We’ve Been Told!

So Why Do We Get It So Wrong?

Sunday, November 12, 2023

Nothing Looks Like What It Is If We Do Not Gain God’s Perspective.

For example my work for today.

Genesis 45:24

Then he sent his brothers on their way, and as they were leaving he said to them, ‘Do not quarrel along the way.’

Colossians 3:13

Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”

…

Words of Grace For Today

Nothing looks like what it is if we are in the mode of telling others what to do, or if others are in the mode of telling us what to do!

Joseph could spend all his breath on telling his brothers not to quarrel. They were still going to quarrel.

‘Paul’ (well Colossians is probably not Paul himself but someone writing decades later in his name) could spend as much ink telling people how to behave, and especially how to be good, and even more desperately what they MUST do, like forgiving one another, but people are people and forgiving is not something people do on their own. Neither is being good, nor doing what must be done.

Any parent can give numerous stories how telling their teen not to do something simply invites the teen to go out and try it, somehow so their parents do not find out about their attempts.

So it is when we look at the world: unless we have God’s perspective (given to us, because there is no way we gain it on our own or in any other way) we simply do not understand what is going on around us, not fully, and we are completely incapable of doing the right thing for the circumstances on our own. Only the Holy Spirit guiding us can get us in that direction.

So we pray like mad the Holy Spirit will guide us

to do right,

and what MUST be done,

like forgive others,

and

also ourselves.

…

After all,

God has already.

….

(My work was adapting the exhaust for the water heater, again, so that it will work in cold weather, real hard cold weather, without having to be on all the time.)

Angels for the Trickster?

Saturday, November 11, 2023

Shall This Place Then Be Called

Not ‘NearSite’ but

HereWalksGod’ or

‘AngelsAlways’?

Genesis 32:1-2

Jacob went on his way and the angels of God met him; and when Jacob saw them he said, ‘This is God’s camp!’ So he called that place Mahanaim.

Hebrews 1:14

Are not all angels spirits in the divine service, sent to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?

…

Words of Grace For Today

Jacob, the trickster, after twenty years in hiding from Esau (from whom he stole his birthright), 14 serving Laban for his daughters and 6 for his flocks, sneaks away from Laban out of fear. Laban pursues him, and only a warning from God in a dream keeps Laban from doing Jacob harm. Instead they make a pillar of stones and make a covenant that neither will cross this point to do the other harm, nor will Jacob take other wives. Laban leaves Jacob, and Jacob continues on towards his birth home.

And then this passage: God’s angels meet Jacob so Jacob call the place Mahanaim, meaning two hosts or two camps.

If God sends angels to watch over and protect the trickster Jacob, then surely God sends angels to watch over each of his people, his broken and redeemed, sanctified people,

which is us.

Where will you see God or God’s angels watching, protecting, guiding you this day?

Look!

Look Again!

With Humility, this time.

Friday, November 10, 2023

An artist’s concept shows the Euclid space telescope, built by the European Space Agency (ESA) in operation, in this undated handout image. (European Space Agency/Reuters)

Euclid Starts Looking

…

Good.

Isaiah 5:21

Ah, you who are wise in your own eyes, and shrewd in your own sight! (Woe to you!)

1 Peter 5:5

In the same way, you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders. And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’

…

Words of Grace For Today

From CBC news yesterday (Euclid Telescope):

“Dark matter and dark energy make up roughly 95 per cent of our universe but can’t be seen. In order to reveal their influence, over its six-year mission, the Euclid space telescope will observe the shapes, distances and motions of billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years and create the largest cosmic 3D map ever made….”

If ever there is an example of how arrogance and pride have no place in life, but how humility is the only manner for humans to approach all in life, it is in astronomy, especially these days with the Webb and now the Euclid Telescopes peering where we have always looked, yet now seeing more things than we ever could see before.

This is how it is in daily life as well, though perhaps less obviously so for us ‘wise’ and ‘proud’ people that we can be: What we were just looking at can be seen again, and it is completely different, revealing more of reality than we ever imagined before.

So God gives us eyes to see, and hearts to believe, and joy in trusting God to guide us, as we, even now remain more blind than seeing God’s universe all around us, God’s people all around us, God’s creation everywhere.

Every day is another opportunity to see anew what we thought we knew full well. Every day is chocked full of great delights, waiting for us to discover wonders of wonders. Unless of course pride has closed our eyes, hearts, and minds to what is and will sometime, maybe soon, be see-able and knowable by us.

(ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA; Image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre [CEA Paris-Saclay], G. Anselmi)

A new, spectacularly panoramic, and detailed view of the Horsehead Nebula.

Sigh!

Sigh, Again

Thursday, November 9, 2023

Morning Arrives,

The Crescent Moon Accompanied by A Star,

a helper light,

which is actually the planet Venus.

Psalm 31:23

Love the Lord, all you his saints. The Lord preserves the faithful, but abundantly repays the one who acts haughtily.

Romans 8:26

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

…

Words of Grace For Today

The challenges of every day are more than enough to dampen our energy available to even cry for help to God. How does one pray when one’s loved one is gone, one’s world is ripped out from underneath one, and even in the morning the light does not help clarify where or what one really ought to do?

How does one pray when one’s home is destroyed and one survives only because one was away that day, working on a project that required it? Where does one go?

How does one pray when rumours, nasty and dirty rumours, are spread by deceitful, arrogant, fearful, cowardly bullies, and they grow so intense that people want to kill you?

How does one pray when everything seems to be okay also this day and yet your heart tells you that your life is doomed, maybe the whole world’s, maybe just those you love and all the honest and good people (if there are even any of those left!)?

When our light has been snuffed out by the chaos and hatred of people lost in their own darkness, we are not abandoned.

The Holy Spirit, with sighs too deep for words, blows in again as a fresh morning breeze, reviving us, and giving us the words for our prayers,

the priority of meaningful tasks for this day,

and a direction for our lives, even as we walk yet in darkness.

Like a sliver of a moon, with a companion star, walking the sky as the morning sun pushes back the darkness in the east, God winds us through our days, sometimes with just enough light so that we do not stumble

too often

and we can find once again

the light by which to love

even those who want to be our enemies.

Why

Why Believe?

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

The Secret to Life is Simple: Believe in …

But There’s a Cost.

Psalm 118:26

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord.

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

Many of this world’s 8 billion people really do not welcome those who come in God’s name. Instead they gang up on those who are not willing or able to fight, cheat, and lie their way through life,

While this goes on to the detriment of so many people, God offers life abundant

to those who believe in Jesus name as the Son of God, the one who demonstrated God’s sacrificial love and eagerness to forgive, heal, all of us, and then to send us out to others, so they may know God’s grace.

Children God calls us.

Children of God, God calls us.

Children of God, God calls us and blesses us with life abundant as God created us to live.

So why do people not choose to believe in Jesus’ name?

First, to be clear, it’s not a choice anyone can make without the Holy Spirit empowering us to make it. It is gift, pure gift.

And then, according to the world’s standards and values, it is a losing proposition. One gets to give up and give away everything that God has given as gifts to us. God intends them to be shared. It’s humans who think they are to be hoarded and used as status, power, and leverage over others.

So why believe at all?

Most do not.

A few do.

And the saints live on from generation to generation, sharing the secret to life: sacrificial, gracious, abundant love.

Low Blow

Tuesday, November 7, 2023

We Need A Good Shepherd to Guide Us Through the Many Coming Storms.

Ezekiel 34:23

I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd.

Matthew 9:36

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Shepherds, in Jesus day, lived rough, with the flock on the hills, leading them to green pastures and fresh water by day and guarding them from danger by night.

Being a shepherd was not a highly sought after or held in high esteem occupation. Quite the opposite. It was one of the lowest of the lowly ways to make a living.

Being compared to sheep, though, that is a real low insult, that hits out of bounds and lays one flat as fodder for the vultures.

Sheep were and still are very dumb animals. They need protection all the time from predators. They need to be led to food and water. And …

When we were young my brother demonstrated how they follow, absolutely stupidly.

As we were bringing the sheep into the barn he sat out of sight just inside the door. After the first ten sheep passed through the doorway he stuck a broomstick across the doorway about a foot and a half high. The next sheep jumped over it to follow those ahead, as did the next five. Then he pulled the broomstick out of the doorway, and …

the rest of the flock jumped over the none-existent broomstick to follow the sheep ahead into the barn.

Sheep are real stupid.

So being compared to sheep is a real low blow.

The problem is …

the comparison fits us just right.

…

We need a Good Shepherd to have compassion on us helpless people, following most stupidly the most stupid of stupid leaders.

Thank God, God sends us one in Jesus, who saves us,

again.

And

again today, many times.

Wonder

Of Wonders

Monday, November 6, 2023

This Joker portrait is made up of Coke and Canada Dry boxes and is currently on display at the Save-On-Foods in Kelowna’s Orchard Plaza. (Karen Suchar)

The Evil One In Soda Cans is Astounding!

Eric Falkenberg said it took him about three weeks to put together this unique Batman mosaic. (Zameer Karim/CBC)

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/kelowna-man-uses-thousands-of-soda-cases-to-create-massive-displays-1.7010042

The Masked Hero in Soda Cans is As Astounding.

Nothing, Though,

Matches God’s

Awesome Wonders of Grace.

Psalm 77:14

You are the God who works wonders; you have displayed your might among the peoples.

John 16:28

I came from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and am going to the Father.

…

Words of Grace For Today

The mighty works of God are innumerable in every generation. The greatest of these is that God forgives us to save us from ourselves, and renews life in us.

Of course, we humans insist of returning again and again to ‘going it alone’ thinking that this time we can earn our way into the goodness of life, into God’s good graces, into perfection and paradise.

It matters not how many messengers God sends, how many laws God provides through leaders, how many rituals people establish and abolish, or how many prophets come to warn us with God’s Word.

So God sent God’s own Son, Jesus, to live among us. But more than that God sent God’s own Son, Jesus, to save the world, us in it.

God sent God’s own Son, Jesus, to live as an example, to preach and teach, to heal, and to demonstrate with his sacrificial death God’s expansive love for us in that God is willing to die in order that we can live.

The greatest wonder of God’s many wonders is that God uses us to be living examples for others, so that they may see how sacrificial love, Jesus’ love through us, gives them life, and

then they become living examples for other so that they may see how sacrificial love, Jesus’ love through us, gives them live, and ….

Wonders of Wonders,

There is no greater

than love that saves others

with sacrifice.

Grace

Sunday, November 5, 2023

This is Life,

To Walk Free In through the Woods, through the Snow,

and Know it is All Gift.

Especially to Be Able to Walk.

Proverbs 21:21

Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life and honour.

Matthew 6:33

But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Death

Death comes in so many ways, quick and merciful, slow and cruel, hungry and thirsty …

when so many people act from selfish motives, against anything good for others, with violence or deception, with twisted words and cruel actions, without regard for decency or rightness, even where there is not much by which to gauge what is right and what is wrong …

so even truth seems difficult to remember …

From where will we find strength to remember what counts, what is truly valuable, what speaks truth clearly enough not to be drown out by all the other voices,

and by our own pain, grief, and despair,

so that we know God’s grace, gentleness, steadfast love and … and hope for all the future days as rough as they may be.

For as we stare death in the face

we know

both the Devil’s worst

and God’s best,

a freedom and truth in the deepest, widest way,

to see Grace coming for us again

to see God’s Grace clearly coming for us again

and to see God’s all-embracing Grace clearly coming for us again

… again.

Death met by God’s Grace creates hope that is unrelenting and … undying.

That’s what Jesus give us … the

End of death

Now we can chase away our living days pursing righteousness and kindness or striving after the kingdom of God and his righteousness in order to find life and honour.

This, though is a fantasy made by people who cannot accept that life and honour, God’s kingdom and righteousness are gifts, gifts that we can never earn, nor achieve, or pursue successfully, nor come close to with our strivings.

And that is what Jesus teaches us about death, sins, and life as God’s children.

It’s all gift … all the way down.

And all the way up.

And all around.

Begging

For a Future

of Peace

Saturday, November 4, 2023

Palestinians cross to the Egyptian side of the border crossing with the Gaza Strip in Rafah Wednesday [Hatem Ali/AP Photo]

Looking for a Future.

Isaiah 66:13

As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

John 16:24

Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

…

Words of Grace For Today

We are baptized, all that we were to that point drowned out, dead.

So we learn that in the Kingdom of God what we thought was valuable is worthless. In there go all our dreams of greatness and grandeur. Instead what we thought was nearly bereft of worth or even notice without scorn is actually what God treasures and would have us treasure as well.

We learn to set aside our ambitions, hopes, and dreams in order to understand and embrace God’s ambitions, hopes and dreams for us. We learn not to ask for anything, but to beg to see and understand God’s will for us.

Not that our past dreams and expectations die out or that baptism actually kills off the great sinners that we were (and still are.) We live on dreaming, expecting, and hoping for our own ‘success’ in life. And God keeps bringing us back down to the reality of Jesus’ way of sacrifice for others, so that others will share God’s blessings (as we give to them what God has entrusted to us as stewards.)

Now Jesus reminds us, that we are not totally lost to our old sinful selves, lively as they may still be. In us the Spirit moves and we can and should ask for what we see is needed … by and for others,

…

and sometimes even by and for ourselves.

So

We

beg

this day

for peace

especially in the Middle East,

that we may be comforted in also Jerusalem, in the West Bank, and in Gaza,

for all people there are also God’s people,

with hopes, dreams, and expectations of a future

that is

better

than this today.

Stoop Low

To Move Forward

Friday, November 3, 2023

The Sky May Be The Limit, Expansive and Inviting,

But

God Calls Us To Do The Work of the Kingdom

Down Here,

In The Snow and The Bushes of Life.

Zephaniah 2:3

Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, who do his commands; seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the Lord’s wrath.

Colossians 3:12

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.

…

Words of Grace For Today

I was at a conference recently at a monastery dedicated to  teaching people to follow Christ to be leaders in the church.

In the long hallways between rooms & buildings looking ahead the door tops are at chest height. When one comes to the door, though, as the door opens by sliding down into the floor, after a slight delay the top also rises up higher than any person I’ve seen or heard of, and I’ve been among the Maasai – and I’ve watched NBA games.

The perception given is that following Christ does not offer lofty things in the future. One looks down looking forward. And just so there is no mistake as one passes through some doors about 20 feet further there is a beam at the same height as the closed doors. At these one must stoop low to pass onward.

The faith passed on to us does not promise us great things (as we humans rate them); our faith does not meet our dreams & expectations. Just the opposite. The saints show us that our faith teaches us to give up our dreams & expectations as we stoop low to pass through each day.

God’s surprise for us is what God does offer the saints, which we learn is ultimately everything of utmost value! Starting with humility, compassion, kindness, patience, service, and love.