Guests?

We Are All Guests

Some Desperately Need Homes, NOW!

Friday 12 January 2024

globalnews.ca/news/10213526/edmonton-rowland-road-homeless-encampment/

“Edmonton police officers and city crews could be seen at a homeless encampment in the area of 95th Street and Rowland Road on Tuesday morning [9 January 2024]. Police and cleanup crews were met with resistance from people who live in the camp and from advocates who showed up to support them.” Global News

Psalm 119:19

I live as an alien in the land; do not hide your commandments from me.

[or another translation: I am a guest on earth.]

2 Corinthians 5:1

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

Just because we know that we have a home waiting for us

after life

even if the earth is destroyed

even if the universe is destroyed,

does not give us an excuse to destroy

life

the earth

this universe!

These are gifts from God

to be treasured.

Life to be lived with integrity, kindness, and mercy for others.

The earth to be used and guarded from destruction so that future generations have a better earth to live on.

The universe to be explored and admired and guarded from destruction of all kinds, because this is our home now

And God said life, the earth, and all the universe are Good.

So we ought to keep it all that way.

Instead of bulldozing tent cities, the last, most secure place for many people who find themselves homeless in the cold of winter and the heat of summer,

How about making a home for them as well,

a good, safe, nurturing home

on earth?!

Fire

Of Life

Thursday 11 January 2024

Fire,

The Destroyer, Saver, and Refiner!

Which is it today for you?

Isaiah 48:10

See, I have refined you, but not like silver; I have tested you in the furnace of adversity.

Colossians 4:2

Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

An easy life, without many challenges, just interesting events that turn out wonderful, with an ability to help others without taking too much trouble to do good …

is that what we wish for?

Baptized in water, by the fire of the Holy Spirit, with God’s Word (the same Word of such power that in the beginning this Word created all that is out of chaos), we might wish for an easy life.

This is certainly not that, for which God has saved, freed, and renewed us.

Instead it is the furnace of adversity that God sends us into, each day, that we may not only be saved, freed and renewed, but that we may also offer God’s Word to others

with our voices, feet, and hands.

It would be impossible to enter into the fray

and remain as God saved us to be, ambassadors of Hope, Love, and Grace,

if we do not also each day begin, continue, and end with prayers of thanksgiving for all God gives us

to share

with the most desperately needy, hungering, and thirsting people on earth.

A small task each day it is not,

and that with the fires of adversity lapping at our feet, hands, and breath.

Left to Beg

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

We Can Do As Much To Bring the Rains, As We Can to Bring Evil It’s Due.

Psalm 34:16

The face of the Lord is against evildoers, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.

Romans 12:12

Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Well, would it be so already today, that the remembrance of evildoers were cut off from all creation!

But it is not so, and will not be so, in spite of any and all efforts we may spend and waste toward that end.

We are left to rejoice in hope, be patient in our sufferings, and persevere in our prayers that Jesus will come to judge the living and the dead,

and in the meanwhile we pray as beggars, for we have nothing else, God resuscitate us from the dead, that we might live the few short days we have left on this blessed and condemned earth (blessed by God and condemned by us all.)

Another day, full of challenges, full of blessings, full of waiting and letting God do God’s new things with and to us, and full of our efforts to answer God’s call and sending us into the world to be God’s grace

for all.

Another day.

Another ….

New Plantings

Friday, December 8, 2023

Sometimes Finding Our Way is Difficult,

and Even Looking To Where We Have Been

Is Hard to Find.

Isaiah 43:18-19

Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

Matthew 13:31

He put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field ….’

…

Words of Grace For Today

We cannot see the future and know what it is for sure.

Yes, we have ideas or estimations or imaginations, but we simply cannot know the future. Lots of people would give so much to be able to know the future, but that’s because it’d be a huge advantage over all the rest of us.

So we have the past, and we spend lots of time studying the past. We even have wise sayings that tell us that if we do not study and learn from our past we are bound to repeat our failings in the future.

Then the wisdom of scriptures tell us, more than once, that we ought not to consider the things of the past, that God is doing something new, that we ought to look past our past (of sins, especially) and accept God’s forgiveness, so that we can move into a new future.

Not that we have much ability to forget the past, especially sins done against us and our own sins …

unless …

we realize we participate in God’s forgiveness whether we know it or not.

Then

with no more explanation than that God walks with us

we can leave our pasts in the past

and

embrace the future God has for us

and

for all those we forgive.

And wait for the new seeds of life to sprout in and around us,

as God grows

a new

future in and among us.

Waiting Through

The Long Dreadful Days

Monday, November 20, 2023

No Matter How Obscured Our Vision Becomes,

God Keeps the Light On For Us

Psalm 90:13

Turn, O Lord! How long? Have compassion on your servants!

John 14:3

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.

…

Words of Grace For Today

The days have come and gone and will come again.

The days of all kinds,

for the one true statement that applies to every day and every moment is:

This too shall pass.

So when the days of trials cloud over us,

when the evil of our neighbours spills over into our yards,

when the temptations seduce us to ‘make it good on our own’,

then

we are assured that these, too, shall pass,

and in the end,

the place Jesus has prepared for us will be ours again,

in the heart of God’s steadfast love,

which is the only thing that will not change or pass or leave us desolate.

So our solitude is blessed, and our days of communion are blessed,

and even our days of challenges are blessed

with God

Walking with us.

Gimme, Gimme

Make Meself Safe and Secure! ?

Saturday, November 18, 2023

What Will We Endure To Give

Our Enemies Peace?

Psalm 33:17-18

The war horse is a vain hope for victory, and by its great might it cannot save. Truly the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love …

Philippians 3:3

For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh ….

…

Words of Grace For Today

In what do we put our trust and hope?

In money, privilege, and might?

The war horse looks strong. It will indeed aid the killing of many enemies.

And then what?

Winning a war is never a solution. It only changes and most often multiplies the problems.

The deeds, by which we are known as followers of Christ, have always been of sacrificial love. Helping in plagues ensuring one’s own infection and death. Working as caregivers on the battlefields and in the poorest of poor areas of life. Loving one’s enemies so completely that they capitulate to join in loving their enemies, for that is life, where hating one’s enemies is death, even if one continues to walk the earth.

So in what will we put our trust this day?

Low Blow

Tuesday, November 7, 2023

We Need A Good Shepherd to Guide Us Through the Many Coming Storms.

Ezekiel 34:23

I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd.

Matthew 9:36

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Shepherds, in Jesus day, lived rough, with the flock on the hills, leading them to green pastures and fresh water by day and guarding them from danger by night.

Being a shepherd was not a highly sought after or held in high esteem occupation. Quite the opposite. It was one of the lowest of the lowly ways to make a living.

Being compared to sheep, though, that is a real low insult, that hits out of bounds and lays one flat as fodder for the vultures.

Sheep were and still are very dumb animals. They need protection all the time from predators. They need to be led to food and water. And …

When we were young my brother demonstrated how they follow, absolutely stupidly.

As we were bringing the sheep into the barn he sat out of sight just inside the door. After the first ten sheep passed through the doorway he stuck a broomstick across the doorway about a foot and a half high. The next sheep jumped over it to follow those ahead, as did the next five. Then he pulled the broomstick out of the doorway, and …

the rest of the flock jumped over the none-existent broomstick to follow the sheep ahead into the barn.

Sheep are real stupid.

So being compared to sheep is a real low blow.

The problem is …

the comparison fits us just right.

…

We need a Good Shepherd to have compassion on us helpless people, following most stupidly the most stupid of stupid leaders.

Thank God, God sends us one in Jesus, who saves us,

again.

And

again today, many times.

Grace

Sunday, November 5, 2023

This is Life,

To Walk Free In through the Woods, through the Snow,

and Know it is All Gift.

Especially to Be Able to Walk.

Proverbs 21:21

Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life and honour.

Matthew 6:33

But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Death

Death comes in so many ways, quick and merciful, slow and cruel, hungry and thirsty …

when so many people act from selfish motives, against anything good for others, with violence or deception, with twisted words and cruel actions, without regard for decency or rightness, even where there is not much by which to gauge what is right and what is wrong …

so even truth seems difficult to remember …

From where will we find strength to remember what counts, what is truly valuable, what speaks truth clearly enough not to be drown out by all the other voices,

and by our own pain, grief, and despair,

so that we know God’s grace, gentleness, steadfast love and … and hope for all the future days as rough as they may be.

For as we stare death in the face

we know

both the Devil’s worst

and God’s best,

a freedom and truth in the deepest, widest way,

to see Grace coming for us again

to see God’s Grace clearly coming for us again

and to see God’s all-embracing Grace clearly coming for us again

… again.

Death met by God’s Grace creates hope that is unrelenting and … undying.

That’s what Jesus give us … the

End of death

Now we can chase away our living days pursing righteousness and kindness or striving after the kingdom of God and his righteousness in order to find life and honour.

This, though is a fantasy made by people who cannot accept that life and honour, God’s kingdom and righteousness are gifts, gifts that we can never earn, nor achieve, or pursue successfully, nor come close to with our strivings.

And that is what Jesus teaches us about death, sins, and life as God’s children.

It’s all gift … all the way down.

And all the way up.

And all around.

The Broken

Weary, Kingdom Workers

Thursday, November 2, 2023

A general view shows smoke as it rises following Israeli strikes in Gaza, October 9, 2023. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/live-updates-whats-happening-in-the-israel-hamas-war-as-israeli-airstrikes-hit-gaza-refugee-camp-for-second-day

Out of Sinners,

God Makes Saints,

Is that us, today?

Isaiah 50:4

The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens— wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.

Matthew 25:39

And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?

…

Words of Grace For Today

As I write this it is All Saints’ Day. The Hamas – Israel war continues, and continues to kill civilians, and Hamas continues to use civilians, even hospitals as shields.

There are few prayers which are sufficient. One prays that God will remake the catastrophe into something life-sustaining. It seems only God can do that.

In the future a few years a young family of three will tour the ancient cathedral in Gaza with it’s wonderful stained glass windows. Bombed in 2023 the windows were cracked, some missing pieces. One stained glass artist works on the second to last window, repairing, but not removing the signs of the damage, filling in the gaps and repairing the cracks with silver, gold, and blue glass pieces and structural materials. As the family looks at each window, the parents will explain the scene and name the saints depicted. Afterwards, the young daughter will burst in on grandma and grandpa sitting at home and exclaim, “Grandma we saw the saints today!” Grandma asks, “Who are the saints that you saw?” Without pausing the daughter responds: “The saints are the broken people the light shines through.” (decades old story, reworked)

What God does as always, is call broken people to shine the light of Christ on all that is, and all that can be.

Let us so shine, even in our brokenness.

Even though those in need are so many and the needs so great and our help seems so little.

Delights?

or Despair?

Friday, October 27, 2023

A drab morning, snow falling, making wood collecting more difficult.

Or delight in the cool that makes working outside a bit easier

than with countless bugs looking for a meal from your skin?

Psalm 27:1

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

Philippians 4:13

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Courage is hard to come by when one is down and out, beaten again and again by enemies, lies, deceptions, and others’ greed.

At times one has to agree with Thomas Hobbes when he said about life being ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’.

God answers that and all our other despairing with a simple reassurance: God is with us through it all.

Like walking in a sunset alone, still unable to do anything but despair how tough life is, ‘going it alone’ is always a recipe for struggles without end.

Like walking in a sunset with a loved one, the experience grows beyond itself to convince you two that life is a wonderful, marvellous adventure, with promise unending of things good and better.

So God walking with us through it all, turns life inside out with joy, delights, and hope.

And when God walks with us, we need not be overcome with fear of yet another enemy taking more of life from us, for even if that does happen, God will show us how to find joy and delight in all that life is for us.

Today, as the snow falls again, and then hard cold of winter is coming, the joy is in the warmth provided by a hot fire in the wood stove, held close by many insulated tarps. It may not be much, but it is as much a home as I have, and in it I find endless delight even as the challenges never cease to more than fully occupy my days.

So what will we see today? The enemies efforts or God’s Grace and delights for us?