O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, who are enthroned above the cherubim, you are God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth.
Ephesians 3:14-16
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit.
Words of Grace For Today
At 3:00 I was up.
It was dark.
I walked outside for air.
And
Looked
Up.
Aurora Borealis painted the sky,
Dancing as it does,
From the western horizon, across the lake and trees –
over the meadow in a circle,
pointing to this blessed place,
and back down and around out to the East
and to the North
in wisps, feathery light
and unseen by most people
safely asleep through the northern night.
Then jets roared overhead
from the east
bound to the northwest.
A sortie to defend Canada’s north from predators,
of the human being kind.
This on spaceship earth, caught last evening, probing it’s way through the sunlight
into the dark.
Where are you headed today? Have you your eyes open to see the creation and it’s Creator, at work, at play, suffering, and in joy?
Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored; renew our days as of old.
Titus 3:4-5
But when the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
Words of Grace For Today
Jason sat a huge bit bewildered as he remembered the last seven days. How could life change so fast in so many ways? How was he going to go forward and towards what? It all started with the fire that burned his house down.
But that can only be explained, he realized, if you start before that. His life had progressed pretty much according to plan, with a few unforeseen changes that only improved on things for him. Stacey was one of those changes. Then to understand how that change was so good, he remembered how Robin had played him and broke up with him and disappeared just a week before their planned wedding. That was hard to take at the time, though it was for the best he realized within a few weeks. His career as an engineer had just taken off. Robin had taken so much of his time, high-maintenance as she was, and she really loved the prospect of his money more than she loved him.
After those few terrible weeks he buckled down at work and within a year had established himself as one of just a few experts in the world in the then emerging field of solar power. A number of companies sought him out for his advice on how to produce their products so that he and no more than a handful of others pretty much determined how fast their design of products came to dominate the field. It was exciting, rewarding, and challenging. With all that the rewards were tremendous, not only financially but the respect others showed him and the awards given to him. His most treasured were the two doctorates he received after he wrote the textbook on solar power design. That was as much a doctoral theses as any could be. The doctorates were honorary, but he’d earned them, one in electrical engineering and one in computer sciences.
He’d travelled the world more weeks of the year than not for his work back then. On one trip he’d met Stacey, working for an NGO in Tanzania. They’d fallen in love and gotten married three months later after he’d returned to Tanzania ten times, supposedly to follow up on work projects, but it was actually to spend time with Stacey. He’d moved to Dar es Salaam, where she was based for a year. Then they moved back to Athabasca, north of Edmonton in Canada, where Stacey was from. They’d built a home, had four children, all as bright as their parents. Jason cut back on his travelling to one trip each month at most, then to one every two to three months. The field of solar power had developed fast. Now the challenge was to find the resources to build the panels, and to design hardware and software up to the increasing demands for electricity from them.
Their oldest child had been 7, the youngest 2. The fire had taken them and left Stacey in a coma with brain damage so bad that when she woke up she was hardly there, unable to talk or move on her own. The doctors recommended taking her off life-support. Jason finally agreed and Stacey died the rest of the way within minutes.
Now, seven days later, he was empty. He had money enough to not ever work again. So he quit. He moped about, lost. A friend, Fred, came by to see him about his own solar panel project for his camper. It was something so small Jason had never even thought about that kind of a project. When he had nothing to offer Fred asked him if he would take a day trip with him. Fred could always get Jason to agree to anything, but this time he said no. Fred just ignored that and told him he’d pick him up at 7 the next morning. Dress to be outside in the cold, he’d said.
Jason made the mistake of asking where they were going. Fred just said it was to look at a solar panel project at a hermitage, but mostly to see the hermit. He was a mystic.
So hours later Jason sat there and wondered like he had not had occasion to for decades at how one could be a mystic, and how others would not understand it at all. Fred could not have known that Jason’s confirmation pastor all those years ago had told him he was a mystic, that he saw God more clearly present than anyone else around.
Jason wholeheartedly thought: Restore me to yourself, O Lord, that I may be restored; renew my days as of old.
But he also knew he had done nothing to deserve to be saved. He’d ignored God for so many years. He certainly was ready to be saved now. Being this empty and lost was not to be alive.
That changed when Jason walked the last half mile into the hermitage. The expectation of it being holy, the peace all around, and even Fred’s sudden loss for words, impacted Jason like nothing had since he’d fallen in love with Stacey. The visit with the hermit was anticlimactic. Jason, as they left, asked if he could come back a few times in the next few months. God had started the transformation of a lost soul into a saint, a renewed mystic, and a servant of people desperate for life abundant.
So those in the west shall fear the name of the Lord, and those in the east, his glory; for he will come like a pent-up stream that the wind of the Lord drives on.
Luke 13:29-30
Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God. Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.
Words of Grace For Today
In this generation there are many people who do not believe in God, as in every generation. The span the globe from east to west, north to south, and live in every corner, circumstance, and comfort/desperation.
This is a wonderful vision that one day all people will come from the East and the West and fear God and God’s glory, that people will come from the north and the south to feast in God’s Kingdom. It just is not how it is today, or that there is any evidence that it will come about any day soon.
How just it will be that some of those who are last will be first, and those who are first will be last. It is better that it be all the first will be last and all the last will be first, but we will go with Luke’s version. That’s something of an improvement over the injustice that leaves so many people struggling to survive each day, many succumbing and more wishing they could be done with the struggle, one way or another.
Many who do not believe in God are completely ignorant or apathetic to the reality that God believes in them, in the possibility that they will turn from their arrogant evil ways and not only believe in, but fear and love God. And fearing and loving God will turn to serve others, working to give them life abundant. For now they fight against that possibility totally unaware that if God did not believe in them they would cease to breathe.
As we breathe, as we are together with saints from the south, north, west, and east, as we are joined by the saints in light who no longer need to breathe, we give God thanks …
Thanks for everything that keeps us living and able to see God’s glory each day, poured out on us all and over creation.
Look down from your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless your people Israel and the ground that you have given us, as you swore to our ancestors—a land flowing with milk and honey.
Luke 2:30-32
for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.
Words of Grace For Today
We all live on some ground or another. We are blessed greatly if it is a land flowing with milk and honey.
Sometimes what is crucial is less the land we live on and more the way we see it.
Many lived in the days and place when and where Jesus was born and grew up, but very few noticed what tremendous blessings God placed among them, like the child Jesus arriving at the Temple.
We ask everyday that God will give us eyes and ears to see and hear the wonders God showers down on us.
As most photographers can tell us, they see everything that the rest of us see, yet they see more. They (well full disclosure here, it’s we, since I’m one of them photographers) see how what they look at will or can with a camera be made into a photo that reflects exactly what is there and yet more, often by excluding some of what is there so that we notice more of what is.
Mystics live, see, and hear in much the same way, though we work without a camera, instead using hearts, minds and souls to see the world and all that happens in it as God’s gift to us.
Mystics and photographers see the light, the Light of the world that is our salvation. The results are not always happy to see, though it is profoundly reassuring knowing that it is all blessed by God.
So we often say with Julian of Norwich (even as we also witness tragedies without end), all will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well.
Thus you shall keep my commandments and observe them: I am the Lord.
Philippians 2:14-16
Do all things without murmuring and arguing, so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world. It is by your holding fast to the word of life that I can boast on the day of Christ that I did not run in vain or labour in vain.
Words of Grace For Today
Leviticus lays out rules upon rules before coming to this passage: Thus you shall keep my commandments … Just prior to this conclusion the offering of young animals is laid out in clear detail.
Now if these few rules were all it took to keep the Lord’s commandments, then we’d have a hope of being able to keep and observe them. They are, instead, voluminous even in scripture and interpretations fill seemingly endless volumes, often with contradictory rules and admonishments, so that keeping them is impossible.
Jesus pared the commandments down to Love the Lord your God, with all you heart, mind, and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself, even your enemy. And with that concise formulation it seems possible at first glance, but …
But only by denial of one’s own reality, one’s wishes, desires, yearnings, and actions taken to make it through life – only by denial of one’s own reality is it possible to think that one can keep this one commandment.
The simple truth is we fail at keeping the commandments, every last one of us. That does not mean that we ought to go about our days intentionally murmuring and arguing, or that we should remain oblivious to how our actions hurt others. We need make great efforts to help others.
We need not do all this in hope of satisfying God’s commandments. Rather we can only do this with hearts filled with gratitude in response to all God has done for us.
Obligation does not produce goodness from and in us.
Gratitude does.
Obligation seeks approval for what is already not good enough.
Gratitude seeks nothing except that other people will benefit from one’s words and actions.
We are not going to get out of life free from blemish. Trying to do so is futile and drags us down into the pit of despair, out from which we do not emerge on our own, though we all too often create a false narrative for our lives that tries to convince ourselves we are not stuck in the pit of our own sin, of our own making.
Rather gratitude accepts that we are all blemished, ourselves as much or more than others. Gratitude accepts that God alone transforms us, while we remain wretched, dreadful sinners, into saints who bring life abundant to others.
Thus, as we enjoy meals, and family, and time to relax, reflect, and give thanks (well some of us anyway, for many have none of that even this day), we remember that:
The value of life and of ourselves is a gift from God.
The joy of life is knowing to whom we owe thanks, and being able to give it.
So today we Give Thanks, as grateful people, as sinners-made-saints.
I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command.
1 Thessalonians 2:4
Just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the message of the gospel, even so we speak, not to please mortals, but to please God who tests our hearts.
Words of Grace For Today
To hear God’s Word is precious, awesome, dreadful, life-giving, and demanding.
No one said is was a comfortable ride through life seeing God everywhere, hearing God always, listening to God all day and all night, and following God’s Word with thankful hearts.
Far to many people have interpreted and reported that God demands obedience to [fill in the blank with the current religious leaders’ wishes for controlling people] in order that we will live well and blessed. With this view to God’s Word, to which apparently neither the religious leaders nor their followers have bothered to listen – that is God’s actual Word, it is either an easy thing or an impossible thing to listen and follow.
So many paths have been taken. So many paths have been foisted on others. And so many of these paths lead to life wasted.
God’s precious Word demands not obedience, but a response of gratitude, service, dedication, and sacrifice for others.
God’s precious Word gives life by forgiving sins and making saints out of tremendous (that is wretched) and worthless sinners.
God’s precious Word is dreadful because it sees through all attempts we make to hide or obscure or minimize our sinfulness.
God’s precious Word is awesome because it outshines, out-sings, out-dances everything else in the universe.
Today, see, listen, serve and smile with gratitude, for this is how God created us to live.
It’s another day, more opportunities to serve, more opportunities to share God’s actual precious Word, and more opportunities to live life as God created us to live it.
