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.

Words of Grace for Today –

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

Could God

Do Great Wonders

Saturday, June 21, 2025

Here, Now, For Us, For You?

Healing With Fire,

Powerful Fire

Consuming the Chaff.

Psalm 136:3-4

O give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his steadfast love endures forever; who alone does great wonders, for his steadfast love endures forever.

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Acts of the Apostles 8:6-8

The crowds with one accord listened eagerly to what was said by Philip, hearing and seeing the signs that he did, for unclean spirits, crying with loud shrieks, came out of many who were possessed; and many others who were paralyzed or lame were cured. So there was great joy in that city.

Words of Grace for Today –

The greatest wonder of all is that God actually loves us sinful humans!

Accounts of preachers bringing hearts and minds to realize God is not only to be feared but to be loved, in return for God’s steadfast, unending love for us all.

Accounts of illnesses being cured, illnesses that no one thought could be cured.

Accounts of God’s love enduring through people’s darkest times.

Accounts of people responding to God’s Wonders with great joy, spreading like wildfire – the only smoke being from the incense burned in ceremonies of thanks.

Account of …

Well they are account of God curing other people.

How about you! Will God cure you?

Will God ever get around to curing you of a disease that destroys people around you, a disease that is hidden in plain view, a disease that no one thinks can be cured, for you play it to your advantage while it consumes life around you?

Will God?

Yes, God will, whenever we allow God to turn our hearts and minds inside out. Whenever we surrender our lives to be as God created us to be: loving sacrifices, conduits of God’s love for all people. Whenever …

Whenever the Holy Spirit enters our lives and we do not refuse all that the Holy Spirit has to offer.

Whenever.

And then there will be great joy. In the city. In the deserts. In the bush. In the mountains. On the lakes and oceans. There will be great joy across the face of the earth.

Whenever, though, can take more than a lifetime,

which is sad,

no an occasion for joy at all.

Happy Birthday

Death Day

Friday, June 20, 2025

Funeral Day

The sun will set

also on the longest day of the year.

Psalm 25:16

Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.

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Mark 10:47

When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Words of Grace for Today –

It’s the longest daylight day of the year,

here, and most places in the northern hemisphere.

It’s a birthday coming,

A death date going.

Makes for long thoughts to fill the long hours.

Celebrating life, mourning death,

but mostly counting on God’s mercy

and compassion

to save us yet again,

from all that would undo us

or put us, too, six feet under

for the long dirt-nap.

Oh, that honesty and kindness were possible ….

Oh, that Grace would prevail ….

Oh, Lordy, Lordy, have mercy on us all, help us each day

when death is easier to deal with than the opposite of honesty and kindness practised against us so, costing us so much,

but costing those who lack honesty and kindness so much more, the very essence of life itself.

Light our way, heal us all, bring your promises to come true, also in this time and in this place for us, as we celebrate and mourn your own Irene.

Being in the World

Trying to Breathe

Friday, June 6, 2025

Enveloped by the Spirit

Beautiful Sunsets, But!

Hoping the Smoke Will Go and Stay Away,

And Fires, too!

Psalm 125:2

As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people, from this time on and forevermore.

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John 17:15

I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.

Words of Grace for Today –

In Camp there is always more work to do than time, energy, and opportunity. I burn wood for heat. The insulation is very poor, so I call the wood stove, the monster, since it consumes huge amounts of wood each day. All that wood needs to be located as standing dead trees, or at least in the air so they have not soaked up water. Then each log needs to be cut and hauled back to camp and stacked and covered. The camp is completely jerry-rigged, so much of it good for only a year at most. Every spring so much needs to be torn apart and rebuilt. But a few weeks after it’s warm enough to tear things apart, the bugs invade and make the work so much harder, and it often results with mosquitoes drawing blood while I sleep. The time-window to work hard and fast is short.

It’s getting harder as I get older to get enough done. I try to work harder than it feels I can, and work smarter than I ever have before.

With the wildfires and their smoke these past few years, the time that I can work outside is taken from me, unpredictably. It starts right in that time when the weather is warming up and before the bugs really take over.

It comes down to being able to work without getting eaten by mosquitoes and black flies, being able to breathe clean air, being able to work without suffering heat exhaustion.

How thankful I am when, though the smoke closes visibility down to less than 2 km, the solar power is enough to run the small air purifier inside. At least a small area inside provides breathable air. When it gets hot out that small camper can really heat up, too. It takes away my ability to work, to think, to plan how to be smart.

What great relief and joy it is, after days of heavy smoke and heat, when a cooling rain arrives, even when it’s a thunderstorm that delivers slushy ice followed by torrents of water. The cool clear air beckons, come bask in this wonder. It may not last long. Windows and vents are opened, inside is refreshed. I can think again.

Now that is being in the world, the world as it is today, weather extremes of last year becoming the norms of this year,

with all the challenges to life those new extremes dump on us.

Like wildfires galore, like never seen before, and smoke that’ll take your breath (and life) away.

We pray for the people in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, and other places, who have been evacuated, who have lost their homes and their communities, and all the people whose lives have been disrupted by smoke that simply takes away your breath. May God help us all help each other survive these, and all the wildfires and smoke to come.

While fire will do us in in minutes, smoke will do us in bit by bit over days, months and even years, planting seeds for cancer in us.

so in the clear air

we give God thanks.

Thanks for life in this world,

and blessings that life may continue, day after day.

Giving God Praise

Along With All Creation

Thursday, May 22, 2025

At the break of dawn, to the setting of the sun,

And even all through the night of doubt and sorrow.

Psalm 74:21 (see also Psalm 67)

Do not let the downtrodden be put to shame; let the poor and needy praise your name.

Let the nations be glad and sing for joy. (Ps. 67:4)

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Matthew 15:25-28

But the Canaanite woman came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

Words of Grace for Today –

The challenges – all those under a deadline – and all besides the immediate ones to be dealt with – the challenges keep me awake, wondering how to improve the poor results methods I’ve used when I have barely anymore resources or smarts on how to meet the challenges.

And then the morning fire started,

I stood, peering, turning, overwhelmed by the music, wondering …

the geese squawked in a line, not a ‘V’ high overhead, passing in and out of the clouds covering the whole sky, calming the light …

cattle mooed insistently off down and beyond the shores adding a cacophony to the

song birds chirping, singing, swaying the air …

as loons called disturbed by something or was it just they were waking to a new day?

Wondering what great praise the music brings to the Creator, Saviour, Sustainer, 3 in 1.

The light, calm, grey, settled over the fog covered green, green grass in the lower north meadow

giving the orchestra an album cover …

before I decided the fire was probably well started, the ash door could be closed, and I could go in and take the morning medication and crawl back into bed, an opposite standing encore, laying down and letting the music of praise go on and on

and

on.

Healing the music brings, flowing freely, gently over all that is, was, and will be.

So it’s a reset to stand and wonder how

God brings all that music together as the dawn breaks

at 4:40 am.

And how is your morning, your day, and your night going?

Choices, Everyone Has Them

As For Us

Monday, April 21, 2025

We are Returning To God

By the Spirit’s Work In Us We Turn To The Light,

not on our own,

never,

we cannot ever.

First Samuel 7:3

Then Samuel said to all the house of Israel, ‘If you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Astartes from among you. Direct your heart to the Lord, and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.’

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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 –

We all make choices.

God gives us that ability.

To choose to love as God created us, or to turn and serve other gods or godlets or ourselves.

We would like to take the credit for choosing right, for choosing to turn to God, to love God, ourselves, our neighbours, our enemies and all creation,

BUT

WE cannot.

On our own we cannot ever make such choices.

What we can all on our own is turn away from God, away from love, to ways that diminish and extinguish life for us all, and for all creation.

That is the starting point of honesty with ourselves, and our own turning to God: We cannot turn ourselves to God.

But God can.

God does.

The Holy Spirit works in us.

And we are able thus to leave behind our godlets, our false gods, our worship of ourselves.

We are able to turn and trust God as we serve those in need.

Fools All

Thinking They’re Wise

Tuesday, April 15, 2025

The Most Foolish of Follies.

True Wisdom is As Accessible As Beauty,

Everywhere!

Jeremiah 8:9

The wise shall be put to shame, they shall be dismayed and taken; since they have rejected the word of the Lord, what wisdom is in them?

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1 Corinthians 1:20

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

Words of Grace for Today –

The world’s ways spawn many people who think they are wise, who are told by many others they are wise, who’s counsel is taken by many especially those in power.

But they are nothing but mere fools, thinking they know so much, in such good ways, as to bring the world forward to some nebulous goal.

God’s Word brings a different kind of wisdom:

Jesus sees the crowds, climbs the mountain, sits down, and begins to teach. Actually, he begins to turn everything upside down. Or is it right-side-up? All of a sudden, the meek, the poor and the heartbroken are the blessed ones — and our enemies are the ones we should pray for. The Sermon on the Mount is one of the greatest gifts of scripture to humanity; just ask Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Leo Tolstoy. But who is making any use of it today?

In a time, like every other, when an eye for an eye still seems to hold sway, what is this seemingly bizarre logic of Christian non-violence, beginning with Jesus’ counsel to ‘turn the other cheek’*

if not the wisdom of God for us all.

* CBC IDEAS’ Newsletter description of IDEAS’ “Turn the Other Cheek: The Radical Case for Nonviolent Resistance” episode for 14 Oct 2022 and rebroadcast Good Friday 18 April 2025

Turning Back

Being Turned Back

Tuesday, April 8, 2025

God’s Can, Our Can’t

The Beauty Only God Can Give,

A Day Brought To A Wondrous Close,

Is Ours As We Share It With Those Most In Need.

Second Chronicles 30:9

For as you return to the Lord, your kindred and your children will find compassion with their captors, and return to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him.

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Luke 22:32

Jesus spoke to Simon: but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.

Words of Grace for Today –

God is gracious and merciful.

God can save us from ourselves, and from our enemies.

God can bring us to live life abundant

by sharing God’s generous gifts with others in need.

God can!

We cannot!

We cannot save ourselves!

We cannot make our lives better!

We cannot help others!

We cannot even turn back to God.

Only God can turn us back.

Nothing good can happen without God making it happen.

Nothing good happens that is not something we do for others.

Just another day in trying to fix it ourselves and making it worse.

And God saving us from ourselves,

and sending us out to help others.

One God

One Big Mess –

Friday, March 14, 2025

Us

Oh God, Guide Us, From Darkness

to Light.

Zechariah 14:9

And the Lord will become king over all the earth; on that day the Lord will be one and his name one.

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Romans 10:12

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him.

Words of Grace for Today –

God is One.

And we are always one big mess.

Individually and collectively.

Look at the mess in and around us today. It just keeps getting more and more chaotic. The world around us keeps getting fractured into more and more competing fragments of hearts and minds, and bodies.

Yet

God is One.

As we have come to believe, for we cannot know, nor change God.

And only by the work of the Holy Spirit can we know anything true about God.

And this we know: God is generous to all, without distinction.

So open your minds.

Open your hearts.

Open your spirits.

God would have us be God’s own who are as generous to all without distinction.

Shepherding The Flock

Equipped for Grace

Friday 21 February 2025

See the Light of Christ,

Let It Guide Us

To Be God’s Own

Micah 7:14

Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock that belongs to you, which lives alone in a forest in the midst of a garden land.

Ephesians 4:11-12

The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.

Words of Grace For Today

There are lots of callings, all according to the gifts we receive. All given to be shared so that others will have life abundant, knowing God loves them.

So God guides us all.

Let us be guided by the Spirit, this day, too.

For that is who we are, Spirit led saints, God’s voice, feet, and hands in this world.