But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain God, much less this house that I have built!
John 1:18
No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
Words of Grace For Today
Finding the meaning of life is an unending challenge every day of every life, unless …
unless one fools oneself.
That usually ends badly for that person and many around them, sometimes nations and continents and even the whole world.
Now if we could only meet God, talk with God, and have God tells us what our lives are supposed to be like, to what end God created us, and what the purpose of our lives actually is, then …
Then life would be peachy, right?
Not really.
God did send the Law, the Prophets, and then Jesus to teach us all that and more about God and what God intends for us.
But we so easily hijack and pervert to our own ends all God’s efforts to communicate with us. That’s corrupt human nature. It leaves many puking out any idea that God actually exists, or talking at all about God is helpful. Perverse ideas about God are more destructive than almost anything else people can come up with, after all!
So many people have tried to contain God inside their own buildings, their own ideas of God subjugating others to their own whims.
God planned for all that, and in each generation God sends us saints, saints who see and hear the saints from previous generations, and who share with us God’s purpose for us.
The purpose of life is not that hard to see and know and live by: to love one another as oneself, and even to love one’s enemies, and to give God all praise and credit for the goodness and beauty that permeates all of life.
Living that out each day is the challenge of each day. Light work, it is, also for this day.
Those who live at earth’s farthest bounds are awed by your signs; you make the gateways of the morning and the evening shout for joy.
Luke 1:69-75
He has raised up a mighty saviour for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
Words of Grace For Today
Sotorus sat to copy his father’s (Peter’s) journal entry, which really was copied from Peter’s father, Isaac, and Isaac’s sister, Galilea, about Sotorus’ great-grandparents, Doug and Dawn, from the old digital disk to his paper journal with great care.
First he wrote:
“20 June 2299: All the digital records are disappearing into thin air. Though no one knows why for sure everyone suspects it has something to do with those deadly latency rifles used to end the last war on earth. Loaded with specific human traits, the charge would sit for years, even decades, before going off when it’s target came within 10 metres. Now two decades later so many people had been killed, even after the war, and the accumulation of the residue from billions of charges seemed to spread and wipe out not only their targets, but all nearby digital storage in the bio-memory chips used in everything for the last 90 years. So copying what we have as records of the past onto paper is the only way to preserve them at all.
“Albert Einstein was correct in many ways when he said, ‘I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.’
“While explorers like my grandparents were off to Andromeda, those remaining on earth had reduced it to a thinly populated wasteland. No one had the energy or means to fight.”
What Sotorus could not know was the will to fight would return in 1450 years.
Sotorus’ journal entry continued with Peter’s entries from 3 October 2264:
“This from Isaac’s (my father’s) journal of 21 March 2246:
“This is about the day in November 2213 when my grandfather and grandmother, Doug and Dawn, and a stranger, made a quick and desperately simple decision that saved my life and the life of my sister, Galilea.
“This is what I knew about my grandparents decision to leave earth. Doug and Dawn had studied the beginnings of the universe all through university and wrote separate but related PhD dissertations on the doomed first expedition to Mars in 2029 compared to the more recent successful unmanned expedition to Andromeda’s closest star with planets in 2183. It was a no-brainer then when they were offered the opportunity to travel on the first peopled expedition to what people were calling the ‘Andromeda Earth’. In 2210 they packed their few possessions into storage and reported to train for intergalactic travel certificates. In 2113 they launched from earth to the moon, and two days later from there to Andromeda’s ‘third planet from the sun’.
“Eleven months after their three month long trip to A-Earth, as they called their destination planet, they and the other 45 mission specialists, had established the core of a settlement. The rich air and moderate gravity among the most interesting lush and vibrant plant and animal life forms seemed almost a paradise. They had hardly had time to consider more than their work studying the evolution of the plant and animal life that seemed to ‘teem up’ from the planet each day. Yet in those years they had also had us two children.
“I had not kept a journal but Galilea had. Her journal is lost, but I remember it pretty clearly, because we sat and read it often in her last year, as she suffered dementia, common among the most brilliant minds in their later years.
“Isaac was a spunky athletic 6 year old and his sister, that’s me, Galilea (Peter added, that’s my aunt), well I was not yet 2 but I was up and running, reading and writing already.
“This morning, an hour before sunrise, in the dark and bitter cold, the alarm had sounded. Everyone was told they needed to report to the spaceship, refurbished, refuelled and resupplied, and waiting for such an emergency these last four years. The Aearth’s crust had buckled up into a new mountain range on the far side of the planet and we had maybe 6 hours before the air would be poisonous. ‘Bring no more than 150 lbs with you!’ Everyone knew the fuel was not as combustible as the fuel they had used to lift off from earth so weight was indeed a problem.
“Our dad, Doug, called us children, from our studies in the ‘backyard’ near the river, started packing a small backpack, while Mom and us children fretted and argued about which things we could bring: a photo of our house, a rock from the riverbed that glowed at night, our computers and studies and papers, a favourite game made of wood and rocks, and my teddy bear. Finally Doug put his foot down and said we had just enough time to get to the spaceship, or we’d be left behind. With no more thoughts we grabbed only what was packed and headed off.
“At the spacepad, we registered and weighed our bags. We could have tossed in another 20 lbs. The security guard looked at us, checked off Mom and Dad’s names, Doug and Dawn. Then he looked at us children, Isaac and Galilea. He asked our parents if they had weighed us? No! Did they have to? Of course! So back to the scale we went. Together Isaac and I weighed 159 lbs. We all tossed our bags aside and, with the guard telling us we were out of time- others were waiting and time was tight, we two children stripped off our clothes until the scale stood at 154.
“The next person in line (we didn’t even know her or find out her name later) saw the chaos and offered to give up 10 lbs if the guard would let us children take our clothes along. A nod from the guard, a quick ‘thank you! thank you!’ and off we went through the gate to the loading queue as the woman behind us started tossing out big books from her case.
“Later Galilea wrote in her journal:
“Today, I’m not sure of the date, it’s been so confusing, we left a whole crowd of explorers and their children on another planet in the Andromeda galaxy, at a planet everyone called ‘Andromeda’s other third planet from the sun.’
Sotorus, grandson of Galilea, continued his paper journal below the above entry:
“Today is the last day of this millennium, 2299. It’s a day of freezing fog. We heard from many that those who lived at Aearth’s farthest bounds were awed by God’s wondrous signs all around them. They affirmed, and we can certainly affirm now as well, that God has shown to us all the mercy promised to our ancestors, to grant us that we, being rescued, might serve God without fear, in holiness and righteousness before God all our days.
“We can be thankful, that though the years have not been easy since the last big war, we (my two sisters, my three cousins, and I) are alive because Isaac and Galilea did not weigh more than 10 lbs too much, and an anonymous woman sacrificed her precious books for our grandpa’s and his sister’s lives.”
Sotorus could not know then, but his journal would be only one of a dozen that would survive the next 1500 years of ‘sticks and stones’. Without it no one would remember Doug and Dawn, Isaac and Galilea, Peter, or Sotorus. Nor would anyone remember that people had migrated to Andromeda and back, or that half the explorers had chosen to stay at another inhabitable planet in one of Andromeda’s star systems.
…
What will we weigh to take with us today?
What out of our past given to us by our ancestors?
What of our baggage and sins and horrible mistakes?
What of our joys and hope and dreams?
What of our lives?
From the Saints?
Of our spirits?
Of our love?
…
What we choose will give or take life to more people than we can imagine, in ways only God can show us!
Why should the nations say, ‘Where is their God?’ Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases.
Acts of the Apostles 17:30
While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
Words of Grace For Today
A sensitive, and creative pastor came to visit on his rounds, first Sheila and then Roxy that seventh day. He started, as always, by reading the 23rd Psalm to each woman. He went on to explain that God worked in mysterious ways for all of us. God knows we all sin. God calls us to repent, and God knows we may or may not repent, but all of us will return to sin.
And God planned for that, too.
So God always offers us a new beginning, a beginning without the burden of our sins of the past, without the burden of others’ sins, with an assurance of God’s blessings, not because we earn them, but simply because God so chooses to be gracious to us, especially when we do not deserve anything good!
As the women in turn started to tell him the barest of details about their situation he realized they had much in common yet they were so different. So he arranged for the women to share a room when they were moved out of the ICU that afternoon.
After they were both moved into the room, monitors still hooked up to each, both now able to talk and move slowly, the torrent of conversation, anger, grace, and love started to flow between the women, and eventually their few guests, long abandoned family and friends.
So much for obeying God’s commandments in order to be blessed or disobeying to be cursed.
God planned for that, too.
For us? Yes, for us, too!
Our days, whether we obey or disobey God, whether we humbly repent or remain stubborn and proud, will be determined by what God chooses for us. And God chooses that we will be so blessed without rhyme or reasons.
With Great Effort and Big Machines (and cruel words)
We Destroy and Destory,
Doch God Saves All Creation
and Us In It
With A Word.
Psalms 33:9
For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.
Matthew 8:8
The centurion answered, ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed.
Words of Grace For Today
It’s cold again this morning. Not the coldest, but enough that one needs take care before one goes outside, care to dress warm enough, not to leave any skin exposed, even a piece of one’s face that cannot be warmed quickly.
When crises rise up in our path, blocking our way forward, it is perhaps not so heart wrenching as to watch one’s daughter fall ill and no doctor’s efforts can save her. It may be worse, as war or earthquake or rising oceans, or other people rip us out of our lives and leave us with nothing more than the clothes on our bodies, if that.
Baptized in water and word, born of the Spirit from above, we can find our way to God’s promises, for when God speaks it is so.
So God created the world.
So Jesus cures us of our every ill.
So it is.
But when we cannot find our way back to God’s promises, and we flounder in waters too deep, cold, and wild for us to survive in, then what?
Then God accompanies us into the deep, cold, and wild, and finds us with a Word holy and simple: I love you!
And that is more than anything else in all the universe.
For no matter what happens to us, God welcomes us home … with a Word.
Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye wastes away from grief, my soul and body also.
Ephesians 1:18
so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints,
Words of Grace For Today
The greatest distress that any human can face (since it covers for so many lesser distresses as well) is to not be,
to not be seen,
to not be heard,
to not be known,
to not be remembered,
to not be loved,
to not be anything at all.
…
God promises to protect us from the evil that would make this be for us.
God sees us.
God hears us.
God knows us.
God remembers us.
God loves us.
And God makes sure we are something to God, and
that many other people
see, hear, know, remember, and love us.
And God sends us out to see, hear, know, remember, and love all people,
so not one person need cry
Lord, see me, hear me, know me, remember me, love me.
Makes for a full day every day, and a full life lived,
when we work so that all people are seen, heard, known, remembered, and …
On the wretched marred surface and depths of our lives, God works miracles for us with forgiveness, making us precious, just as the golden sunset turns glazed, rutted, treacherous ice into a wonder to behold.
Psalms 51:13
Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.
Luke 18:13
But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
Words of Grace For Today
It’s hard to be that tax collector, so out of character, beyond anyone’s expectations, actually humbly, desperately begging God for mercy.
Yet that is God’s intention for each and all of us, to be the outsiders, the ones done in, the ones rejected … and yet for us to be the ones most blessed by God’s mercy. The deeper the hole we get ourselves into, the greater God’s mercy for us is an obvious demonstration of God’s grace for all people to take note of!
Starting there, recognizing the hole of sin we’ve dug ourselves into, each day, each worship service, each moment allows us to humbly and desperately beg for and accept
God’s strength in weakness,
Christ’ sacrifice on the cross to give us new life,
and to meet other people’s sins with that same humble forgiveness fuelled by God’s mercy for us and for them.
Our teaching and inspiring is not about bringing people to be good, or better or less bad. That is the work of the Holy Spirit, which is evident all around us and in us … if we take notice.
Our teaching and inspiring others is only to teach all people of God’s ways, God’s ways of mercy, forgiveness, and renewed life for even the most wretched of sinners.
That will keep us more than busy this day, and each day gives us breath.
Bring me out of prison, so that I may give thanks to your name. The righteous will surround me, for you will deal bountifully with me.
John 8:36
So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
Words of Grace For Today
Of course, you, yes proud, upright, self-righteous you, have never been in prison, so to be set free, and to be free indeed is nothing, right! Not to you.
But let me tell you as one who spent time in prison, put there by lies about a crime that did not even happen, by judges, prosecutors, lawyers, RCMP, and witnesses who all knew they were lying, for it was that blatant, being set free is an experience one does not ever forget. Nor does one forget the time spent as an inmate. Life threatened in various ways at least once a week, by real violent inmates prompted and setup by guards, and by nurses, and by the brass, but protected by real criminals and maybe even a few honest guards … and by God and God’s people. Food and medication that were not tolerated by my system. The noise. The predictable and irregular inspections and demands and new impromptu ‘rules’ and the lack of horizon and photography and intelligent conversation … and the boredom.
The real prison that we find ourselves in does not have brick and mortar walls and evil people attacking us, and uncommitted crimes dumped on innocent scapegoats, and other ‘real’ criminals (guards include) so unpredictable and demanding. The real prison we find each find ourselves in is the one we make out of our own sins. Lies that corner us. Deeds that destroy others (as we intended) but that also haunt and destroy us. Words that we used to try to create a new reality for ourselves, and in denying God’s real creation we step right into the Devil’s playground, where a physical jail would be millions times more preferable!
This is the prison that God has always offered to free us.
This is the prison that the Devil has sent so many ambassadors to, to offer us yet again another way out, which is really another shackle to add to the many that choke the life right out of us.
This is the prison that we try and try and try to free ourselves from, and too often delude ourselves that we have succeeded, only to see the Devil’s playground has expended again around us and our lives and around those we love.
This is the prison that Jesus frees us from. And when Jesus frees us we are free indeed.
So we breathe.
So we dance.
So we take photos.
So we enjoy the horizon.
So we delve into intelligent conversation when it is possible.
So we worship each day to begin the day.
So we sing God’s praise and give thanks for all that keeps us alive, by God’s grace alone, for obviously we do not deserve any of these blessings.
Our task is simply to extend these blessings to as many other people as we possibly can.
That’s life lived richly, abundantly, as God created us to live.
Our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-17
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing …
Words of Grace For Today
Lots of things can make our hearts glad, like our solitude respected, the warm winter weather, the sunny skies providing great solitude, and … repairs finished to the water pump so that water now flows if we give our all to haul water and pump it where it belongs.
The wonder of life is that even if nothing is so to be enjoyed, God walks with us, and we are glad for God’s presence.
Therefore we have reason to rejoice and pray always, perhaps not unceasingly since it takes a bit of concentration to repair a pump and supply water to it, for instance, but in our pauses most certainly.
On the day of prosperity be joyful, and on the day of adversity consider; God has made the one as well as the other, so that mortals may not find out anything that will come after them.
Matthew 6:26
Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
Words of Grace For Today
It is pretty near impossible, but the only way to be assured of one’s own worth is to find that worth only as a gift from God.
The birds may not sow and they eat, but they starve, too.
We may sow, and work extremely hard to provide for ourselves and ours, and we may think we are worth more than the birds, but we to will succumb and it may be much sooner than we anticipate.
There may be days when we are quite sure that as a result of our own work we have succeeded and we prosper … and we do well to celebrate. There are for every human days when no matter how hard (or not) we have worked we will fail and fall into great need, and suffer for it.
So God sends us both? And of course there is no way of knowing what will come next.
As long as we measure our days and reasons to celebrate by the ‘success’ of our own labours, then we have no way of knowing if tomorrow will be a day to celebrate success or to suffer our losses and great needs.
When we place our worth into God’s hands, and rely on God alone to determine our worth, as God does with love, forgiveness, renewal, and purpose (called and sent out to be little Christ’s in the world for all creation), then we can know with unwavering certainly what will come tomorrow. Tomorrow God will succeed, and since God accompanies us through each day, we also will succeed at God’s work (by grace alone, of course.)
Another day to celebrate how valuable God deems us to be (by grace alone, of course.) Ditto tomorrow and each day thereafter.
