Month: November 2022

Stand Firm

Wednesday 30 November 2022

Heliskiing is all about not standing firm, and finding the flow.

Living faithfully we stand firm

…

and

flexible

on whatever ground we find ourselves.

Isaiah 40:29

He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.

John 6:35

Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

Words of Grace For Today

Some things are a given in life. People say it’s only taxes and death, but there are plenty more givens: pain, sorrow, yearning, dreaming, hoping, losing, hunger and thirst.

God knew all this before God created us, and God provided for all that, with promises and hope that could not be defeated, because it relies on God, not on us humans. And God sent Jesus to bring living water for our thirst and nourishing bread for our hunger. Living water and nourishing bread of all kinds, for our thirsts and hungers of all kinds.

Optional in life is to believe in God’s goodness, and God’s good graces turned towards us at all times.

But for those of us who believe, life is so much more than the givens. Life is filled with all the gifts that God has given us, which more than outweigh the ‘costs’ in life to the other tragic givens far beyond taxes and death.

For those of us who believe, Cornelia Georg and Michael Kremzow have written these words and Michael Kremzow the melody to help us speak our firm faith based on God’s grace for us:

Ich stehe dazu

Listen Here

1) Ich glaube an Gott, den Herrn der Welt, der mich durch seine Hand erhält.
Er schenkt mir Leben und Verstand und ist mir täglich zugewandt.
Er gibt zum Leben, was mir nützt.
Er ist es, der mich schirmt und schützt.
Er liebt mich, auch wenn ich versag’
drum dank ich ihm an jeden Tag.

Ref: Ich steh dazu, das glaube ich.
Ich steh dazu, weil Christus mich im Leben und in Tod erhält.
Das ist mein Trost in dieser Welt.
Ich steh dazu.

2) Ich glaube auch an Jesus Christ,
der für mich Mensch geworden ist.
Sein Tod an Kreuz wird Brückenschlag,
weil er erstand am dritten Tag.
Er ist mein Herr, der durch den Tod gegangen ist
und nun bei Gott mich macht von allen Schulden frei, das ich ihm stets verbunden sei.

3) Ich glaube an den Heiligen Geist, der mich den Weg zu Christus weist.
Auch meinen Weg durch diese Welt, bin ich nicht nur auf mich gestellt,
denn Gottes Geist schenkt Gaben mir und lässt mich sehn auf Erden hier,
dass in Gemeinschaft dann bei Gott ich ewig lebe nach dem Tod.

…

Google translated refined by TL

I Stand Firm

1) I believe in God, Lord of all, who sustains me with His hand.
He gives me life and reason and hears me each day.
He gives for life all I need.
It is He who shields and protects me.
He loves me even when I fail
so I thank him every day.

Ref: I stand firm, this I believe.
I stand firm because Christ sustains me in life and in death.
That is my comfort in this world.
By Grace I stand firm.

2) I also believe in Jesus Christ, who became human for me.
His death on the cross builds the bridge, because he rose on the third day.
He is my Lord who has passed through death and now with God frees me from all sins,
so that I am always bound to him.

3) I believe in the Holy Spirit who shows me the way to Christ.
Also my way through this world.
I’m not on my own, for God’s Spirit gives me gifts
and gives me sight here on earth to see
in communion with God I live after death forever.

…

Today will be another cold, cold winter day; and a day to remember from whom comes our strength, our hope, and our courage, no matter the thirst or hunger that gnaws away at us each day.

By Grace we can stand firm

and flexible!

Strength and Home …

Tuesday 29 November 2022

The sun may set,

in blood red,

forecasting the inevitable storms;

still God provides all we need each day.

Isaiah 40:30-31

Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

2 Timothy 2:1

You then, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus…

Words of Grace For Today

The storms of life pound the shores of our hearts and minds, eroding more and more from our courage, hope, and love.

In Advent, with so many commands to remain attentive!, remain awake! be alert!, keep watch! we may well feel we must renew our strength, our faith, our courage, our hope, and our love.

Whether years have taught us our not, we simply cannot on our own. The storms have stolen too much for us to rebuild our ‘little home of courage, hope and love’ where there is no more a shore at all as the ocean of chaos has overrun our lives.

So we cry to God without words and with many words, and also in the words of Martin Buchholz’s hymn Bleib bei uns:

1) Du siehst die Wege, die wir gehen.
Was uns bewegt, hast du erkannt.
Auch wenn wir selbst uns nicht verstehen,
hältst du uns fest in deiner Hand.

Ref.: Bleib bei uns! Bleib bei uns
bei Tag und Nacht.
Bleib bei uns! Bleib bei uns,
hab auf uns Acht!

2) Du siehst, was wir nicht mehr durchschauen.
Auch wenn der Sturm sich noch nicht legt,
bist du die Kraft, der wir vertrauen,
bist du die Liebe, die uns trägt.

3) Du bist der Geist, der uns beflügelt.
Das Feuer, das uns neu entfacht.
Du liebst das Leben ungezügelt.
Und wir vertraun auf deine Macht.

Text und Melodie: Martin Buchholz (2018) CCLI-Nr.: 7128836

Google translate refined by TL

Stay With Us

1) You see the paths we take. You already recognize what moves us.
Even when we do not understand ourselves, you hold us firmly in your hand.

Ref.: Stay with us! Stay with us day and night.
Stay with us! Stay with us, take care of us!

2) You see what we fail to understand.
Even when the storms continue on,
in your power we trust, for your love sustains us.

3) You are the spirit that inspires us.
The fire that rekindles us. You love life unbridled. For we trust alone your power.

Listen Here

or

Here in the last half the service

…

On our own we would fall, we would fail, we would never have a home at all.

For already now, in Christ, our home is secured for us, no matter the ‘house’ we have,

or

none.

Sentinels On The Walls … of Our Hearts

Monday 28 November 2022

No matter the storms that press down on our hearts,

we know from Jesus’ Word that the light will come again,

just as the morning star will shine

even before the bright sun rises.

Even more, we know Jesus’ Light shines always,

even in our deepest darkest storms.

Isaiah 62:6

Upon your walls, O Jerusalem, I have posted sentinels; all day and all night they shall never be silent.

2 Peter 1:19

So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

Words of Grace For Today

until …

until the day dawns …

until the day dawns and the morning star rises …

until the day dawns and the morning star rises in our hearts.

…

Be attentive until …

Be attentive until … the morning star rises in our hearts.

…

Advent is already under way and

while many will rush about to parties, baking and shopping and wrapping all in preparation for …

for a Christmas celebration that for most has little to do with Christ’s birth, God come to earth, for the poor, the outcasts, the downtrodden, and more to do with our own traditions and attempts to bring blessings upon ourselves.

What will we do?

How is our being attentive until the morning star rises in our hearts a guide for our days?

What is it that we are attentive to … until …?

The prophetic Word of God! And what is that Word?

What is that Word other than the whole, holy story of Jesus, beginning in creation and continuing through this day until the end of all life and light and energy and existence in this universe?

And how are we then to do well to be attentive to this Word?

Many will hope … hope that one day God will be with them.

Even in our worship we often say: God be with you, as in May God be with you! As a wish, a desire, for that blessing.

Then yesterday the priest (https://www.zdf.de/gesellschaft/gottesdienste/katholischer-gottesdienst-474.html) changed that small word to be so much more:

God is with you!

Our attentiveness brings us each day, not down some specific path or type of thinking, words, or acts. Rather this attentiveness, itself a gift from God (not our own doing), brings us to encounter each moment of each day with open eyes and open hearts, as if our being alive brings Christ’s reflected light to each moment so that we see, hear, and encounter God in every bit of creation, every slice of time.

That morning star resides, as a gift from God, already in our hearts, yet still not completely, so we remain attentive as the days of Advent come to us,

for God is with us.

Ready?!!

Sunday 27 November 2022

Just an everyday morning?

Only if one is blind!

Deuteronomy 4:23

So be careful not to forget the covenant that the Lord your God made with you, and not to make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you.

Colossians 1:15

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

Words of Grace For Today

Since the beginning of time, or at least as soon as humans took note that God exists, we have been wont to ‘see’ God.

So many, unable to see God each day in all that surrounds them, have worked to make an image of God, and then they have turned to worship that image, instead of the awful, awesome, wondrous God.

Christ came for all, and specifically for those blind to God walking each day with them, to be a human who is God, so that the ‘blind’ could see.

Now everyone can see God, in the story of Jesus, the Christ.

Yet so many know the story and fail to ‘see’ God each day.

God keeps trying to lift the blinders, though so many prefer to stay in the blindness to which they are accustom, rather than venture out into the world of wonders that is God’s presence in this wondrous universe.

Still God shows up,

to be seen,

to be heard,

to give blessings,

to give guidance.

Also this day.

Are you ready for an adventure?

If, then open your eyes, ears, and heart …

.

.

.

and hang on for dear life!

Reality Worth Living In

Saturday 26 November 2022

The Sun Rises through the scrub beneath the trees, beginning a new day.

God never ‘sets’,

but walks with us,

always.

Psalms 116:9

I walk before the Lord in the land of the living.

Luke 20:38

Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.

Words of Grace For Today

There are so many times in life when I have been surprised that others do not experience reality clearly.

The confirmation class where others seem to have not the slightest clue what the pastor was talking about most of the time, most often when I would engage him in a serious question.

The step-daughter who always accused me of doing things I had never done, so I wrote up an exchange we had where she had blown up at me. She agreed that what I had written was not wrong, but it was not right because it did not include what she felt. Her accusations were that I was responsible for what she was feeling, even though I had next to nothing to do with what her emotional state was. Her birth father had favoured her among the children and then killed himself, leaving her confused and angry. That anger got directed at me, her step-father. The result was the reality she lived was often quite disconnected from what actually took place.

People in so many different congregations and synods who played power games, participated in church, prayed for forgiveness and reconciliation with those people they saw as enemies (who certainly were not of the view that they,themselves, -those people – were ‘enemies’ of anyone,) and then they would return to their games of false accusations, scheming and disruption of congregational life.

The many people who come to the lake to drink and get high, seemingly unaware of the holy ground they tread upon.

The closest analogy I’ve found comes from being a professional photographer. I see photos all day long, especially at sunrise and sunset, or in storms, or any time the light is spectacularly specular. I’ve spoken with people who can point a camera (well a cell phone, so now everyone has a pretty good camera!) at the world to capture at best a snapshot of trees, lake, and blah, and not even notice that 2⁰ to the left there is a splendid photo waiting maybe only two minutes to be taken before it disappears.

Do people, likewise, go through their days, not seeing God among the living, thinking that God is only for us after we die, and God walks among the dead of all time?

Luke puts it straight:

God is not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.

Let us walk this day, knowing that God walks with us.

Or is that something that others cannot experience? Scripture gives plenty of witness that many people have lived, knowing God walked with them.

So this is reality, and reality worth living for.

A Fire-Storm a’Coming

Friday 25 November 2022

The Dawn Fire-Storm Breaks Into Another Day.

Jeremiah 31:35

Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day. and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the Lord of hosts is his name.

1 Corinthians 8:6

Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

Words of Grace For Today

Yet for us …

Which make it clear enough that for others it is not so.

We see the world defined by scientific research results and theories developed of millennia.

A universe expanding from an initial big bang, our planet one of 9 or so planets along with numerous asteroids, moons and space dust (so not quite void) revolving around a sun, and our sun one star in many that make up one galaxy among many that make up what we ‘see’ with telescopes and exploratory space venturing probes that speed out of earth’s atmosphere to bring us images and information of the ‘great beyond’ and all it’s wonders like black holes that defy our ability to see beyond their thresholds as they consume anything and everything that gets ‘too close’, being millions of miles and more.

Our ancestors saw the universe differently: the land flat, a firmament hold up the stars (planets only known as stars) and sun on it, with the precreation chaos breaking in from the bottom in the oceans and from above in storms as water of the void beyond the land and firmament poured in chaos and destruction on creation.

There are many other views of the universe, as well, among all humans of all time.

Even now we theorize there may be other universes not in and of this one we know.

Yet … yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

And this God gives the sun for light by day. and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar.

Even this day, as we are told to anticipate rain and possibly freezing rain, we see God’s greatness in the blessing poured out on us like unending living waters of stream of life, and light that comes in the morning to give all creatures and plants life potentials.

In this worldview, this universe ‘seen’ and known, we see God and rest assured in God’s promise to walk with us, whatever storms come our way.

For there will be many, no doubt,

yet … yet for us there is one God ….

Looking or Already Seeing?

Thursday 24 November 2022

Looking afar

we may search for

the ‘colour of life’ elsewhere,

Doch God has put all blessings

among us.

Isaiah 49:8

Thus says the Lord:
In a time of favour I have answered you, on a day of salvation I have helped you;
I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people,
to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages.

Luke 17:21

Nor will they say, “Look, here it is!” or “There it is!” For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.

Words of Grace For Today

While the world teaches us to find our way,

our way in the world to success, to happiness, to comfort, to privilege, to contentment, to blessings, to prosperity, to [fill in what we all chase], and to find our way to God,

Jesus turns that all around, inside out, upside down (well, right side up, as it turns out) and shows us

we need not ‘find’ our way,

because God walks with us, and God is among us, and the Holy Spirit leads us, comforts us, provides us happiness, contentment, unending blessings, and all that is good for us, and

because God has claimed us and established among us God’s reign.

This is less for our benefit, than for those who see us

so that they may know

In a time of favour God has answered us, on a day of salvation God has helped us,

so that what is right;
I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people,
to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages.

so that what is right will also be established for all people and the land.

so that what has been laid to waste will be renewed,

so that what is lost from our pasts, will be redeemed and renewed.

For this is God’s good Will towards all of us who live on this fragile planet earth.

And that is what God gives us to teach the world

about Grace.

Cause and Effect

Wednesday 23 November 2022

Not Quite Roman Roads, but,

no matter how great or small our efforts are,

they are nothing compared to God’s work

for us.

Psalms 24:7

Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in.

John 1:12

But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.

Words of Grace For Today

Cause and Effect: people always want to be in control of the cause and the effect, especially of their own lives and things important to them,

like being accepted by God.

So the one verse from John reflects (in the English more than Greek) that first 1) we believe in Jesus’ name and receive him.

Then 2) God gives us the power.

And 3) we use that power to become children of God.

And that is all backwards and dangerously so.

If we have that power, then we have the power in the end to tell others that they did not receive Jesus, and therefore they are not the children of God, and if not the children of God, then they are not our equals, and … well eventually that leads to us against them, and the killing starts, if not literally then figuratively at first and always in the end, literally. And that is hell. That is not what Jesus came to live on earth as one of us in order to make possible.

It just ain’t so.

In fact taken with the verse before and after we see even in English some very different cause and effect.

John 1:11-13

He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

1) Jesus comes to his own, and 2) they do not accept him.

3) others receive him and believe in Jesus’ name,

4) Jesus gives these others the power to become the children of God,

5) but listen: that power is not worked out by us humans, because those children of God are born (not by blood or the will of humans) but by God.

The cause and effect is clear: God acts, we receive the blessings. We get to accept the blessings or reject them.

Regardless of how we respond, scripture shows again and again that God acts again and again, to move us to accept the blessings.

The Psalm can be misread as well.

Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in.

One could say we must life up the gates of our hearts, our world, our cities, in order that the King of glory may come in.

But

we know God comes whether we act or not.

We pray that God will bring us to lift up the gates, and give witness to the coming of the King of glory. That’s the part we sinners get to play in God’s effort to reach out to so many people who think they are in control

of the cause and effect

in God’s creation.

God’s in control of all the causes and effects and we get to believe, cooperate, and participate, Or not.

God’s still in control of all the causes and effects.

Thank God, for when we think we are in control, that’s when we build ‘towers of Babel’ and start wars to ‘conquer or kill off the unfaithful’ who are in our way for exerting our control in ‘our world.’

Another day to pray we learn also again today to believe, cooperate, and participate in God’s Will.

Fasting to ‘Find’ Our Way?

Tuesday 22 November 2022

A New Day!

No need to find our way.

Our guide is more sure than the moon.

Ezra 8:21

Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might deny ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our possessions.

John 14:6

Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’

Words of Grace For Today

How can we deny ourselves in order to seek from God a safe journey for ourselves, our children and all our possessions?

It seems to me that exactly that effort is what Jesus came to tell us is futile.

Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and on that Way the truth is that what we want out of life, like securing our own safety, just is not in the cards.

Love has no guarantees, no safeties. It’s a commitment to the other to provide as much as can be at the time, and to walk with them, as much as one can.

God can always walk with us, so that is the best it gets. No safe journey for ourselves, our children and all our possessions.

That said, there is no better journey than to walk forward to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ, using words when necessary, knowing that God walks with us. If we try to make it better than that, we tend to screw it all up for ourselves, our children and for any possessions we may have.

While many have tried to make it to God, Jesus shows us again and again that such efforts are futile. God is already with us.

That’s a great day’s comfort and assurance, come what may.

Unsure Ending?

Monday 21 November 2022

We may wonder how our trek past that point may turn out,

but we already know how each day and each life will end:

as blessed as it began.

Jeremiah 3:14

Return, O faithless children, says the Lord, for I am your master; I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.

Luke 15:20

So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.

Words of Grace For Today

In the movie, About Time, the main character Tim learns the secret of living well from his father (since the men in the family can travel back in time to relive parts of their lives, changing the outcomes, like a mulligan): namely, that he lives each day through from beginning to end and then goes back to relive it, free from all the concern of how it may turn out, enjoying every possible event and person he encounters.

The key to the secret is to remove all trepidation at doing things right and well. When we know the outcome will be good, it’s not so hard to be humble, admit our mistakes, make amends as we are able, and move on with gratitude. The great bind in life comes when we fear what will happen if we actually admit to others we have made a mistake, small or large as it may be.

So Jeremiah calls with God’s Word to the people to return to God, and to do so knowing that God will welcome them and bring them to Zion, the city of hope and peace and prosperity and blessings.

So Jesus tells the story of the Prodigal Son, and the Prodigal Father. The son wastes away his inheritance and life until he has nothing left and not enough food to survive. He is humbled. He need not become humble. His circumstances leave him no other option. So he returns, asking only to work as a servant and receive as payment a place to live, and food to eat.

The father surprises him with compassion, a huge welcome, and a full return to his place as a son, even celebrating his return with a huge banquet.

Now, if we only knew how all our needed confessions and repenting would go with other people, life might be a lot easier. Trouble is people are not always compassionate, welcoming, and willing to celebrate our confessing our failures and sins done to them. Usually we get the ‘whip.’

How do we choose to live, though: full of fear at being honest, humble and repentant, or both ready to confess our sins, and then, when others confess theirs and repent, to be the ones compassionate, welcoming and celebrating others’ repentance?

From day to day, it would be easier to simply know how things would turn out and then take everything in stride, even with delight at how things proceed, showing compassion and care for all the people we encounter.

Since God provides us the promise that we will be welcomed like the prodigal son, and God promises to take us in to Zion, we can live knowing how it will all turn out in the end.

In the movie towards the end Tim takes the secret his father gives him one step further and simply lives every day the first time and only time through, enjoying every possible event and person he encounters.

…

We get to do that, not simply because, but rather because God promises us a good ending … to each day, to each year, to each life.

Simply blessed.