Breathe – Page 7 – This Life

Crying!

Crying To God

Or Languishing Away …

Wednesday, May 10, 2023

Even The Animals There Were Barely Alive,

Starving Like the People.

Isaiah 50:2

God spoke:Why was no one there when I came? Why did no one answer when I called? Is my hand shortened, that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? By my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a desert; their fish stink for lack of water, and die of thirst.

Matthew 8:2

… and there was a leper who came to him and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.’

Words of Grace For Today

When Julius travelled to the south, climbing the steep cliffs and crossing the miles of barren rock, he found (as he had heard he would) a community of people so poor and poorly prepared for anything that would come their way that it astounded everyone who saw their community that they had survived this long.

Julius stopped at house after house offering to help heal anyone who was sick, to share words of encouragement, to offer advice on how to prepare better for the winter yet to come, and more desperately to increase their food stores if just a bit. Yet at every house he stopped at, he was told that he could not help them, that they would have to make do such as life was for them. He could move on if we knew what was good for him.

So he moved on to the next house, and the next, and the next, and …. After finding almost every house in the community he turned back north for the journey home that would take him through two nights.

He reached the barren rocks and stopped for that first night. As he setup camp and started to prepare for his light meal, such as it was, for he was nearly out of food himself, unwilling to take anything from such a poor community, a voice called out.

He stopped, surprised and then astounded as one of the community he’d just visited cried out to him to help them. He went, met the person, and heard that a house outside the community, a house he had not found was over-filled with people all sick, cast out of the community. The wanted to be healed, if he could take the time to help them.

So he went.

He saw even in the dark of night with the few lights from burning torches.

He diagnosed them with a simple malady of fungus.

He showed them how to grind up the root of a plant that grew nearly everywhere around them, to boil it in a tea. Within a day they would notice a difference as they started to heal. They scoffed at him and told him he must leave to that he did not become sick, too. They insisted.

So he left, camping not far away.

The next day as he was a short ways across the barren rock plateau, he heard a cry again.

He turned to see a young boy of about 11 running towards him. He stopped. The boy who he’d noticed among the sick, already had started to heal. Then the boy danced towards him, knelt in front of him, and begged him to allow him to come with him.

After a long conversation Julius sent the boy back home, instructing him to help the others. He also promised that he would return before the harvest, and then each year at least once, and begin teaching the boy to be a wise healer for his own people, and anyone who was in need.

Answer

My Cry!

Saturday, May 6, 2023

When It Is All Darkness,

Getting Darker,

To Whom Do We Turn?

Psalms 18:6-7

In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears. Then the earth reeled and rocked; the foundations also of the mountains trembled and quaked, because God was angry.

Mark 4:38

But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’

Words of Grace For Today

As he travelled, studying and practising healing on those who came to him desperate for help, Julius came across this fragment of writing.

Last night the river rose another 2 meters. It’s now 6 meters over flood levels. Both bridges to town are covered and the only way to town is up the point of the valley’s junction, up and across the prairie fields (through two cattle fences -but that is much better than up the old railroad grade winding up to the prairie) to the road to the power station. Then back towards town, but then further away to reach the road that goes across the top of the dam and finally on 39 into town, all told more than 45 minutes instead of the usual 5 minutes. The yard, the old house, the drive and the well are all flooded. If tonight the river rises again even another meter this house will flood like all the neighbours have already in the last two weeks. What will we do then? Will we have power? Will the house wash away? Will we be washed away as well? It’s been so many days now, each with a new report of it getting worse with new threats and new losses. I’ve cried for help so many times. I’m out of voice to cry.

Julius knew this had been just the beginning of the angry climate. Now they were fortunate to live in a place high enough and stable enough that threats were infrequent, only 50 or so a year. One neighbour of their community had fled from an area not even that far away, a community called Fisigner, when a river had flooded and taken 10 homes in the first hour. Everyone left had run. They had looked for other survivors whenever they met other people, or as Julius travelled about, but there were no news of any Fisigner survivors.

Julius thought, what could they do if, when the called to God to be saved, God answered with anger and more violent storms and floods and wildfires and earthquakes. Then he remembered how Jesus woke from his resting in that fishing boat with Peter and the others. The seas had churned and threatened their very lives, yet Jesus was calm. He spoke and the water and the wind were calmed.

Julius decided he would remember that as God’s answer to their pleas.

Getting Changed

Into Saints

Friday, April 28, 2023

Where Will God Send Us Today?

First Kings 20:11

The king of Israel answered, ‘Tell him: One who puts on armour should not brag like one who takes it off.’

Ephesians 4:23

… and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds …

Words of Grace For Today

When warriors go to war, armour is a good thing to put on. When one no longer needs to fight, one can begin the struggle to make peace last. That’s the challenge of God’s holy people.

We don’t start out that way though, or rather we may start out that way but we all get lost early on in life. Instead we work to fight for ourselves and our own. God has other plans for us.

God chooses to transform us from fighters for our own interests into peacemakers, caregivers, life sustain-ers, bearers of words that inspire and give life abundant, actors of forgiveness and grace and mercy, and whatever God gives us to do.

God chooses and we are transformed in our hearts & minds, no longer striving to be good or good enough for God, Accepting who we are, sinners needing rescuing & acknowledging who God is, and then living out for others what God has done for us: loved us, forgiven us, freed us to be now sinner-saints,

We look the same on the outside, but in our hearts & minds, God has transformed us, as God intended at our creations, made us beautiful like colourful butterflies, precious, holy servants, God’s people. God sends us out, volun-tells us to care for God’s precious creation & the creatures in it, including our neighbours, all of them, of all kinds.

Each day there’s the work of love to do, serving others, even if it takes away our very breath, in awe & wonder as God brings us home, to the place Jesus prepares for us.

Strong

Competence

Wednesday, April 19, 2023

Running for One’s Life

Between the Wood Piles;

Life can be like that

way too often!

Zechariah 8:13

Just as you have been a cursing among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you and you shall be a blessing. Do not be afraid, but let your hands be strong.

2 Corinthians 3:5

Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God …

Words of Grace For Today

Like a rabbit running, twisting and turning between the trees, the firewood piles, and around the campers, to find freedom from the pursuing lynx, so Brett found himself dodging the taunts and slurs thrown at him, along with spit balls, as he exited from school for his walk home.

Lately this once enjoyable walk home had become a nightmare, a horror not knowing from where the next insult, slur, or physical challenge would come. Today he vowed to himself, would be different.

It was, just not anything like he had hoped.

Three bullies from Grade 9 showed up along with the usual five Grade 6 bullies. What started as a few taunts, slurs, and tossed spitballs, soon became physical rocks meeting the mark on Brett’s thin back and legs. Then came the punches to his head and back, even as he ran, felling him in a tangle to the hard pavement. The sack over his head nearly made him choke and puke. It stank and ran with dog feces.

One more punch to his head and Brett was relieved of consciousness.

The next thing he knew he woke, tied tight, unable to move more than an inch, the bag still in place. It was dark, and lonely, and painful everywhere on his body. The minutes crept by until he passed out again. For hours he wavered between unconsciousness and half-awake throbbing pain. It became light again and dark again, and light again …. Brett lost track of how many times before he stopped waking up.

When he woke again, the pain had not stopped, but the stink was gone, the sack was gone. He was not tied up, but lay in a clean soft bed. He’d been cleaned up and he lay in soft pajamas.

Celia came in. He could barely believe it. This was the girl he adored and had never had the courage to say or do anything to indicate his feelings. She carried a cup of hot milk and a bowl of oatmeal. She fed him and told him:

She had found him, called her father and together they had untangled him from the sack and ropes, cleaned him up, taken him to their home, showered him, and lay him in bed, waiting for a doctor to come.

Along the way, the bullies had shown up and challenged them, but she had told them in no uncertain terms that if they did not leave she would lay them flat on the ground. The biggest had challenged her, and she had done just that, knocking his legs out from under him. With that the other had run.

Her father had come then, and picked up the boy Celia had knocked down, and told him that he was fortunate because Brett was still alive, and Celia had done nothing more than knock him down. She had a black belt in taekwondo and found her strength not in her own small frame, but in her belief that God walked with her. She otherwise probably would have too easily killed him or left him permanently unable to walk.

Now he should drink and eat just a bit more and then the doctor would be there. He would be fine though. She’d made the bully promise that they would now protect Brett.

…

So God provides what we need to be safe, and if/when we die God welcomes us home, safe and sound for all time.

Easter

Resurrection

Celebration of Life,

Again.

Sunday, April 9, 2023

And There IS Life, and Light, And Hope … Again!

Psalms 3:6

I am not afraid of tens of thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around.

Mark 16:9-10

And all that had been commanded them they told briefly to those around Peter. And afterwards Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.
Now after he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went out and told those who had been with him, while they were mourning and weeping.

Words of Grace For Today

Only when we understand the darkness that God suffered by dying on the cross, and the darkness that permeated all creation, pushing, shoving, and sucking everything toward uncreation,

can we then truly celebrate

that Jesus is Risen, indeed!

And we can live, and laugh, and pray thanks, and dance, and hope, and reach towards others

with the same grace God has extended to us, through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross,

offering them life, laughter, prayers of thanks, dancing, hoping and community so precious.

We can but overflow with prayers of joy and thanksgiving, for all of creation can live again.

Fool’s Day?

You Bet!

Saturday, April 1, 2023

Finding Our Fools’ Paths … Daily.

First Samuel 12:22

For the Lord will not cast away his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.

2 Timothy 2:13

if we are faithless, he remains faithful — for he cannot deny himself.

Words of Grace For Today

One might say to the passages today that since God is most powerful and therefore God can do anything, including deny himself, and through history God certainly did cast away God’s people in many and various ways …

…

April Fool’s!

….

And that is no small April Fool’s joke on us.

It goes to the heart and foundation of life and faith and hope.

If it is all an April Fool’s joke on us, what is left?

Breathe.

Notice that God walks with us, right in step with us, carrying us when we falter, suffering with us when we suffer and rejoicing when we rejoice.

The heart and foundation of our life and faith and hope does not depend on us or the scripture getting it right all the time.

In fact, God created us knowing full well that we would get it oh so terribly wrong all too often.

Today it is enough that God works a few miracles through us for others, so that others may live knowing God’s blessings are also for them.

Watch

and be amazed.

And don’t forget to breathe.

God created us so that we work best when we breathe.

…

And scripture got it right: God is pleased to create a people for God’s self, that people includes all people of all time. In that God is always faithful, by choice.

What a choice, eh?!

Considering all the fools who get it so wrong, what a choice!

Delivered

From Our Enemies (Mostly Us)

Friday, March 31, 2023

Our Paths Are Never Without The Shadows of

…

our own evils.

Judges 3:9

But when the Israelites cried out to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the Israelites, who delivered them, Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother.

Luke 1:68

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favourably on his people and redeemed them.

Words of Grace For Today

God delivers us

mostly from ourselves

as the agents of evil that permeates all our lives

in surprising and oft denied ways so that we may too easily think all is coming up roses

when in reality the things we do stink more than the sewage pipe from the city dwellers before the first treatment plant.

Which is to say, collectively we make quite a stinking mess of the world.

Lately we see how the world comes back on us and all life, trying to stop us from destroying everything. Wild climate change storms and events that threaten all life on earth.

What are we thinking

other than only for ourselves, the future be damned.

Well it is. The future is quite damned by what we do and fail to do.

We need a saviour, not so simply as a warrior to defeat the enemy soldiers attacking us to rule over us and make us slaves.

No, this saviour needs to save us from ourselves. From our greed, avarice, and wilfulness that leaves us willing to destroy others (and ourselves and all our futures) just so that today (and a few of our tomorrows) may be ours to ‘enjoy’ in comfort.

Ahh! What was God thinking when God created us so capable of such destruction and evil …

if not

that God also created us capable of equally such great love, care, respect, and goodness.

Today, which will we choose to live out?

Whatever

Cup we are given

Thursday, March 30, 2023

No Matter the Beauty,

or Ugly Evil,

God Is With Us

In Every Season.

Ecclesiastes 3:1

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.

Luke 18:31

Then he took the twelve aside and said to them, ‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.’

Words of Grace For Today

Have a great day!

So we wish others, and wish for ourselves.

But

the world does not always comply with our wishes.

Some days are not great.

In fact some days are some of the worst in our lives, even the worst days in history!

While we may wish for easy, comfortable, luxurious even, days that we can slide through without any great challenges, life is not that way.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.

And that means, come what may, it is all going to eventually come our way, too, the good and the evil.

How can we prepare?

For the greatest evil there simply is no preparation that would be sufficient.

We can at best lean on God to accompany us, whatever comes our way.

To take even the bitterest cup with sure hands, knowing that even death cannot conquer us, for Christ is for us, is with us, and will always welcome us home, even in death.

Today may be a normal day, or a great day, or a day that astounds us with amazing things. Or it may be the flip of that, and astound us with the amazing destructive power of evil.

May it be, that we are led to trust God’s presence with us, whatever it may be.

Conflict

Resolution-ers?

Saturday, March 25, 2023

We All Throw Shadows In the Brilliance of Christ’s Light!

What Effect Does Our Shadow Have On Others?

Proverbs 16:32

One who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and one whose temper is controlled than one who captures a city.

Matthew 5:9

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

Words of Grace For Today

The basic human attitude when we allow ourselves to become wholly unsure of ourselves or anxious is to become angry. Well not in one step without options. We can count to 10 or 90, breathe, and subvert the panic. We can learn to acknowledge hurt, even hurt when we know the source as another human, and then divert our impetus to anger in more constructive, less destructive (to others and ourselves) attitudes.

We can learn, guided by the Holy Spirit and the saints, to be peacemakers for ourselves, turning what could become anger and escalating internal and external conflict, into a peaceful manner of living with all the hurts, disappointments, attacks, and great losses that life and other people will throw at us.

As we learn this, and practice it, for no one is ever perfect in maintaining even one’s own peace, then we can reach out to others caught in anger, anxiety, pain, loss and others attacked by other people; we can, by God’s Grace alone, guide them to find peace with themselves and with all life offers, both good and bad.

The world needs peace, as desperately now as ever.

How will we hang on to truth and share peace this day, even with our enemies?

More Light work for the saints.

TRUTH

Seekers or Spinners?

Friday, March 24, 2023

He was Certainly Not Blind.

Are We?

Jeremiah 35:14

The command has been carried out that Jonadab son of Rechab gave to his descendants to drink no wine; and they drink none to this day, for they have obeyed their ancestor’s command. But I myself have spoken to you persistently, and you have not obeyed me.

Luke 11:28

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

Words of Grace For Today

God speaks.

Some obey, others not.

Well, some try to obey, and everyone fails. That’s human nature.

From CBC Ideas: About 2,500 years ago, Thucydides travelled ancient Greece, gathering stories about a brutal war that plunged the ancient world into chaos. He set high standards for accuracy, objectivity and thoroughness in his reporting.

His observations, so different compared to the ‘histories’ told as legends and myths, biased towards the speaker-author’s loyalties, are worth hearing any time, and surely today as ‘fake news’ and ‘spin’ and destorying of so many people polarize the populous into camps deaf-to-the-heart to each other.

First would be the horror that he saw every human would descend to preemptively commit murder and destruction against an ‘enemy’, even if it were a previously good neighbour or child or parent. When law is laid waste by corruption from within or out right destruction leaving all sense of security spinning in the wind for every person, then every person is easily capable of the worst atrocities. For 27.5 years the Peloponnesian War pitted not only Sparta and Athens against each other, but they drew every city-state into the fray. 27.5 years of horror and in the end the result was the destruction of every city.

That’s the result of humans ‘not obeying’.

That’s the result of ‘fake news’ and polarized citizens.

That’s the result of little and big lies accepted and created by Courts as facts, for it corrupts all of society’s trust in the law to maintain order, especially the trust of those who benefit from the corruption of the law by the Courts.

That’s the result of every little lie told out of greed, avarice, covetousness, hatred, fear, and revenge.

Where are today’s Thucydides, tellers of accurate, objective, and thorough stories reporting real events, and us little people dedicated to truth at all costs?

What will we be today?

Truth seekers and tellers?

Spinners and corrupters of truth?

Blessed are those who God helps to find and to hold on to the truth, one day at a time.