Category: Winter

Visions and Realities

Friday, November 24, 2023

Visions of Grace,

Brighter in the Darkness of Our Realities,

Than the Moon on a Clear Winter Night.

Zechariah 13:9

And I will put this third into the fire, refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call on my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people’; and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.’

Revelation 21:3-4

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’

…

Words of Grace For Today

The day is coming, when …

The day is coming, when will it come?!

The day is coming, when death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more!

When will it come!!?

That is a vision of God’s promises brought to completion for us all.

Meanwhile the realities we face are obvious:

It is as if we are in the smelters cup, over the fire, dross (which we have so dearly accumulated and attached ourselves to) is burning off, and we are poured into moulds of things precious and of use …

well,

of use to God, and maybe not to our worldly ways of evaluating things.

The realities of our daily lives are challenging to say the least, just to survive

as

God’s saints

pulled and pushed and cajoled and seduced by temptations to trust not in God’s good graces, but rather in our own efforts to secure life for ourselves.

Thank heaves we have visions

of God walking with us,

among us,

working for us,

completing some of the Promises God makes each day,

also this day.

How the Crap Flies!

Thursday, November 23, 2023

How Bright The Light Of God’s Grace,

That Leads Us On Through Life,

Blessed.

Psalm 69:6

Do not let those who hope in you be put to shame because of me, O Lord God of hosts; do not let those who seek you be dishonoured because of me, O God of Israel.

Ephesians 1:7

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace ….

…

Words of Grace For Today

When we sin, especially when we aim it at other people in anger, the effects of that evil just keep getting bounced around, spreading further and further.

A wise old pastor said once among friends looking back on their lives as pastors, “I hope that I have not hurt anyone.”

Today that could easily be improved on with, “God, I pray you will forgive me for the people I have hurt, and that you will help them heal.”

When Leonard Cohen wrote, “If the sun would lose its light And we lived an endless night … And no one that you hurt could ever heal, Well that’s how broken I would be, What my life would seem to me, If I didn’t have your love to make it real.”

One of the real things about life is that watching other people, many whom we love, suffer because of what we have done, takes all the goodness of life from us.

So we pray with the Psalmist Do not let those who hope in you be put to shame because of me; do not let those who seek you be dishonoured because of me….

For when others are put to shame or dishonoured because of our sins, the stain it leaves on them is not simply a matter of them healing. It is also necessary that the communities around them learn to free them of the shame they have put on them, and restore their honour to them.

That healing is much more complex and often nearly impossible.

So we pray, counting on the forgiveness of our sins, in the richness of God’s grace.

Grace upon grace from God, and through others empowered by the Holy Spirit, provides us our only hope in life,

that all may be well,

all may be well,

all manner of things may be well.

…

…

Even as the crap continues to fly all around us.

With A Little

Help From …

Tuesday, November 21, 2023

As A New Day Dawns,

Remembering From Whom Our Help Comes.

First Samuel 7:12

Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Jeshanah, and named it Ebenezer; for he said, ‘Thus far the Lord has helped us.’

Acts of the Apostles 26:22

To this day I have had help from God, and so I stand here, testifying to both small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would take place: ….

…

Words of Grace For Today

Going it alone, or with our own family, or friends, or company, or kind is typical for us as we meander through life towards, well, we like to deny it with all our efforts – but it’s still towards death.

And we get there in the end, successfully, whether we like it or not.

The journey is usually fraught with failures and detours and disasters of our own making.

As we get to the end of any day, or the start of a new day, best is to recognize that we have nothing new to offer the world,

but the old stuff we have received from the saints before is precious.

Each day, ending or beginning, it is helpful to remember that we cannot make anything good happen for us or anyone else, unless we let God have at us and guide us and perform miracles in us so that out of our pathetic efforts some good will come.

So, to give thanks, to God,

who helps us on our way,

blessing us

and through us others,

well

that’s a good start and a good end to each day.

Knowing From Whence

Sunday, November 19, 2023

No Matter The Obstacles,

God Clears the Way to the Light

Malachi 2:7

For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.

1 Peter 3:15

… but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you ….

…

Words of Grace For Today

As the days wear us down,

closer to the grave each day

assisted by the evil of other people

directed at us

or just spewed into the universe around us all

we

are given hope

that does not fail.

Then when the testing days arrive yet again, we are ready to provide an account of whence comes our hope:

The steadfast love and grace of God,

that carries us when we are down and

guides us in days of joy

to celebrate what is of ultimate value,

not this world’s

but

God’s great gifts.

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?

Our Measure of God

As If!?

Friday, November 17, 2023

Is Our Measure Ever Any Better At Reaching the Light of Life,

than counting our steps in the snow?

Isaiah 55:8

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.

1 Corinthians 1:25

For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

…

Words of Grace For Today

That God’s thoughts and human thoughts are not the same is obvious, and quite a relief, if you think about it.

If God were to think like humans, with all the evil and shtako humans come up with, we would be in great jeapordy, and that not just as we are now from other humans (ourselves included), but from God. With God’s power that threat would be unbearable, un-survivable, and deadly, even if God did not act out the threats.

When we apply a measure to our wisdom and compare it to our measure of God’s foolishness, that of sacrificing Jesus on the Cross to save all people, if our heads are not buried in the sand or some place else, then we will quickly notice that we humans have a hard time measuring ourselves with any measure that would recognize the greatest power in what we call the greatest weakness, ie. surrendering to death our of love for those doing the killing.

And that is what is so spectacular about Jesus’ story, told over and over, from generation to generation. We start to recognize the sinfulness of our measuring the world, confessing that sin and it’s horrible consequences for all, and turn to God begging for mercy,

for mercy,

for mercy.

We are left each day begging, thanking God for God’s great generosity in forgiving us and renewing life in us (yet again, and again, and …), and learning to sing God’s melodies and harmonies of love and life abundant for all – made possible through our sacrifices.

What’s your measure for today?

God’s Reach

Into And Around Us

Thursday, November 16, 2023

For Our Darkest Times,

God Works the Greatest Wonders

Light in our Nights of Dread.

Jeremiah 32:40

I will make an everlasting covenant with them, never to draw back from doing good to them; and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, so that they may not turn from me.

1 John 4:9

God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.

…

Words of Grace For Today

If we live thinking God does not matter, doing neither good nor bad, then our days will be more than dark. They will be desperately hopeless.

So that we do not fall into that despair, God works many wonders in and around us, in every generation.

Jeremiah reports that God makes a new covenant, an everlasting covenant (one that is valid still today!), so that God will always do good for us, and so that we will fear God and not turn from him.

Luther put it well that fear alone of God is miserable; one needs also the love of God so that one fears and loves God in all things.

Even when we have feared and loved God most of our lives there is no guarantee that we will be fully assured of God’s love in the next moment, facing the next awful challenges, challenges that threaten our very lives and the lives of those we love.

So that even then we can remember God’s good works for us, God sent Jesus to live among us, to live out a story that we tell even today, and a story that will be told until there are no more humans to tell it: Jesus came to live, teach, heal, and die for us in order to demonstrate blatantly how much God loves us.

When we remember how much God loves us then we can also remember to love God,

and then life is not so miserable,

for there is hope

for tomorrow

and beyond.

For The Poor

And The Sick

Wednesday, November 15, 2023

God’s Spirit Works Even In The Dark,

Even Like The Wood Stove

in the Dark-Cold of Winter.

Isaiah 55:1

Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Mark 1:32

That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons.

…

Words of Grace For Today

At sunset …

Here in June the summer sun rises at about 4:45 sun sets around 22:00, but we have no (technical) night, just twilight, with over 17 hours of daylight. When the sun sets our days are already over, some days for an hour or more. On the other side of the calendar the winter sun waits to rise around 8:30 and then sets already around 16:00 and we have less than 8 hours of daylight. When the sun sets our days are hardly over. We keep working without the sun lighting our way.

In Galilee in June the summer sun rises at about 5:30 sun sets around 20:00, with over 14 hours of daylight. When the sun sets their days may or may not be over. On the other side of the calendar the winter sun waits to rise around 6:30 and then sets already around 16:30 and they have 10 hours of daylight. When the sun sets their days may or may not be over, depending on whether or not they got up with the sun in the morning.

So when the people brought the sick and possessed to Jesus to be healed, if Jesus wanted to call it a day, that was not going to happen.

God works even in the dark.

God’s work is most evident in the darkest of times with the sickest and poorest of people.

When we feel the world turning dark, as it certainly can be these days, it is a comfort to know, God works well in the dark,

Even in our dark

Even in our darkest

Even in our coldest, darkest, most hopeless of times.

All Ears?

And No Brains?

Monday, November 13, 2023

All Eyes, Yet Totally Blind to the Light!

Is that us,

like many on earth these days

(as always?)

Isaiah 50:5

The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backwards.

John 10:16

I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Sometimes we know we ought to not just pretend,

pretend to hear what is said to us,

to actually listen to

God’s Word.

On our own it is next to impossible.

Thankfully the Holy Spirit opens our ears, hearts and minds to hear, really hear, listen to and understand

God’s Word.

Like Love the Lord with all your heart, mind and strength. And love your neighbour as yourself (especially your enemy.)

Now that’s a word for every day, worth every little bit of effort we can give to listening, and then

pray like mad the Holy Spirit will enable us to actually hear it,

and live it.

That’s when things get beautiful

no matter how ugly people make the world around us and across the globe.

We’ve Been Told!

So Why Do We Get It So Wrong?

Sunday, November 12, 2023

Nothing Looks Like What It Is If We Do Not Gain God’s Perspective.

For example my work for today.

Genesis 45:24

Then he sent his brothers on their way, and as they were leaving he said to them, ‘Do not quarrel along the way.’

Colossians 3:13

Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”

…

Words of Grace For Today

Nothing looks like what it is if we are in the mode of telling others what to do, or if others are in the mode of telling us what to do!

Joseph could spend all his breath on telling his brothers not to quarrel. They were still going to quarrel.

‘Paul’ (well Colossians is probably not Paul himself but someone writing decades later in his name) could spend as much ink telling people how to behave, and especially how to be good, and even more desperately what they MUST do, like forgiving one another, but people are people and forgiving is not something people do on their own. Neither is being good, nor doing what must be done.

Any parent can give numerous stories how telling their teen not to do something simply invites the teen to go out and try it, somehow so their parents do not find out about their attempts.

So it is when we look at the world: unless we have God’s perspective (given to us, because there is no way we gain it on our own or in any other way) we simply do not understand what is going on around us, not fully, and we are completely incapable of doing the right thing for the circumstances on our own. Only the Holy Spirit guiding us can get us in that direction.

So we pray like mad the Holy Spirit will guide us

to do right,

and what MUST be done,

like forgive others,

and

also ourselves.

…

After all,

God has already.

….

(My work was adapting the exhaust for the water heater, again, so that it will work in cold weather, real hard cold weather, without having to be on all the time.)