Category: Weather

Up-Right!

OR Upside Down?

Thursday 2 February 2023

Don’t Let ‘Em Snow-job ya!

Let that be the pines load.

Jeremiah 1:12

Then the Lord said to me, ‘You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it.’

Matthew 5:17

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. (Jesus)

.

Words of Grace For Today

Jesus did so much that challenged the understanding of the Law and the Prophets, as it applied to daily life.

Yet, Jesus did not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but rather to fulfill them, which out to scare the ebiejeebies out of us, unless we have listened well to God’s Word,

and understood that most of the time we humans turn God’s Word upside down to fit into our own plans for our own lives.

And Jesus did not do that, so seemed to ‘upset the apple cart’, when he actually set it back upright.

And Jesus demonstrated God’s attitude of love, forgiveness, and sacrifice to save us … in such a way that we might know we are saved from all that should scare the ebiejeebies out of us, the work of the devil, which we too often embrace, and which in turn grips us tight in a death spiral …

until God frees us.

So this day we live free, now

what will we do with it?

And It Begins

And It Continues As Before.

Tuesday 31 January 2023

Since the Murky Mists Of Time’s Beginning,

We and Creation Have Evolved

From Generation to Generation.

Only One Never Changes!

Psalms 102:26-28

Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you endure; they will all wear out like a garment. You change them like clothing, and they pass away; but you are the same, and your years have no end. The children of your servants shall live secure; their offspring shall be established in your presence.

Revelation 1:4

John to the seven churches that are in Asia:Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne …

Words of Grace For Today

The week is underway.

The news reports things that have long since been: football wins with the last play, a field goal; inflation giving way to recession and jobs underpaid and worker shortages and ticket scalping, which are all the chaos of capitalism or called more honestly, futile efforts to limit legalized and unchecked greed; movies that win awards which makes money for more greedy people; and fear of the survivors and refugees in Canada as those, who darn near succeeded in finishing them off in a nearly ‘successful’ genocide, return to Canada; and the weather forecasts a dip to below the mid minus 30’s tonight.

John starts his writing with a greeting, one that had been underway for sometime: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come …

But these people John writes to live under great oppression and threats to their lives, thus the coded manner in which John writes.

After pleading that his life not be cut short, as he has taken ill, the Psalmist honours God as the creator long ago of creation. God will endure always even as people age and die and are replaced with others. In this cycle God has established the children of God’s servants, of God’s people, and the children of the children, and the children of each generation as it passes from life leaving the living to the following generations.

And this has been underway for quite some time now.

Not that getting ill and anticipating ones early death is easy or to be taken lying down (so to speak.) Nor that getting old and anticipating one’s timely death is easy nor should be taken ‘lying down’, if one can ‘stand’ at all any more.

But there is comfort in knowing that God provides for all God’s people, and all their children. The future, as we have seen it come to be our history, is and was in God’s hands, as it always will be.

So even the particulars of this day are in God’s hands, even as the temperatures drop near -40⁰.

Still, there is work to be done, to prepare, to survive, and to flourish in this life abundant that God provides for us, holding us always in God’s hands.

Not AGAIN!

Monday 23 January 2023

The Ideal, Which Sadly Exists Seldom:

A Church and

The Rock,

And Christ’s Light

Psalms 25:20

O guard my life, and deliver me; do not let me be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.

Matthew 7:25

The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.

Words of Grace For Today

It’s snowing again, and whether, due to weather, the house falls is not really an issue, since the flakes are teeny, but after a few storms and 3 feet of snow like we have now, though some has melted into ice, the weight of all that gathered on the tarps may just put the tarps on the ground and ‘the house will fall.’

So we cry again in the drabness of yet again more days of snow, deliver us!

We take refuge but the rains and snows continue to fall, the winds will blow hard, it will beat on the house we have built.

Then our only hope will be the house that God has built for us, built on the Rock, Peter, the Church of Jesus the Christ.

But it’s been corrupted as well, so we are left, in the teeny flaked snow falling on tarps that we have to clear by hand, waiting for the sun to shine to give solar power so we can write more gratitude-filled words, words of grace.

Stand by

for better weather and the light.

(But there’s still work to do today, so have at it, with all we’ve got, as we wait for the light.)

From Nothing to ?

Saturday 21 January 2023

Not from today, but from the files of this winter.

At that temperature, clothing and shelter is a must. The latest fashions probably will not help, nor need it be a mansion. A good down insulated parka, well insulated boots, and thermal coveralls are a good start, and a shelter of some kind with a heat systems that works well enough. That’s enough to give God thanks and praise.

Job 1:21

He said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’

Romans 13:14

Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Words of Grace For Today

While the practicalities of life in the frozen north and in most places around the globe require that humans make provisions for clothing and shelter of various kinds for various seasons;

and while our greed and pride take our drive to sufficiently provide for ourselves and our families into over-drive, so that we get caught up in all sorts of unnecessary patterns of consumption and dress and shelters that are nothing short of amazingly stupid, wasteful, and planet destructive;

and while we then place great social worth measured by the degree of our wasteful provisions for shelter and clothing (and so much much, like transportation) … you know what I mean when we realize that social standing is given to those with the biggest houses (well mansions really) and the most expensive, fancy and impractical clothing, and the biggest, fastest, newest cars and trucks;

and while we hear moaning and groaning from all directions that with inflation one has to cut back on … well extra-curricular activities or new clothes or new vehicles or upgrades to the house … ah mansion or one has to downsize into a palatial mansion instead of being able to live in a ostentatious gargantuan palace-castle-mansion in the best part of the city, or maybe even have to sell off the lake cottage (that mansion by the lake in which three or four families of 5 could comfortably live!);

Given all that it is a gentle reminder back towards health to remember that God gives us life as a naked little infant, and takes life as a breathless corpse (if dressed then the worms will relieve us of that burden) and

our place and station is to give God thanks, instead of trying to out consume our neighbours (today it’s how can we out consume our neighbours by paying for ‘green’ consumption!)

So what will we do this day with the headaches caused by inflation, irresponsible government, climate change, and corruption that is spread thickly from churches to communities to cops to lawyers to courts?

Our work this day is to give God praise and thanks.

It probably would not help to reduce our consumption by 90% and our carbon footprint to a negative value, but we think that may not be possible, right? And yet more than 95% of all humans have consumed far less than 10% of what we consume, and their carbon footprint was minuscule compared to ours. It helped that most lived with less than a quarter (or is it 10%) of the number of humans that we cohabit the earth with today.

Whatever we do our work this day is to give God praise and thanks.

Lead Us Through Loneliness to …

Wednesday 18 January 2023

Sunrise

Alone or

in Solitude,

in the fog and

freezing drizzle.

Exodus 15:13

In your steadfast love you led the people whom you redeemed; you guided them by your strength to your holy abode.

1 Peter 3:18

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit

Words of Grace For Today

During Covid we learned to live with minimal contact with other people … well some of us did. It is quite the thing to live separate from lots of human contact. Some of us can live that way much more comfortably than others. It’s called being an introvert.

Introverts know a lot about solitude, as opposed to loneliness. Being lonely implies that one is missing an essential part of life, contact with others. Finding solitude and enjoying solitude implies that one is relieved to be separate from the chaos of other people. Lonely is to be at a loss. Solitude is to live well alone.

For extroverts it is difficult to imagine being at peace separate from the chaos of others, because they gain energy from others, while us introverts ‘charge our batteries’ only when we are alone.

Different ways of being, both have their challenges and weaknesses. Extroverts can too easily get caught up in the ‘fake news’- ‘echo chamber’ – irreality that can lead to either trumplike idiocy with power or suicide bomber fanaticism. Introverts can too easily miss out on the joy of loving other people.

For us all, Jesus came and sacrificed himself, the only perfectly righteous person, and then came back to life; all in order that we might be free from the sins that drag us down, extroverts and introverts alike, into the pit of life-squandered-on-stupidities.

Instead, God leads us, not by force, but by weakness and mercy, to find the fullness of life in accepting forgiveness for our sins, and extending that same forgiveness to others.

In that steadfast mercy, we are ‘found’ again and again by God’s Spirit, and we find ourselves ‘at home’, in God’s abode,

which is this beautiful creation all around us.

With the Help of …

Tuesday 17 January 2023

All Paths Lead to The Point.

The point of life is to treasure

God’s Grace!

Psalms 119:11

I treasure your word in my heart, so that I may not sin against you.

2 Timothy 1:14

Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.

Words of Grace For Today

While we are given the ability to choose to love or to not love (sin), we do not posses the ability on our own to do all that is right. We are, by design, sinners.

But with the help of the Holy Spirit, who lives in us as is promised and demonstrated at our baptisms, we are saints, ones who do God’s will.

Now that is something to treasure!

It is the most precious gift ever possible.

And God gives it to us wretched sinners, so that we may live, with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Only a Fool

Saturday 14 January 2023

Storms Threaten,

Evil People Even More So,

So What Are We To Do?

Psalms 139:16

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.

Matthew 6:25

‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

Words of Grace For Today

Only a fool does not prepare for the cold and blustery storms and long dark nights of winter by working hard when the temperatures are warmer, gathering, cutting, splitting, and stacking wood, repairing the wood stove and chimney, repairing and improving insulation, doors and windows, repairing and upgrading supply- and waste-water systems, and inspecting and repairing vehicles.

Only a fool does not prepare for the storms and winds of spring, summer and fall when the skies are clear by working hard to repair and upgrade roofs, wind breaks, window and door shutters, and tools.

All this so that when the storms come, one has less work to do to survive. Since the storms are getting more fierce, more destructive, and longer one has to prepare in ways that were not imagined necessary just a few years ago.

(You will have to translate these preparations to your own situation, of course. Pity the person who does not have such preparations to make, who has everything done for them by others. They will always have opportunity to find something trite, mundane, or meaningless to worry about.)

…

When scripture so often admonishes us to have no fear, we often hear that we just ought to relax and let time march on, the world take its toll, and suffer what may come our way. Because every sane person knows that is the fast track to not surviving, we think we can just ignore the words to not fear.

God saw all that before we were formed, before God created anything at all of the universe.

So why does even Jesus tells us do not worry about your life? Is that all nonsense coming from Jesus, or from the writers about Jesus, and maybe Jesus never said such a thing?!

An aside: the shelter is warm next to the wood stove at 53⁰ and it’s only 16⁰ at my feet as I write, so I open the door to warm it up here, knowing my head will bake in 30⁰, but at least my legs and feet will warm up to about 19⁰. So should I worry about what I’m wearing. No, not at all. I prepared as best I can, by raising this area higher than the shelter so the heat rises into it, made sure there was a door to keep the blistering heat out or let it in as I needed, and spent lots of hours of hard work preparing wood … and I bought and wear long johns even inside so that my legs can withstand a bit of cold as I get older.

Which is exactly why I need not worry. What I can do, I’ve done, so that my situation is as good as it can be with the time, resources, and energy I have left in this old body-mind-life of mine.

Worry, or fear, is not a help when one’s situation is as good as it can be or even when one faces terrible circumstances like extreme storms like never before imagined possible in this part of the world.

So one does what one can each day, preparing as best as one can, and then in the thick of it when the storms hit one does what one can. Worry and fear are time-energy-life wasters in all circumstances … as long as one sees the world clearly around oneself and knows enough of what one faces.

The passage from Matthew goes one step further: one ought not worry about one’s food, clothing, etc, because life is more than all that.

And that is precisely it: life is determined considerably by the external things like air, water, food, clothing, and shelter. But even more of life is determined by one’s mind-spirit-body interpreting-dealing with-and responding to the externals.

If we always turn every circumstance into a panic, life will be ugly for us, and probably pretty short. But

even in the worst of circumstances, even ones that threaten one with death, life can be a wonderful miracle to experience.

So much of one’s circumstances are beyond one’s control, so living free from fear and worry (and all that entails, and steals from us) after one has done what one can do to survive the storms (and attacks by other people!) provides already the blessings for us that God saw were ours to enjoy, and so God created the universe for us to live and love and

try not to worry or fear the unknown so much that we lose life itself, even if we keep breathing.

There are always more than enough people who would do us in, given the opportunity. Fearing them gives them a win and us a lose even before that opportunity arises, and helps that opportunity come sooner. Still there is caution to be exercised concerning people of evil intent.

But God saw that before we were anything more than possibilities as time began. So we need not worry about that.

Only a fool would worry and fear things so that life is beyond this day’s possibilities. (And God saw that we would be fools many times over and God still created us. That’s the miracle!)

Be Reconciled

Friday 13 January 2023

Feeling like a useless, Dead Stick stuck in the Ice?

Fear not!

God lovingly planned

for that, too!

Isaiah 44:8

Do not fear, or be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? You are my witnesses! Is there any God besides me? There is no other rock; I know not one.

2 Corinthians 5:20

So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

Words of Grace For Today

Be reconciled to God.

That sounds like we’ve got a lot of work to do, since, if we are honest with ourselves, we are so far from reconciled with God, others, or any of creation.

Might some definitions of reconcile help us understand what that work is? Definitions from The Free Dictionary (worth every penny) https://www.thefreedictionary.com/reconcile

Are we to:

1. To reestablish a close relationship between parties? Oh if we only could, but God is beyond our control, so try as we might, only God can do this!

2. To settle or resolve (a dispute)? Are we in a dispute with God? Sure appears that way given the list of our sins, our thoughts, words and deeds that go against God! So can we get rid of our sin, past, present and future. Not a chance!

3. To bring (oneself) to accept? Well, maybe this is getting closer to what we might be able to do, if it weren’t for those persistent, pesky sinful desires and wishes that drive us to reject God’s will for us, so I guess not this either!

4. To make compatible, harmonious, or consistent? Oh, if only. Nope, this requires that God makes us over again and again, into something different than we are, sinful, wretchedly sinful, persistently wretchedly sinful people.

5. To compare (one financial account) so that it is consistent or compatible with another? Nope, we cannot buy our way into God’s good graces, so keeping the books will not work. And nope: cooking the books will not work either.

6. To reestablish a close relationship, as in marriage. Well, marriages are full of all sorts of crap, and we bring enough with us wherever we go, so maybe we can establish a close relationship with God, as long as that includes relating to our sins on an up close and personal level. Is that really reconciling ourselves with God, though. That’s more like a bad marriage: dumping all our crap on our spouse, and saying it’s all their fault things don’t go well!

7. To become compatible, harmonious, or consistent as in balancing one’s bank account? Nope, our accounts are so out of whack that it’s not in the works to keep good books or cook ‘em enough to make us a fit for God’s goodness.

Except:

Thankfully when God created us, God planned for all that, and is loving and gracious with us and all our sins and crap like that, so that

God does the reconciling of us with God.

God does it all.

And we get to live free from fear, blessed to be a blessing to all we meet, so that all other people will come to know

God does it all for us.

We do not reconcile ourselves to God.

We are reconciled, to God, by God, thus ‘be reconciled’ is the phrase.

That’s not so much work, as giving up and letting God take over.

Now I can reconcile or resign or submit myself to that kind of Grace, as we all can.

Required Perfection

Thursday 12 January 2023

Oil Fuels Our Circumstances, and Destroys Creation.

Love Fuels Our Hearts and Heals Creation.

Deuteronomy 10:12

So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,

1 John 2:5

but whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection. By this we may be sure that we are in him:

Words of Grace For Today

The formula for life is simple, so people say: just do everything just and righteous, obeying God’s commands, and you will live perfectly, well, and blessed.

The formula for a terrible life is simple: do that and you are for sure going to suffer, suffer, suffer.

Even after Jesus’ story is there for us to learn and treasure, even after the light of the star of the Magi has come and gone and we can learn of it and treasure it, even after so many have ‘discovered’ the key to life and faith is God’s Grace and written, preached, and lived so that we can read their words and treasure them, we humans trundle back to our old and failing ways: we live as if it is all up to us and what we do is the key.

Doing, striving, and learning to do better, and even ‘discovering’ all we can about God’s love for us and all creation are certainly crucial parts of life. It’s just that when we place them at the top of our priorities and the top of the causation chain for how life should develop for us, then we are in for lots of miserable living. Oh, we may acquire riches, power, and fame, but our hearts will be miserable.

Our hearts determine more about our lives than our external circumstances. Our hearts guide us to strive for more and more for our greedy, selfish, perverted selves OR

our hearts can guide us to the key to living a blessed life: love.

First we realize and acknowledge anew that God loves us first and most powerfully, overwhelmingly so. Then we can acknowledge and confess again and again that we are greedy, selfish, and destructive people, greatly in need of forgiveness and a new start in life so that we can live free of our woeful sins (as they all are) and live to love others with God’s love, which is to love ourselves as well. Then we realize that even before we sin so terribly, God loves us, and graciously forgives us our past sins and our present sins and even our future sins, all so that we can live free of them, free to love God and God’s creation with all our hearts, minds, and strength.

Then we get to work, strive, learn and delve into making the circumstances of others’ lives better, as a demonstration of how God forgives us, and how God is ready to forgive them.

That’s the blessing of life, and the required ‘perfection’ of life: to rely not on our own sinful selves, but to rely on God’s forgiveness, and then to get working at making life right for others.

When we are unsure of our place with God, then we realize again and again, it is not up to us to fix it, for God has already done that. That is the security of life, the only security in life, the only thing that is sure. God has done it for us, done love extraordinaire though we deserve nothing of it at all, at all.

Give To Get??

Sunday 8 January 2023

If We Look to Give So That We Will Receive,

We Live Like Three Dead Sticks

Stuck in the Ice

in the Freezing Fog.

Deuteronomy 15:10

Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake.

Luke 6:38

give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.

Words of Grace For Today

The order of causation is messed up.

We do not give so that we will get what we give and more of it.

First God gives us everything, including breath, life, love, and hope.

Because God gives us so much, we can give liberally all God has given us so that others will enjoy the life God has given them.

And that is how it works.

Trying to encourage people to give to others in order that they will receive what they want or need is a futile project as countless ‘Stewardship Programs’ give great witness to.

If we remember how it is that we are free from sin and able to live graciously at all, then that is a good beginning to any day.

Let it be so, also today with us.