Category: Weather

Trying to Get Free

From What? From Whom?

Friday, June 27, 2025

To What? To Whom?

Made for this!

Living in the fog,

seeing the many woven webs

of humans, too.

First Samuel 2:6

The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up.

.

Romans 14:8

If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

So much is wasted in life trying to get free from things and people

and especially God!

The real challenge and the greatest waste is trying to be free for something or for someone,

while trying to be free from God.

But we were made to be free

from everything

except God.

We were created to be slaves to God,

and Jesus made it plain:

we are given life to give life to others.

Thus slaves to God

we are servants to one another.

Simple math.

Simple ways.

…

And the most fought against of all the wasted human efforts through all time.

What’s wasting your day away today? The same old same old?

Of have you surrendered

to Jesus’ Way

and

God’s unconditional love?

Give it a go

or rather a surrender

and life will never be the same

and

life will be oh so good,

but never easy.

Pounding, Knocking

Wakey Wakey

Monday, June 23, 2025

It’s The Rain!

There’s a Long Road Ahead,

Just for Today!

Psalm 145:9

The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.

.

Romans 8:21

… the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

So you thought you could sleep in because no one really depends on you today?

Or just because you were going to get away with it again?

Not so fast.

Whether it’s the co-worker,

the boss,

the clients,

the neighbours,

or even just the weather

or (watch out for this one!)

Maybe it’s the Holy Spirit,

Someone is counting on you getting on the road, getting to the destination, the goal for today and getting done what needs getting done,

and if there’s nothing pressing, then to get around to that ever growing backlog of things that ought to be done sooner than later,

and now it’s later

enough.

So Hit the Road Jack!

Swing into action.

Rain or Shine.

Honesty and Kindness

Always need some doing in many a creative ways

for those least deserving,

and for the regulars

that count on your love

or at least God’s love

which you are supposed to be the agent of.

So

…

the most honest and most kind thing is to yell again

GET YOUR BUTT MOVING

before it’s too late,

and things go into the can real quick.

Honest and kind because then

… well then, it’s a whole other kind of mess you need to clean up.

So

knock

knock

the rain is pounding

on your roof.

Come out, come out wherever you are

and start

reflecting the light given you at baptism.

Small task it is not!

Just know that God is good to you, no matter what, look at nature around you, as God sets it free from us, and it reflects the goodness God created it to be.

.

…

.

(What!?

Just some motivational words, since I slept in after staying up late.

What are you looking at? You’ve done it, too!)

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.

.

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.

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.

.

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.

From On High –

God’s Own

Wednesday, June 4, 2025

and Chills

Dropping Ice On the Dandelions.

As easy as saving some souls

for God.

Psalm 89:27

I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.

.

Matthew 6:11

Give us this day our daily bread.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

A cool

T-storm

Dumps

Ice-snow

on the grass and camp.

…

Then hard & short rain

Pounds down.

…

As

I,

Already chilled,

start a fire in the wood stove.

…

What a wonder after

Heat & Smoke

enough to put an end to all work and all goodness

this last week!

…

Temperature

drops from 17⁰ to 8⁰ in minutes.

…

When God drops from on high

down into our world, there’s no telling what wonders will meet us.

…

Jesus came into the world to save it

and us.

…

Greatest wonder ever.

Wonder how God can save even the worst of us.

But then that’s like dropping the temperature in us from evil to good in a few minutes.

Piece of cake,

Or Daily Bread for us all.

Trust God’s work, relax, no worries, chill out.

God’s got this.

A Child To the Barren

Brings Promises to Give the Child Up.

Sunday, June 1, 2025

Is that right?

Is that us?

Looking away,

for something better

than God’s Blessings?

First Samuel 1:11

She made this vow: “O Lord of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death. He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants, and no razor shall touch his head.”

.

Luke 1:57-58

Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. Her neighbours and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

God’s Grace Flows to all people, though it seems to flow to some more than others.

So when women of old were childless, bearing children the utmost mark of being blessed (things have changed, eh?), it was often that women, thirsty for recognition by their families and communities, would promise all sorts of things to God if God would give them a son (and sons were the only children that seem to mark the mother as blessed, too – and that’s certainly changed, thankfully!)

The most extreme sacrifice would be to give up the child so that the child would serve God his life-long.

Something seems off here.

Did the woman want a son to raise and love?

Or did the woman making such a promise want first of all to appear to be blessed in other people’s eyes, in their husband’s eyes? The son then was really not important?

Or was it the ultimate sacrifice, offered in exchange for being blessed?

Does God work that way?

If I sacrifice what I want most will God give it to me so I can give it away?

Or

is it not that God already gives us blessings upon blessings and asks in return that we give them away to other people to enjoy the blessings, and thus learn to give God thanks?!

Was not John a great gift to Elizabeth, in her late years? And was John not dedicated to serving God, and did not John lose his life in that service? And did not John live a blessed life, if a difficult life?

Being blessed is certainly no guarantee of an easy life.

It would, according to biblical accounts, be exactly the opposite. Being blessed is a guarantee that challenges, trials, and suffering will come our way.

So do you want to be blessed this day?

Of course, since the other alternative is to be cursed, which may be an easy life, but a useless life.

Which is really not living at all.

So we pray:

Bless us God, each day.

Walk with us through the challenges ahead.

Breath

Smoke

Saturday, May 31, 2025

Justice

Smoke Obscures Everything Good,

From Here

to The Furthest Shore

Psalm 112:5

It is well with those who deal generously and lend, who conduct their affairs with justice.

.

1 Timothy 6:18-19

They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

I woke to smoke that took my breath away, so thick and acrid did it dig into my soul.

I sought desperately for that breath that would take that smoke away.

And I could not find it

for hours.

So it is when others deal injustice to us,

filling courts and communities with lies about us.

Injustice is like smoke that takes our breath and life away, grinding us to desperately seek that truth that will take away the injustice and bring us freedom to live

and breathe

and work

and be at peace

with life.

So destructive is injustice.

So destructive are the lies.

So good are the truths that support good deeds, giving life

that is really life

to all.

Righteous

Suffering

Friday, May 30, 2025

Rejoicing

Hot Hot

or

Cold Cold

The Way is Always Challenging

Psalm 5:12

For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover them with favour as with a shield.

.

Acts of the Apostles 5:41-42

As they left the council, they rejoiced that they were considered worthy to suffer dishonour for the sake of the name. And every day in the temple and at home they did not cease to teach and proclaim Jesus as the Messiah.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

The Way of following Jesus, of going where God sends us and how the Holy Spirit guides us, with righteousness, wonder, and grace for all people,

The Way of following Jesus is never without risks and challenges.

Only when we trust that God shields us from final death, giving us new life each day, and everlasting life after death itself, can we proceed confidently into and through each day, meeting all challenges as Jesus would have us,

with kindness and honesty,

with music and dance,

with joy,

even

when

it’s

tough

going

forward.

The One And Only

Rock Saves Us

Tuesday, May 27, 2025

Again

On a Hot, 30⁰C+ Day, The Snow Looks Great!

On Any Day Of Challenges,

God’s Grace Welcomes Us In,

to a cool, life-giving hope.

Psalm 18:31

For who is God except the Lord? And who is a rock besides our God?

.

2 Corinthians 1:9-10

Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death so that we would rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He who rescued us from so deadly a peril will continue to rescue us; on him we have set our hope that he will rescue us again

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

Since we keep on sinning in old and rarely in new ways, God keeps saving us, again and again.

We have reason to give God thanks many times each day.

We have reason to hope to a future formed by God, and not ruined by those who try so hard these days (as each day has had many someones ready to ruin it).

That hope does not crumble, like shale.

Rather God gives us hope that is as solid as granite or marble, even more sure than matter existing in the universe, more sure than we can wrap our hearts and minds around.

Try squeezing a piece of granite or marble.

And then trust God to be more solidly for us, for us all.

Blameless, Pure And Holy

Not Quite

Tuesday, March 25, 2025

Not at all!

not even the snow is perfect, all crumpled up with chunks

Genesis 6:9

These are the descendants of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God.

.

1 Peter 1:15

Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct;

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

Ah to be blameless, pure and holy,

but that would be to be not human.

So how was Noah attributed with being blameless.

How can the writer of 1 Peter call us to be holy as Jesus is holy?

Wishful thinking,

the kind that so many people have latched on to, chasing an unreachable dream,

and then using that dream to condemn others so the condemner appears (to themselves anyway) to be better than the condemned,

when

all are equally sinful in God’s eyes, far from pure, holy, or blameless.

…

Yet Jesus offers us the gifts of being reckoned by God as he was: pure, holy, or blameless,

which is not our record, but Jesus’.

Nothing to brag about or be proud of, just

a whole lot of humility and thanks for that,

again,

always.