Clear, Foggy

Morning

Saturday, October 12, 2024

After It Has Lifted Considerably,

The Fog Remains on the Lake.

Is That Clear?

Genesis 50:20

Joseph said to his brothers: Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.

Luke 6:28

Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

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Words of Grace For Today

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I woke to a clear morning,

early before the sun rose

in the twilight of dawn

in the thick fog

holding visibility to less than a quarter kilometre.

How can this be, you rightfully ask.

Take Joseph’s words to his brothers: you intended to do me harm, but God made something good of it, preserving our lives and helping us grow to a great and numerous people.

If they hadn’t thrown in the pit, and then sold him into slavery, where he served, was falsely accused by the wife of his master, and finally freed by Pharaoh for his wisdom and set as Pharaoh’s right hand, in charge of saving grain to prepare for the 7 year famine to come,

which would have wiped out his family back home,

then Joseph would not have been in a position to save his family.

Things are never just what they seem to be.

Most often things are very complicated, an interwoven set of events, actors, sufferers, and results.

Jesus knows this full well. Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

Why?

Because things are never so simple.

The person who curses you today, when blessed may well be the person who saves you on the most challenging day of your life.

But even before that, cursing another person costs the person cursing as much as, if not more than, the person being cursed.

So how is this a clear morning in the soup of thick fog?

It’s complicated and true.

After a very short night’s sleep the night before last, leaving me in a brain fog of exhaustion yesterday, while I had to deal with a vehicle that just did not want to run,

last night I slept long and fast, a full 8.5 hours plus.

So the brain fog is gone. I see, think, hear clearly. I can work without risking making costly mistakes. It’s a wonderful recovery, made so marked by the comparison with how difficult yesterday was.

The fog shrouding the lake and touching even the trees across the meadow may limit visibility, but I need not see far to know what I see actually is what I can deal with, and must deal with.

Of course, I’m not driving or flying, in which case what you don’t see in the distance can literally knock you about until you are silly or never going see, hear, or smell anything ever again.

Today I am thankful (it is that weekend after all) that it is a crystal clear morning, shrouded in a wonderful hug of fog.

What has God done lately to use evil intentions, aimed at you, in order to bring about greater good? What can you be unexpectedly thankful for this morning?

Learning

As We’re Made To

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

Learning About Shadows In The Snow,

We Can Do.

About God’s Commandments,

Not.

Psalm 119:73

Your hands have made and fashioned me; give me understanding that I may learn your commandments.

2 Thessalonians 2:15

So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter.

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Words of Grace For Today

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To learn God’s commandments,

The God that made and fashioned us,

it not

merely to read the commandments, and perhaps memorize them, and then be able to regurgitate them for another person.

To learn God’s commandments, the commandments of the God who create us,

is to

know them by heart, mind and soul

so that, like muscle memory,

they become second nature

to our dealings with others

and all we do

as we traverse

the life that God created us to live.

Holding to traditions may seem to help,

but

to actually learn God’s commandments

is something so far beyond anything

we are capable of,

so that we must recognize

only as the Holy Spirit makes us able

can we learn (know, and do, and have embedded in our being)

anything about God

and anything good.

So we pray each day:

with thanks for everything that keeps us alive,

for forgiveness for all our sins,

and that we may do what is good and what is necessary,

which is to trust that the Holy Spirit will be with us through it all,

giving us what we need

to do what is good and necessary each day,

even today.

Especially today.

Oh! Lordy, Lordy!

Save Us from Stupidity and Senselessness

Sunday, September 8, 2024

Which Is Less Senseless,

Smoke from Careless Fires

Intentional Fires?

Psalm 119:66

Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments.

2 Timothy 2:23

Have nothing to do with stupid and senseless controversies; you know that they breed quarrels.

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Words of Grace For Today

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There are no stupid and senseless controversies today, are there? Ha!

What else is polarizing our countries, bringing in populist, fascist leaning, power hungry rulers, and dumping us all in despair

reviewing how Hitler came to power and brought the world into a war which no one could win, in the end. Everyone except the money-hungry war-profiteers.

Steady.

Do not let self-prophecies come true, nor lose oneself into despair and hopelessness.

So we beg God to teach us to live out wisdom

at every turn,

bringing grace to bear on all circumstances.

For only Grace lived out for all people

can keep us from losing

losing

again.

God, teach us your commandments, but even more, teach us to live out your Grace for all people.

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.”

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Words of Grace For Today

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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?!

The Difference

God’s Because-Therefore

Saturday, August 31, 2024

Can We See Through the Fog Of Demands Laid On Us, To See God’s Love for Us ALL!

Malachi 3:17

They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, my special possession on the day when I act, and I will spare them as parents spare their children who serve them.

Matthew 5:9

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

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Words of Grace For Today

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They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts!

The Ten Commandments start with BECAUSE. Because God is our God. What follows is many THEREFOREs. Therefore we will keep the Sabbath, honour our parents, and so on, showing us that our relationships are most important. God’s “Because-Therefore” laws begin with God’s love for us, followed by a guide to how we can return God’s love and love one another.

When we live, assured of God’s love for us – not striving to meet the demands of the Laws as if they were all and IF-THEN proposition: If we follow, then we are God’s people. And if not, then not! When we live, assured of God’s love for us life becomes a project of bringing God’s love to all people, and that converts us into peacemakers, those people who bring peace, by assuring people that they are loved, and can love one another,

no matter their differences.

What a blessing to be able to share in today’s polarized and fractured world.

For the Love of

God

Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Some Circumstances Demand Attention To The Good Rules At Every Step

…

In This Case Apply Heat Carefully

but Quickly and Amply!

Psalm 19:9

the fear of the Lord is pure, enduring for ever;
the ordinances of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

Luke 11:28

But he said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!’

/Jesus spricht:/ Selig sind, die das Wort Gottes hören und bewahren.

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Words of Grace For Today

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When the gifts of God are taken and reduced to

PURE FEAR and OBEDIENCE

one knows that something has gone terribly wrong.

Fear, capitulation, obeying orders (regardless of their good and right application), … and in all that allowing someone else to control what one actually does …

in the military perhaps it is necessary. But in life it is the sure bell toll of the death of all that is good.

For one must remain able to love, not just fear. Fear is a resignation of one’s soul. Love is the surrender of one’s soul in order that one has life abundant … no matter the circumstances or hardships one faces.

Luther was right to start his explanations with ‘We are to fear and love God so that ….’

Once love is part of the equation of one’s life at every turn – and how else can one rightly respond to all the gifts God gives us though we deserve none of them, for gratitude gives birth to love for God, which gives birth to love of one’s neighbour and oneself, and all creation –

once love is part of the equation of one’s life at every turn, then following the good and just commandments of God is not a capitulation but a voluntary surrender of one’s life to all that is good from God, for the benefit of others, and for creation.

And where will that take you this day?

Making Way

Through uncharted, turbulent waters

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Where Will Our Journeys End?

Buried in Cold Graves?

Or …?

Isaiah 43:16

Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters,

John 14:3-4

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’

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Words of Grace For Today

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We try to make our way through the days ahead, not knowing what will come for sure, for the future, though it repeats the past often, is not at all predictable, not at all.

Only God can part the waters of the Red Sea for the rag-tag group running for their lives from Pharaoh’s army. Only God can part the water of the future’s chaos to show us the greatest and only security there is for our lives: that God walks with us into each new day. God walks right there along side us through all the frightful unknowns and challenges, the temptations and our failings, and the offering of joys and small triumphs. Hearing God’s footfalls beside us give us courage like none other.

For we know, that, no matter how circuitous and daunting our paths may turn out to be, the end of our journey will be at home with Jesus.

Proclaim

With Patience …

Monday, March 25, 2024

It May Have Seemed A Good Idea,

But Then We Find Ourselves Out on a Limb

of A Tree

Ready to Tip Into the Waters

of Death!

Second Chronicles 18:13

But Micaiah said, ‘As the Lord lives, whatever my God says, that I will speak.’

2 Timothy 4:2

proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favourable or unfavourable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.

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Words of Grace For Today

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Proclaiming the Good News ought, it seems, to be a wonderful experience,

but

humans don’t like to have their ‘apple carts upset’, ‘their cheese moved’, ‘their boat rocked’!

Surprise surprise

not!

Most often the Good News messenger is ‘shot’, vary rarely with a camera,

or hung

or burned at the stake

or buried alive

or crucified.

So do we really want to follow Jesus?

…

Well, to whom else shall we turn.

For only Jesus has the message that brings life,

true life to all who hear and follow

a rather humbling path

of service to God’s will

in service to others.

It’ll take all the patience we can muster to face down the opposition and derision others will throw at us,

but God walks with us,

and there is no greater blessing.

So onward, One Step, One Word at a time.

Smarts

Or Smart-ss, or rather Wisdom?

Thursday, March 21, 2024

Finding Our Way,

Following the Path of …?

Daniel 2:21

He changes times and seasons, deposes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.

1 Corinthians 1:30-31

He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’

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Words of Grace For Today

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Oh, we try!

We try to be as smart as we can, but

the results are often that we are just pretending, having missed the boat on wisdom and instead having jumped aboard the ship of fools.

God, by comparison to our futile efforts, gives some great capacity for knowledge and others for wisdom. Seldom do the two overlap, but when they do …

Then we enjoy pearls of wisdom that are precious, and never do they call attention to the one so gifted, but rather point to the giver of everything, especially wisdom, – God our Creator, Saviour, and Sustainer.

To give God thanks, pointing to all things evil and life ending for others, is a sign of true evil and foolishness.

To give God thanks, and point to God for all things good, this is a sign of true wisdom.

Let us pray today we may be gathered in by the Holy Spirit in the second category, able to share all we are and have with those in need.

Treasure That Fear?

Or Mix It With Love?

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Lynx Prowl Here.

Fear and Love

Allow One to Live On Here

Isaiah 33:5-6

The Lord is exalted, he dwells on high; he filled Zion with justice and righteousness; he will be the stability of your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is Zion’s treasure.

Acts of the Apostles 9:31

Meanwhile the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and was built up. Living in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers.

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Words of Grace For Today

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Fear is a great motivator. Some say it is precisely what brings people to seek refuge in totalitarian, fascist rulers, enter Putin and Trump and a host of others not so obvious, (and a long long long list from history) but well on their way to being rulers, not leaders,

and rulers that should be feared rather than embraced! But

what can we do?

Pray and vote, and hope.

As for God, often fear is seen as our appropriate attitude towards the Almighty who judges everyone and condemns more than a few.

But that gets us nowhere in life other than in the same old rat race trying to make our way to goodness and God’s good graces.

Thank God it ain’t that way God put it together for us.

God comes and gives us (as gifts, fully gifts) life, forgiveness, healing, and renewal …

each day.

So Luke adds, the ‘comfort of the Holy Spirit’ and

Martin Luther speaks of ‘fear and love God, so that ….’

Always not just fear, for it paralyzes us and leaves us not so much freewilled beings, but instinctual ‘reptilian’ reactionaries, by fear reducedd to choosing between freezing, flighting, or fighting. Usually not the best options, though sometimes it is.

For those times, let fear motivate us, we pray.

But for all others, let love be the stronger companion of fear,

also this day.