Sky – Page 2 – This Life

Crying

For Help

Weeping With Thanks

Thursday, December 28, 2023

What Wonders God Works, As the Sun Rises, Beginning a New Day!

Psalm 104:14

You cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for people to use, to bring forth food from the earth,

Ephesians 5:20

… giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

…

Words of Grace For Today

People in desperate situations hope that someone will make a difference, help them, provide the basics of life and security.

Trapped on an island overrun by the enemy in a world wide war, the doctors and nurses and voluntold helpers (having found their way to the camp of the resistance fighters) have bound up patients for months or is it already years with old strips from old clothes. Everyone is malnourished if not starving. Everyone’s clothes are tattered and torn. Uniforms for soldiers cannot be required since no one has them. Spotty communications begging for supplies bring at most ‘Stand bye.’

Then, wrangling with all sorts of resistance from the infighting and egos of the top generals and admirals, a small group of 4 soldiers disembark from a submarine in rubber boats and paddle through the surf. Met by members of the resistance, more rubber boats are dispatched from the sub with supplies. Not enough, but something.

Visiting the ‘hospital’ the new soldiers still in black dyed fatigues cut open the new ‘plastic’ sealed packages of sulphanilamide, a new antibiotic and dressings. Weeping with joy and relief the doctor orders the nurses and helpers to take off all the bandages on the patients and to pour the sulphanilamide on and cover them with new dressings. Patients with fatal infections now have a chance at life.

(paraphrased from W.E.B. Higgins’ Behind Enemy Lines)

Ahh the immense tears-of-joy outpouring when assistance arrives for those subsisting as they irritate the enemy.

How many more people on earth this day could cry ‘Would that assistance were brought here!?!’

And we carry on, giving thanks for all that we have, all that keeps us alive, and all the blessings each day that come our way. It may not be supplies, clothes, and food, or shelter sufficient to stand the new normals of weather wind heat and cold, but it is all we need to know joy.

Short

Just Short

Thursday, December 21, 2023

Air,

Thanks

For The Air!

Ezekiel 37:14

I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.

2 Corinthians 3:17

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

…

Words of Grace For Today

This is the shortest day of the year!

Well not actually.

It does have 24 hours just like every other, but

but it is the day with the shortest daylight of any in the whole year.

In the short light and long dark

God’s Spirit shines brightly

in us

around us

among us

so that

we will live

and have our own land

soil that we can survive on.

Except few people in the world do, and also we do not.

Renters like many fortunate people.

Less fortunate are those who neither own nor rent

and have no place to call home.

In the light and dark

we remember

and pray

that

God will protect them all as God has protected us these many years, through many generations, through trials and tribulations, and joys and celebrations.

Darkness cannot overcome us.

So we share the light we have with all around, and spread joy for this day as for each day

still

breathe

air.

Not to Come Up Short,

Remember!

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Remember How God’s Grace

Lights Up Our Lives and

God’s Whole Creation!

Psalm 103:2-3

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits— who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases,

1 John 4:10

In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

…

Words of Grace For Today

As the days get shorter and shorter and the darkness longer and longer, it is time to remember:

remember how hard we’ve all worked to get where we are.

How arduous the journey has been.

How competitors and enemies have taken possibilities and resources from us, leaving us with so much less.

And still we have come out okay, or so we say.

For we could have gotten more if we’d been like our enemies, vicious, uncaring, unscrupulous, deceptive, and downright dishonest about anything and everything that would give them an advantage, damned by the cost to others.

But we did not.

Some would say we suffer now because of it.

They are right of course.

Kindness, honesty, and fairness are always rewarded with suffering, even being cast out and labelled as abominations.

But remember

remember

that we have come so far by God’s Grace alone,

and this day we survive only by Grace,

and living in God’s Grace is more wondrous than all the advantage our enemies have stolen from us, as we have worked to save the most vulnerable from destruction and disaster.

Remember

That we live in the love of God for us, enabled only by that love to be anything good at all, and able to love others, creation, and God above all.

Short days, long nights.

Remember

God’s love shines brightest in the darkness.

Screw Ups

All

Thursday, December 7, 2023

Artist’s impression of a baby star still surrounded by a protoplanetary disc in which planets are forming. Using ESO’s very successful HARPS spectrograph, a team of astronomers has found that Sun-like stars which host planets have destroyed their lithium much more efficiently than planet-free stars. This finding does not only shed light on the low levels of this chemical element in the Sun, solving a long-standing mystery, but also provides astronomers with a very efficient way to pick out the stars most likely to host planets. It is not clear what causes the lithium to be destroyed. The general idea is that the planets or the presence of the protoplanetary disc disturb the interior of the star, bringing the lithium deeper down into the star than usual, into regions where the temperature is so hot that it is destroyed.

God’s Light Shines in Every Corner,

Even Where We Think We’ve Hidden Our Sins

Forgiving, Cleansing, and Purifying Us

Judges 10:10

So the Israelites cried to the Lord, saying, ‘We have sinned against you, because we have abandoned our God and have worshipped the Baals.’

Luke 1:76-77

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins.

…

Words of Grace For Today

It is more comfortable in the short run, to hide from and deny our sins, but

…

But they catch up with us, and slowly devour us, unless

…

Unless we confess them and are forgiven.

This God promises to do for us.

This is the Good News that Jesus came to demonstrate with his living among us as one of us.

This is the Good News that we are given to share wherever we go with everyone we encounter.

Not that many people will like the call to confess their sins, especially when they (blindly) think that they have ‘gotten away with’ their sins.

Still this is the God’s gift to us all: forgiveness.

Without it we slowly are consumed by our own sins and by others.

So today (as every day)

we start again with confession,

and continue with forgiving others, and ourselves,

and

repeating that all day long.

Therein is life abundant.

Fear

And love

Monday, December 4, 2023

God Can Burn It All Down,

or Light a Fire Under Our Lazy Butts.

Which do we need today?

Isaiah 41:10

… do not fear, for I am with you, do not be afraid, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.

Matthew 21:15

But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’, they became angry ….

…

Words of Grace For Today

Fear can grab us without notice.

If we often let ourselves stay there, then the path for fear (one of the Devil’s favourite tools) is slick and becomes more and more travelled, more and more often without any reasonable cause.

Especially if we, like the chief priests and scribes, hold on to power by dominating others with fear fuelled by deception, corruption, manipulations and/or false gods or words supposedly of God.

Fear can rip our clear thinking minds right out of us, pressing us down into anger, anxiety, and panic … which keep us from thinking straight or being able to recognize what is real around us. We react to false fears as easily to real fears, always with disaster, whether we freeze, run, or stand ‘our ground’ to fight.

All a waste of time, energy, and life.

God’s word so often calls us to not be afraid.

God knows we have enough real reasons to be afraid.

Yet, God promises us that God walks with us, and therefore even when there are real reasons for us to be afraid, we not need fear. Instead we can participate in Jesus’ reign throughout all creation, wherein love, sacrificial love, is more powerful than anything that could threaten us.

Love carries us, even into and through death.

So there is no reason to fear,

unless we turn from God, and then we rightly fear God.

When we realize that God has turned to us, again and again with steadfast love and mercy, forgiving us, renewing us, equipping us, and sending us out to share the power of sacrificial love with all creation, then

well, we still fear God, for God is all-powerful, able to end us and all creation in the blink of an eye. Yet we also love God, for God has given us and does now give us and always will give us life, precious blessed abundant life.

So we breathe, and sing and dance in praise and thanks for all God is and does for us.

Looking Forward to …

Sunday, December 3, 2023

Looking To the Stars,

To the Future,

As God Promises ….

Zechariah 1:17

Proclaim further: Thus says the Lord of hosts: My cities shall again overflow with prosperity; the Lord will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem.

Luke 2:25

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Signs of the times have always pointed us to the end of times just around the corner. Yet if we imagine the future, are today’s signs of the times so different? Can we not rest assured that God has a long future planned for us all?

Looking 1000 years into the future, trusting God’s promises we can envision Xaria and Ishra Delopier of Glaxton. They will live a day’s travel at 10 times the speed of light from the nearest planet with cities on it.

News will reach them each hour of conflicts and disasters, and diseases. On the first Sunday of Advent news will arrive of another sun gone nova, consuming all it’s planets and the people on them, and the following messages filled with fears that the end of all time has arrived.

At midday Xaria and Ishra will gather for a meal with the refugees they will have taken in the previous weeks. In the first week of Advent they will first thank God remembering God’s work for their ancestors through so many generations, for the Holy Spirit’s presence with them each day, and God’s promise that Jesus would return to bring peace throughout the universe. Together they will end with, “Come Lord Jesus, be our guest. Save us again this day, from disasters, conflict, and disease.” Then they will all return to tending to the drones farming their planet to provide for their own growing numbers and for many people who will buy food from them.

What are we doing today?

Do we wait looking forward to the consolation of the world, assured the Holy Spirit rests on us?

Today is another day to wait, looking forward to all God’s promises for us and all creation.

From Dark

to Light

Tuesday, November 28, 2023

The Way To the Light

Seems To Cross Thin Ice,

So We Hesitate …

and then it is dark again.

Psalm 119:130

The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.

Ephesians 5:8

For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light ….

…

Words of Grace For Today

Moving into the Light should be a simple thing.

Just choose your steps on the path towards the Light, right?

But

the devil has also sorts of false lights,

luring us into dead

ends.

Of course, the Light of Christ requires more than just walking,

it requires right hearts and minds and spirits,

all which we are completely incapable of attaining on our own,

if ever,

really!

We need Christ to show us the way,

and even then

we need the Spirit to transform our hearts, minds, and spirits so that we can follow.

And still we fail.

So Christ comes

into our darkness

and brings the Light

to guide us

onward.

So we hope we will live in the Light

…

but we know from the past we will choose to wander

back into the darkness all too soon (like right now)

and

Christ will need to come again

and again

and

again … ad infinitum.

For the Most

For the Most Vulnerable

Monday, November 27, 2023

The Spirit Dances

Each Morning, Noon and Night.

Only By the Spirit Working In Us

Can We Dance Jesus’ Dance.

Zechariah 7:10

… do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.

Ephesians 4:20

That is not the way you learned Christ!

…

Words of Grace For Today

God calls us many times in many ways to do justice for the most vulnerable, in Zechariah named as the widow, the orphan, the alien and the poor.

How do we learn?

How do we learn to do justice?

How do we learn Christ?

Is learning to do justice the same as learning Christ?

…

No, they are not the same.

They do overlap.

To do justice is for the most part to follow Christ’ commandment to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and strength, and to love our neighbours (and enemies) as ourselves.

But not all of ‘doing justice’ is what Christ calls us to.

And just ‘doing justice’ hardly begins to encompass all Christ calls us to.

For Christ calls us to love. To love as God loves. To love even when it costs us. And that moves us into and then also far beyond just doing justice for others.

Yet how can we learn to do justice?

Study, practice, and make errors … and more study, more practice, and more errors and (it keeps repeating, since we never get it completely and what we did yesterday does not provide justice for the most vulnerable today.)

And how can we learn Jesus?

Some would say it is the same. We study, practice, make errors, and repeat.

Those who have listened to the saints will know that will never even get us close, for the key to Jesus is

that we cannot learn Jesus on our own at all.

We only come to know Jesus when the Holy Spirit moves us to.

So we pray each day, come Lord Jesus, walk with us, let the Holy Spirit guide our thoughts, hearts and spirits, our dreams, visions, and hopes, and most of all our actions. Let them be reflections of Jesus to one another, and especially the most vulnerable.

And then we study, contemplate, plan, dream, and act as if it were all up to us, humbly remembering the Holy Spirit will guide and empower us.

Begging Low

Before God

Wednesday, November 22, 2023

As the day comes to a close, begging again, that all will be well.

Job 9:2-3

Indeed I know that this is so; but how can a mortal be just before God? If one wished to contend with him, one could not answer him once in a thousand.

Luke 15:18

I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you ….

…

Words of Grace For Today

We would like to think that we can justify ourselves, before others to be sure, but also before God.

Yikes!

So much trouble comes from that thinking.

Starting a new day

one begins begging

again

and

again

for God’s mercy and forgiveness,

for we cannot make ourselves righteous,

nor free from our sinful past.

That only God can do for us,

and God promises to do just that

if we but just ask.

So begging it is

to start and end each day.

Unless, of course, it is an ordinary day when we try to justify ourselves to ourselves and God,

which leads to more disastrous days than we care to remember.

what are we waiting for?

God promises us ….

Gimme, Gimme

Make Meself Safe and Secure! ?

Saturday, November 18, 2023

What Will We Endure To Give

Our Enemies Peace?

Psalm 33:17-18

The war horse is a vain hope for victory, and by its great might it cannot save. Truly the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love …

Philippians 3:3

For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh ….

…

Words of Grace For Today

In what do we put our trust and hope?

In money, privilege, and might?

The war horse looks strong. It will indeed aid the killing of many enemies.

And then what?

Winning a war is never a solution. It only changes and most often multiplies the problems.

The deeds, by which we are known as followers of Christ, have always been of sacrificial love. Helping in plagues ensuring one’s own infection and death. Working as caregivers on the battlefields and in the poorest of poor areas of life. Loving one’s enemies so completely that they capitulate to join in loving their enemies, for that is life, where hating one’s enemies is death, even if one continues to walk the earth.

So in what will we put our trust this day?