.

Oh, to live knowing our broken hearts are healed, and our wounds have been bound, that we have been completely healed so profoundly that it has cost someone else his life.

By faith we know exactly these things to be

how, since our baptisms,

we start each day,

each encounter

each challenge.

Good Morning!

A Fresh Start, Again!

Wounds and sins have no power over us.