Thursday, November 23, 2023
How Bright The Light Of God’s Grace,
That Leads Us On Through Life,
Blessed.
Psalm 69:6
Do not let those who hope in you be put to shame because of me, O Lord God of hosts; do not let those who seek you be dishonoured because of me, O God of Israel.
Ephesians 1:7
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace ….
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Words of Grace For Today
When we sin, especially when we aim it at other people in anger, the effects of that evil just keep getting bounced around, spreading further and further.
A wise old pastor said once among friends looking back on their lives as pastors, “I hope that I have not hurt anyone.”
Today that could easily be improved on with, “God, I pray you will forgive me for the people I have hurt, and that you will help them heal.”
When Leonard Cohen wrote, “If the sun would lose its light And we lived an endless night … And no one that you hurt could ever heal, Well that’s how broken I would be, What my life would seem to me, If I didn’t have your love to make it real.”
One of the real things about life is that watching other people, many whom we love, suffer because of what we have done, takes all the goodness of life from us.
So we pray with the Psalmist Do not let those who hope in you be put to shame because of me; do not let those who seek you be dishonoured because of me….
For when others are put to shame or dishonoured because of our sins, the stain it leaves on them is not simply a matter of them healing. It is also necessary that the communities around them learn to free them of the shame they have put on them, and restore their honour to them.
That healing is much more complex and often nearly impossible.
So we pray, counting on the forgiveness of our sins, in the richness of God’s grace.
Grace upon grace from God, and through others empowered by the Holy Spirit, provides us our only hope in life,
that all may be well,
all may be well,
all manner of things may be well.
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Even as the crap continues to fly all around us.