Month: August 2023

Green

Growth?

Monday, August 21, 2023

Rain Brings Green Growth

or?

Jeremiah 24:7

I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord; and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.

Colossians 4:3

At the same time pray for us as well that God will open to us a door for the word, that we may declare the mystery of Christ, for which I am in prison

…

Words of Grace For Today

Green.

Green growth.

Green growth of life

Green Spring rains

Green Spring rains cleansing

Green Spring flowers, grasses, trees, …

Green Spring sprung rains renewing what was once dying.

Green Spring sprung rains renewing .dying .. hope for life to continue well

or

Green growth of envy and moulds.

Envy and moulds that cover and choke spreading spores that can destroy us from the inside.

Green.

Will we grow green to renew hope in us and around us?

Yellow

Bright Shiny Yellow, Or?

Sunday, August 20, 2023

Can We See The Light?

Can We Be The Light?

Genesis 1:3

Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.

Ephesians 5:9

for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Yellow,

Coward,

Denying Reality,

Shaded from Courage

and Love Gone Forever.

…

Yellow

Light and Warmth

Of Hope-filled Reality

that looks courageously forward

into the future of love, hope and faith.

…

which

will we be a part of today?

RED

Red Fried

Blood Red?

Saturday, August 19, 2023

See The Fire

That Will

Destroy Us All?

Jeremiah 12:3

But you, O Lord, know me; You see me and test me—my heart is with you. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and set them apart for the day of slaughter.

Ephesians 4:15

But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,

…

Words of Grace For Today

The day of slaughter,

violently terrible

and deadly

bloody

red.

…

Red Roses,

Red Enough.

red

of passion

that transforms

life from meaninglessness

chaos, void, and … confusion

to purposefulness, order

fullness, and …

wisdom.

…

Seeing red?

Which red do we see today?

Blue

Blues.

Blew It Blues

Friday, August 18, 2023

Blue Sky, Missing the Point.

Two Birds Fly

With Grace.

Psalm 119:2

Happy are those who keep his decrees, who seek him with their whole heart,

Matthew 5:19

Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Blue

Blue Blues

Blue Dark Blues

Blue Dark Blues because we’ve blown it.

Blue Dark Blues because we’ve blown it, and it is the most important thing in all of life, the most important thing in all of everything that ever was or ever will be.

Deep, Dark, We-Blew-It-Biggest-Time Blues!

If ever there were a more hopeless situation it could not be known: Happy are those who keep God’s decrees and seek him with their whole heart, for God is the source of happiness and all that is good in life – BUT not one single person can ever keep God’s decrees and seek him with their whole heart. No one has. No one does. No one ever will be able to. Except Jesus.

For the rest of us, we are doomed, and there is no better reason

to not only sing the blues (for we’ve lost out on happiness and life and goodness, totally)

but

to be the blues,

stuck in the blues,

lost,

alienate from God,

in the blues forever.

…

Except

that

God’s work in Jesus Christ to demonstrate that God extends Grace to us all,

forgiving us for not seeking God with our whole hearts and

breaking God’s decrees though we would do otherwise

which Grace turns our forever-blues into hope

that never ends and does not disappoint.

So it is that Blue is the colour of hope.

So that singing the blues is an act

of hope, even though we

blew it big time today

like yesterday and

tomorrow, So

God’s Blues

Carry us

onward

blessed

Purple

Rules and Rulers

Thursday, August 17, 2023

Purple Blossoms, Precious,

OR

Weeds

Run Amok?

Judges 8:23

Gideon said to them, ‘I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you.’

Matthew 23:11

The greatest among you will be your servant.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Purple.

Purple rules.

Purple rules over others.

Bishops

Royalty

Pharaohs

Presidents

Prime Ministers

Premiers

Governors

Druglords

Warlords

Despots

Bullies

Power gone amok!

…

Purple

Purple is precious

Purple is soft

Purple is comfort

Purple is a spectrum

Purple is God’s colour of grace

Purple is exquisite.

…

Purple is the colour of lord and servant turned right-side up by God’s Word calling those who would lead to be servants, not rulers.

What kind of servants of Christ will we be, will others experience us to be?

Will we live out the Holy Spirit’s gifts enabling us to be

a precious spectrum of comforting colours

for all around?

Black

No Hope?

Do Not Lose Heart?

Wednesday, August 16, 2023

As In Every Photo,

In All Views Of The World,

Black Plays Freely.

First Chronicles 29:15

For we are aliens and transients before you, as were all our ancestors; our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope.

2 Corinthians 4:16

So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Black.

Black absorbs all light.

Black blocks out all light so none passes through.

Black is the colour of

void

stillness

hopelessness

sightlessness

shadows

grief

death.

There is life like a shadow that is so fleeting one cannot but watch it pass, or like a shadow that grows and grows, coming toward one until all everything is no more as if consumed by a black hole.

And there goes hope, out the door to the far end of the universe beyond imagination.

Or

Black.

Black holds all light.

Black shades the burning heat of all light so none passes through.

Black is the colour of

fullness

calm

hope amid the burning storm

relief to the eyes

shades

waiting for rebirth

promise of life.

…

While we live our bodies deteriorate. Some say after the age of 24 our bodies start to die. Some say the warranty is up at age 30. Some say …

… well all the someones say everything that is said.

And if our minds

do not succumb to the wear and tear of life, dropping our awareness to minimum levels and below, so that we do not even know our own families, which is a horrible thing to anticipate,

then we may experience the full impact of our lives continuing on despite the deterioration of our bodies and physical abilities,

and find delight.

…

Black.

Black is the colour of all that was before creation, of God in the universe alone, together three in one, lonely … it would appear … for company even with us imperfect, sinful humans.

Black is a colour given by God, to us, and in all times, black or not, God revitalizes our spirits, calling us to live out God’s grace (exercised for us) for others.

So even when it appears there is no hope, God

…

God recreates hope for us.

Remember

To Speak … Truth

Tuesday, August 15, 2023

When Our Vision Is Narrowed By Worry and Self-Concerns,

Like Not Seeing a Crossing Tracks’ Origin and Destination,

We Miss Other’s Needs, Paths, and Opportunities.

Proverbs 31:8

Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute.

Hebrews 13:3

Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured.

…

Words of Grace For Today

When we know ourselves to be defined by God, our identity not dependent on us ourselves or those around us …

Well then the world seeks us out for the peace we offer,

and we

cannot

help

but

remember

and

speak,

Remember those in prisons, concrete or imaginary, with bully guards or made of rumours, of body or of spirit, by wars exiled out of home or by poverty kept from surviving healthily if at all,

and to speak

for those who are not given voice to speak and be heard,

for whom the world has no time or compassion

or imagination

of their precious worth

to us all.

So today

we remember and speak

in prayer first

and then

in our actions.

For God remembers us and speaks for us,

with grace

and steadfast love.

Who

Who Are We?

Who The [Hell] Are We Anyway!

Monday, August 14, 2023

They ask about us:

are we palatable, like tasty berries?

Or are we more like poisonous berries,

bright and deadly?

Proverbs 16:7

When the ways of people please the Lord, he causes even their enemies to be at peace with them.

Matthew 5:44-45

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

…

Words of Grace For Today

In the tumult of today’s world,

when even mother nature seems to be angry with us, challenging our ability to adapt and survive even more extreme weather and destructive storms,

when wars erupt unjustly (as always) leaving people caught between death, destruction, and displacement,

when there are so few honest people who provide truth as a measure of who one is to them,

in the tumult of this world

how are we to know who we are?

how are we to find peace, with ourselves, our world, and with others who wish to do us harm?

Today we measure mostly who we are looking within our selves, an inside view, established by ourselves. This leads to a detachment from others and from community, and more and more people are ‘lost’ to themselves and others. This in turn allows people of power to use, abuse, and denigrate others. In the extreme assembling one’s identity mostly from within leads to narcissism.

In Jesus time people mostly measured who they were by looking outside themselves to what others thought of them. It allowed for distinctions made by powerful people to denigrate the masses as less than significant except to serve the powerful. In the extreme this leads to co-dependency, as we would call it, for those who assemble their identity nearly all from others.

Through history we humans have swung this way and that, between codependency and narcissism, finding our identity mostly with difficulty.

Always, no matter how we assemble our identity, there are ample paths to tear apart anything like peace for ourselves and those around us. Narcissists and codependents wreak havoc for themselves and people around them. Wars are begun by them, easily and often. Sometimes the wars are global, sometimes against a community, sometimes within a family, often within one person. Disruption and destruction reign.

Where is peace to be found?

How can it be that even our enemies will find peace in our presence?

This is only possible when we allow the Spirit to build our identity based on who God says we are: simultaneously pitiful sinners and, miraculously, saints.

God’s peace flows around this kind of people, known by their love for others, even for their enemies. Peace flows with their love like water from the rock in the wilderness as Moses led the people out of slavery into the wilderness, their offspring lead by Joshua into the Promised Land; our ancestors.

Today who will we say we are?

Who will our actions say we are?

How will people know us?

Will they encounter God’s Grace and Peace through us?

Pray the Spirit inspires us to be a bit of a miraculous saint even this day.

Works

Wondrous Works

Piled High and Wide

Sunday, August 13, 2023

Is This Inside A Home

Even Though It Is No House?

Only As It Is Lit By Christ’s Love?

Job 9:10

God does great things beyond understanding, and marvellous things without number.

Ephesians 1:3

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,

Words of Grace For Today

After breakfast there’s dishes to be done, coffee grounds to be disposed of, garbage to be taken out, teeth to be flossed and brushed. Not such great works, but over time they add up to a whole lot of time (and coffee grounds and other garbage tossed out. If it was all in one pile how high and wide would it be? And how it would stink!)

Greater works are those that construct homes. The labour of most ‘stick’ houses in North America is not insignificant, though the structures are designed to last 50 years, and then replacements have to be built! In Germany the standard house is built to a code that results in a structure that should last for 200 years. Now that is a structure. Unless global warming leaves Germany as frigid as Canada and those houses are nearly useless for lack of insulation!

The greater work is to turn a completed structure into a home. That takes care, patience, and love for and by all those who live therein.

Still, a home will most always disintegrate back to being a mere house, sometimes a cursed house, where hate, distrust, and destruction are the norm for each day for all therein. The only way to counter the gravitational pull for homes to disintegrate into houses of hate is to actively revive love each day, even in the face of hate, distrust, and destruction run amok, even at home.

Where are the great works? Superhighways? Skyscrapers? Great Walls that divide and defend? Technology enabled defence systems and military systems? Supercomputers that in minutes defeat all encryption? Rise to power over the greatest powers? Controlling the greatest powers from the shadows? Amassing the greatest wealth and properties? Establishing a colony on the moon? Sending people to Mars? Defeating a virus (sort of only as it continues to mutate?) Finding a ‘cure’ for cancer, malaria, antibiotic resistant bacteria? Solving the energy needs of today’s world and with it reversing climate change? Saving people who are trafficked into slavery, even yet today? Helping an addict onto the road of recovery? Raising an autistic child to be able to interact in the world, and one in a million being an unmatched genius, who helps change the course of human history for the better?

By comparison God’s works, and even one of God’s works, is so much more. As Job gives witness to, when everything else seems to be against us and we have lost everything, that is not God’s pronouncement of having abandoned us, instead it is opportunity for us to see clearly how God walks with us, through hell, back into the Light and love of life. God overcomes our fears! God overcomes our darknesses! God overcomes our hate!

God even overcomes death itself!

Piled over time all together high and wide they cover and permeate every corner of the universe.

These are the wondrous works of God

even today

even for us.

Victory

What Is Victory When All Die?

Saturday, August 12, 2023

Is Victory Finding The Right Path?

Or God Blessing Our Path?

First Samuel 2:1

Hannah prayed and said, ‘My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in my victory…’

Luke 10:20

Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

Words of Grace For Today

Elkanah has two wives. Peninnah had sons and daughters, but Hannah had none. Peninnah used that to taunt, belittle, and provoke Hannah, for they were rivals. Yet Elkanah favoured Hannah even so. Hannah’s heart was vexed, for in that time and place one was what other people said one was, and in that time and place a woman’s worth was measured by her ability to bear children, especially sons. (Such it was, as too often since and in many places still today.)

Eli finds Hannah, in the temple severely vexed, mouthing her words silently, and he thinks she is drunk. When she protests that she is not drunk but severely troubled, he dismisses her with a blessing, that God would grant her prayer.

She then bears a son, Samuel. And so Samuel’s life, blessed in service to God begins, for Hannah gives her son, after he is weaned, to Eli to be raised and work in service to God.

Hannah claims victory for her shame and worthlessness is overcome, and Peninnah can no longer taunt, belittle, and provoke her.

Yet, is this the victory of life, really? Hannah and Samuel, Peninnah and all her descendants, Elkanah, Eli and everyone else will still die, as we all do. 100% fatality rate for species human, catches us all in the end.

We all have small victories. Peninnah had a series of victories with each child that she claimed each time at Hannah’s expense. Such victories are most common, most ugly, most destructive (even to the world’s Peninnahs), and totally worthless in the end. Hannah’s victory is a victory, a small victory. It is a good victory, a blessing from God. But still a small victory.

Where’s the big victory?

Winning a World War? Only to have another war (or wars) engulf the world in two decades or so! Winning in court with lies? Only to face perjury charges, if not in court then before God! Gathering in all sorts of wealth, fame, luxuries, power, comforts? Only to have it all evaporate as one’s health deteriorates and one suffers long years of agony, begging to die. Or to finally realize that one’s wealth, fame, luxuries, power, comforts always cost many other people their lives.

Victory in life is always fleeting, except one.

To have God walk with one through it all, or in other words to be able to rejoice that our names are written in heaven. That is a victory that lasts beyond time into eternity. And it also makes all the other unjust victories taken from one’s life by others rather moot.

For, given God’s presence in every day, every minute, there is nothing that can separate one from the God’s love, and though there may be days when one finds no path to rejoice in this endless, unmatched blessing, there is always reason to rejoice, to exalt, to celebrate …

and to give God thanks.

And even to pray for the poor souls who live as if small victories like wealth, fame, luxuries, power, or comforts are what life is all about.