Who

Will Rescue Us?

Monday, September 16, 2024

And The Skies Run Red With Their Blood,

As God Lets Evil

Take Itself To It’s Own Bloody Death?

Isaiah 50:7

The Lord God helps me;
therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame

Matthew 14:30

But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’

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Words of Grace For Today

…

The OT reading for this Sunday Jeremiah 11:18-20 overlaps in theme with this verse:

It was the Lord who made it known to me, and I knew;
then you showed me their evil deeds.
But I was like a gentle lamb
led to the slaughter.
And I did not know it was against me
that they devised schemes, saying,
“Let us destroy the tree with its fruit,
let us cut him off from the land of the living,
so that his name will no longer be remembered!”
But you, O Lord of hosts, who judge righteously,
who try the heart and the mind,
let me see your retribution upon them,
for to you I have committed my cause.

…

So it is time to ask:

And who is out to get you?

By guile and deceit

in secret

and hidden ways

so that those uninitiated to such devious ways will not see or suspect or ever know

of the evil that is worked against you?

Oh, you say, there is no such effort made against me.

But then how would you know?

And what is all this about polarization of peoples, infiltration of social media to effect election outcomes, hate created fear motivating voters, world domination by fascist dictators, war hungry leaders hiding in war their failing support at home, the economy played for the benefit of the already rich to get richer and the already poor to get poorer (if there is such a thing for many) and for the middle class to sink, sink, sink closer to poverty?

Are these not already a few powerful manipulating what can be to send us closer to our deaths?

Are you paying attention?

…

But God is with us. And we will see our enemies destroy themselves.

Thanks

For the flow?

Sunday, September 15, 2024

Welcome to Paradise,

is it the Wilderness?

Deuteronomy 6:10-12

When the Lord your God has brought you into the land that he swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—a land with fine, large cities that you did not build, houses filled with all sorts of goods that you did not fill, hewn cisterns that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and when you have eaten your fill, take care that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

John 6:32

Then Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.

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Words of Grace For Today

…

Poverty is a wonderful lesson in humility,

or so they say,

Those who are not poor.

Thankfully the food bank is a steady and good supply of most basic foods and some others,

actually some very odd food that I’d never try or eat if I didn’t get them there.

Take Cookies and Cream Oatmeal.

A treat in a breakfast food.

Well I suppose they’ve made and sold lots of sugar cereals for decades, so why not this, too?

With

all

this

food

I easily forget

how hard it was

before

the food bank.

Not that I forget (life is too hard) how much God provides.

Every morning I thank God for everything that keeps me alive, and it’s more than just enough.

Lately there’s been so much meaningful labour

it’s hard to keep up

as winter is coming

and autumn is not that long

And there’s still wood to start collecting.

But,

little by little

a thing here and a thing there gets done

and

I start to think

I may even be ready, for winter,

‘God willing and the creek nor rising’.

So today

first the thanks,

then the celebration,

then the meal

then

flat out work

if the rain is not too much or

the smoke too thick.

And how is your day shaped? With thanks, remembering who supplies all that keeps you alive, celebration, meal, and work?

Or is it something else.

Whatever, may it be blessed,

and may you remember who blesses it,

even if you live in the land ‘flowing with milk and honey.’

The Cup

Too Full

Saturday, September 14, 2024

Even Paradise

Can Seem

Too Much!

Psalm 94:19

When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.

Luke 22:42-43

Jesus spoke, ‘Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.’ Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength.

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Words of Grace For Today

…

Too often there are just so many things competing for attention and accomplishment and concern and and and

and

where do we find the energy, time, and heart to

well

anything?

Only then when the Holy Spirit intervenes do we find peace

and

heart

and

energy

to move onward in the day

doing what is necessary and good,

thanking God for everything that keeps us alive

and praying that God will forgive our sins, too many as they always are.

So then

we move into the day

ready to bless all we encounter

with God’s Grace,

God’s costly Grace.

Which sometimes is a cup we would rather not bear, not at all, not at all.

Yet we move into the day trusting that God’s will will be done, and God

will

walk

with

through it all.

Costly

Grace

Friday, September 13, 2024

We may think we are alone,

But God is with us,

even in the solitude of the ice,

saving us by Grace.

Psalm 17:7

Wondrously show your steadfast love, O saviour of those who seek refuge from their adversaries at your right hand.

1 Peter 4:14

If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

God’s saves, graciously, and sends us out to be the hands of God’s saving grace for others. Our adversaries may revile us, but that is only part of the cost of being the hands that do Grace.

In a Word: Walking Partners

After her last miscarriage and hysterectomy, that left Henry and her childless for sure, Mary became a marathon runner. She was in great shape so it came as an unexpected shock when she died of a massive heart attack.

Two years later, out of the blue, Gwen, a member at his church, showed up at Henry’s door, knowing from her own loss the inescapable loneliness of surviving one’s spouse, and knowing that the Holy Spirit saved her and kept saving her as she shared that Grace with others. She asked Henry – he was old enough to be her father – to take a walk with her. In a word, they became walking partners. Named, it became the definition of what they gave to each other. It was not always easy, but they sacrificed a bit to make it work.

Gillian’s Safety-Net

Gillian, as a new mother, struggles with sleep deprivation and poverty. Today there just is no money for milk for the three kids, or diapers for the baby. She had already looked in all the places they put money for a rainy day. But there’d been too many rainy days lately.

Then to her surprise there’s a knock on the door. An old man from church, Henry, stood there, saying he knows it can be tough. He’d helped with his nieces and nephews. He offers to watch the kids for a half hour. Grateful, Gillian disappears into the bedroom and falls asleep. She wakes two hours later. Henry’s still there. He’s had groceries delivered, milk and diapers included. There’s even fish and chips for the kids’ supper, and a microwave meal for her and her husband, Michael, who is due home in an hour. Henry says good bye and hands her an envelop with two $50 dollar bills in it, and says, “If ever you haven’t enough for the essentials, my card is in there, call. I can always help out without noticing the extra expense. I’m not rich, but I have more than enough each month. I’m your safety-net.”

Grocery Delivery In A Word

It’s just a word, but the ‘grocery delivery’ Henry arranged for Gillian was not possible online thing three decades ago – so this is how it happened.

Henry, needing to change the baby’s diaper, found the last one. So he looked around, made a list, and called Gwen, his walking partner. Gwen took a break from work at her car dealership, went shopping for the list that Henry gave her over the phone, plus a few things she grabbed from her experience raising her three young kids. Henry tried to pay her for them but Gwen said she didn’t need it, it was her contribution.

Grandma Gillian

Gillian, now a grandma, knows about the cost of grace. Her husband, Michael, died in a car crash caused by a drunk driver when their youngest was in High School. Times always were and still are tight. She volunteers two times a week at the food bank, and patrols the streets for 4 hours when it’s either real cold in the winter or blistering hot in the summer, to help mostly homeless people find shelter.

The Prices Paid

What Gillian never knew was Henry gave up one meal every third day to have a bit saved up for her rainy days. It wasn’t often, but she had asked once or twice a year as long as the kids were at home.

What Henry never knew was Gwen went in debt helping him and others, eventually having to sell her car dealership to pay off her debt. She retired in poverty, knowing she’d helped as many people as possible after her husband, Frank, had died of cancer in their 40s.

Walking with Henry was her one constant, a costly joy, for she lost out on more than a few opportunities to make a sale by leaving to walk with him.

That day he’d called for her to go shopping for milk and diapers, she’d walked away from a sale, telling the customers she appreciated their support of her business, but that she needed to go help someone with no money. They’d pulled two fifty dollar bills out of their wallets, saying, “Maybe this can help.” That money ended up in the envelop Henry gave Gillian.

Losing to Win?

What a Pain!

Thursday, September 12, 2024

Why is it that there’s always a stone in the way?

Psalm 82:3

Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute.

1 Thessalonians 3:12

And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you.

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Words of Grace For Today

…

There is a secret to life, well it is a well know secret, so not really a secret, but a key to succeeding in life in the things that really count,

which is not power, money, or fame.

It is in living as one who reflects for all people God’s love, compassion, grace, and healing power for us all.

That key is that saving one’s own life is a disaster in the making.

Losing one’s life for another human is great.

Losing one’s life for Jesus’ sake and for the sake of the Gospel, so that God’s boundless love, compassion, grace and healing is known by others, now that is what we were created for and

living that way is to succeed at life, where it really counts.

Simple

yet

losing one’s life for others to know God’s love

still feels like one is losing,

well,

losing life!

And that, I guess, is the secret. That that pain and suffering is also what life at it’s best is all about.

The Personal Ad,

The One Determinative Thing

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Can We See What’s Coming

Psalm 51:12

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.

1 Timothy 1:5

But the aim of such instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith.

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Words of Grace For Today

…

A personal ran in the newspaper, back when there were such things, that read: Lost, missing for hours or days, it’s hard to tell, last presence evidenced by a note to myself last week. Reward unknown. Oh, lost is my mind. Call me if you find it.

The next ad read: oh, forgot my number, too.

Two days later another personal ran: Found one loose and lost mind, wandering about the back avenues of 3^rd and Park, near the Bowling Alley. Call 412-384-9012 if you know of it’s owner.

Three days after that an article on page three ran a story about the happy ending of an old man in his early 90s reunited with his mind that had wandered off during a boring TV program on shellfish, and the young mother of three who had found it engaging her oldest boy over the fence to the alley behind their house.

…

Sometimes, all too often really, it seems we get separated from the one thing that makes such a determinative difference in our lives, the joy of our salvation, namely being found and saved by Jesus. Our stories make about as much sense as the ads and story in that newspaper that summer in New York when it was hot and smoggy and crime was at its worst.

…

So, even when we are not so lost in a fantasy world of liars posing as politicians and people hoping for the impossible (which will lead to the loss of many things basic to democracy and human rights), we too pray,

restore to us the joy of your salvation Lord. For this is the one thing that does not change or get taken from us.

Help us to love You, our neighbour as ourselves, and even our enemies … and all creation (we have to add, since it’s been on the endangered list now for oh too long.)

Breathe?

Give Me Air!

Tuesday, September 10, 2024

For All That is Good!

We Give God Praise and Thanks!

Psalm 111:1

Praise the Lord! I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation.

Revelation 19:5

And from the throne came a voice saying, ‘Praise our God, all you his servants, and all who fear him, small and great.’

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Words of Grace For Today

…

From the smallest things to the grandest things, always it is good and right to give God thanks and praise.

There are so many challenges, onslaughts, attacks, failures, bullies, liars – there are so many reasons to wonder if God has any good planned for us still,

but breathe in (carefully if there’s heavy smoke about).

If we live, we have the greatest reason of all to give God thanks and praise,

for none of us deserve the goodness of life

and if we breathe, God gives us new opportunities to confess our sins, to repent, and to return to God, to put our whole trust in God’s steadfast love.

Breathe.

And sing God’s praises,

giving thanks

for the smallest and the grandest of things that contribute to our survival and that give evidence of God’s love for us, for ours, and for everyone.

Bugs, Heat, Smoke, Liars, Rain, Snow, Dark, Cold

Nothing Changes Our Trust and Hope In …

Monday, September 9, 2024

two winter months, two summer months are HARD, right?

the rest is up to us?

No, it’s all up to us?

Psalm 40:4

Happy are those who make the Lord their trust, who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods.

John 1:41

He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed).

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Words of Grace For Today

…

Winters are harsh. When one does not have a home, an apartment or house, to shelter one from the weather, then one would do well to prepare, and to prepare well …

first to keep the rain and snow in all forms from one’s living area, whatever that may be.

For if one is wet at -40⁰, one will not survive long. If one has to continually shovel snow, that may provide good exercise, but after a while, and as one ages beyond one’s working years, that may indeed provide a requirement for survival that one may not meet.

Putting one’s trust in oneself is a fool’s life, a fool’s mistake.

There is summer to prepare for winter, at least those days that are neither too hot nor too smokey, during which one can construct whatever one can to keep water and snow that will become water when warmed out of one’s living area.

Putting one’s trust in one’s own efforts, necessary as they are, to keep water and snow at bay, and all the other challenges of winter, like dark and cold – putting one’s trust in one’s own efforts is also a fool’s life and a fool’s mistake.

The harsh days of winter like the bugs, smoke, and heat of summer, can simply drive one mad, in all senses of the word. One can be angry at the days, at life, at the circumstances that have led to one living without proper shelter, or at the way that the environmental challenges are more extreme than when one was young, or that age has limited one’s abilities, or that last year’s extremes have become this year’s normals.

One can become insane trying to understand the cruelty of people that have contributed to one’s circumstances, and the stupidity of those who continue to make it more difficult than it is already. But that kind of stupidity, cruelty, and the worldviews that support them as if they were normal simply cannot be understood.

Not any more than it is possible to understand clearly the insanity of the pursuers of violence, in wars of aggression (taking another country’s land), in civil wars (attempting at the cost of the civilian population to rule over the population), in bullies who use fists to communicate and insist on their own way, or of those who in such refined manners serve up lies to ensure they get their own way.

One must, facing the insanity of people and the harshness of the human messed up environment, place one’s hope in a gracious God, who can and will deliver one from all threats.

Following the invitation of the saints through the ages, we know we have found the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Saviour of the universe and of all souls therein.

So we say, too, also this day: Come and see, for we have found our Saviour. Nothing will make this trust waver. Not bugs-heat-smoke. Not rain, snow, dark or cold. Not bullies, liars, corrupt individuals or systems. Not even our successes, small as they are, of preparing as best possible for the coming days.

For we know, through all our trials and tribulations, God’s steadfast love and protection have accompanied us, and seen us through to green pastures and still waters, and peace no matter what the turmoil that swarms around us and the world.

Oh! Lordy, Lordy!

Save Us from Stupidity and Senselessness

Sunday, September 8, 2024

Which Is Less Senseless,

Smoke from Careless Fires

Intentional Fires?

Psalm 119:66

Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments.

2 Timothy 2:23

Have nothing to do with stupid and senseless controversies; you know that they breed quarrels.

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Words of Grace For Today

…

There are no stupid and senseless controversies today, are there? Ha!

What else is polarizing our countries, bringing in populist, fascist leaning, power hungry rulers, and dumping us all in despair

reviewing how Hitler came to power and brought the world into a war which no one could win, in the end. Everyone except the money-hungry war-profiteers.

Steady.

Do not let self-prophecies come true, nor lose oneself into despair and hopelessness.

So we beg God to teach us to live out wisdom

at every turn,

bringing grace to bear on all circumstances.

For only Grace lived out for all people

can keep us from losing

losing

again.

God, teach us your commandments, but even more, teach us to live out your Grace for all people.

Whaddayawant?

Anyway!

Saturday, September 7, 2024

Following the Well Trod Path, or?

First Kings 3:5-9

At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, ‘Ask what I should give you.’ And Solomon said, ‘You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant my father David, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart towards you; and you have kept for him this great and steadfast love, and have given him a son to sit on his throne today. And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?’

Matthew 4:8-10

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
“Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.” ’

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Words of Grace For Today

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Whaddayawant?

What do you really want, if anything you ask for will be given to you?

The genie from the bottle giving you three wishes kind of thing, but not quite.

It’s God asking you, as God asked Solomon.

Or it’s the Devil offering you, as he did Jesus, the world in return for worshipping the Devil.

What do you really want?

Solomon asked for understanding.

Jesus refused the Devil.

And what will you do this day with all God and/or the Devil offer?

Even the smallest choices are a response, but the most obvious direction your answers take are seen more clearly in the large choices,

or are they?

Eat a hearty breakfast, for it’s good for you,

but do nothing to feed your hungry neighbour.

Demand others stay out of your way,

and never take time to see their way.

Rest all day long in comfort, day after day.

While others work and suffer all day, day after day.

Enjoy and even waste plenty of water and power,

while most others have barely enough water if that, and no power.

Today, what little choices will we make that determine others lives

…

or deaths?