Know then in your heart that as a parent disciplines a child so the Lord your God disciplines you.
John 13:15
For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.
Words of Grace For Today
Jesus hosts the disciples for his last supper, and provides for them as a good servant/slave. He washes their feet, dusty from the day walking with sandals (socks were not yet a thing, nor boots the common footwear, yet, oh, you say it’s shoes, ok. Still back then it was sandals for everyone). At the end of the day one’s feet would be just a tad, shall we say, stinking yucky dirty. So the one who washed feet was not just a small bowl and cloth routine. It meant a lot of stinking, really stinking, dirt and grime. It’s no small job, and it’s not a pleasant one.
Then Jesus continues: I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. So we are to serve others, even doing the most servant/slave kind of service even if it just plain stinks.
We certainly are not to be the one’s who set our discipline over others, lording it over them, thinking that our example can be set before them and either by punishment or carrots of encouragement we can change others to be better.
Our work is to be the one’s who make others stink less by our work. We leave the ‘making others aware of their failures’ to God.
And we understand that God will discipline us to put us back in line. (If we can even find a line to be in, serving others needs.)
A great day: finding our way out of being lord over others and into being servant/slave for others.
Great joy. (May not seem like it, but when you give it a go, you find the servant/slave for Christ is always living a better life than any rich, powerful, or famous master.)
There’s lots of weeds in life to be caught by, and lots of opportunity to share the sunset, and everything else in life with those in need.
Psalm 19:8
The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes.
Luke 3:10-11
The crowds asked him, ‘What then should we do?’ In reply he said to them, ‘Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.’
Words of Grace For Today
We are born with pretty much empty minds, which get filled with all we take in.
So we ask many people: how do we live well?
That is part of being human.
God does not leave us without any guidance. Sometimes that guidance is abused by others to steal life from us and many other people. Sometimes that guidance is misunderstood and following it gets us further from a good life than we were earlier. Mostly God’s precepts teach us how to live well, bring joy to our hearts, and clarity to our eyes and minds.
Still we must often ask: Lord what then must we do?
The beginning of enjoying a good life is to learn to share everything and whatever little one has, trusting that others will share with you when you are in need.
Life rarely works out that way, but being those who gladly, generously, and readily give to others in need starts by making one’s own life closer to what God intended, and it provides to others so that they can live. It’s hard to live well if you cannot even live.
And that’s the point. There’s always enough for everyone to live well, as long as those with more than enough are more than ready to share.
Which we humans rarely are.
So God keeps reminding us, that’s the purpose of life.
Today’s just another opportunity to learn how good it is to live in God’s purpose for life.
For thus says the Lord: Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, ‘Save, O Lord, your people, the remnant of Israel.’
Acts 4:29
And now, Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness.
Words of Grace For Today
The people are just returned from exile and Jeremiah wants them to sing with loud gladness, to give praise as they beg God to save the remnant, what little remained after yet another attempt to wipe out God’s people.
Wiping out peoples is as old as it gets. Erase them. Eradicated them. Burn them to the ground. Be rid of them.
Not hard to feel that way. I get that way about wasps that are so plentiful out my door that it’s hard to get anything done. Let them be no more! All of them, Gone!
God does not guide us, God’s people, to be so with our enemies. Instead, God calls us to extend God’s mercy even to them.
That’s a bold move in a world that eats you alive when you are merciful. That’s as old as it gets, too.
So we pray often, Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness.
The courage to know that grace is the only way to live a life that is abundant as God created us to live, even when that may well mean the backlash is enough to wipe one out.
To have that courage requires that one know how, when one has almost been wiped off the face of the earth, to give God praise and thanks with great gladness.
To whom else are we going to turn for life abundant?
How else are we going to enjoy it, if not celebrating in the face of adversity?
Today is another one of those days: lots of challenges, many from our enemies; lots of cause for thanks and praise given to God, and overwhelming joy.
O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
Matthew 21:15-16
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 and said to him, ‘Do you hear what these are saying?’
Jesus said to them, ‘Yes; have you never read, “Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise for yourself”?’
Words of Grace For Today
Thieves struck.
Simple deception taking things that can be fenced for money for drugs, and
I am left without essential tools and money that I am so short of: my life is not threatened, but bankruptcy moves closer and closer, which may lead to my death, if it is not brought on sooner by other dark powers.
More, I am betrayed yet again.
When Jesus does the amazing things of healing people of all kinds of illnesses, or bringing people together to share, trusting each other, the leaders know that Jesus is undermining the very reality that their power over the people thrives on and requires: fear. Fear of each other. Fear of those in power. Fear of those who speak the truth. Fear of anything and everything. Fear fuels greed. Greed makes people predictable and easily manipulated.
When Jesus does these amazing things, the children (and with this term is meant also the simple people in the temple) sing out his praise, honouring him as the descendant of David that he is. Jesus has calmed their fears so that they can see clearly the world they live in.
They see Jesus and know him to be the Son of David, the one promised and hoped for for generations.
They see the leaders in the temple, and know the corruption that guides their leading the people, not in the people’s best interest, but to the leaders’ advantages.
They see the poverty they are caught in, the forces that keep them down, and the promise that they will have life abundant even today. They have begun to realize the blessings of life are not given nor taken by possessing power, riches, and reputation.
Looking at the world around them, they see the wonders that God has created and rightly ask how it is that God cares a wit at all about humans, so small we are in the universe. They see clearly that though humans are so small in the universe, though they are so small in their own world, God cares most about them, and showers blessings on them each day, blessings that others toss aside as if they were mere trifles.
Today, the summer solstice, a 50th birthday, a day of light, and the shortest night of the year … even today the children (the simple, honest people blessed by God even if poverty holds them the rest of their lives,myself among them) are able to sing God’s praise with clarity. It is that clarity and truth that threatens corrupt powers, falsely gained riches, and those who parade themselves as leaders. The Light of Christ always shines. Today it shines intensely on the darkness of those who steal by deception, who take from others to feed their addictions and amass their wealth, who claim to lead the people from positions of honour.
Today all glory is God’s as Christ’s Light shines revealing all the dark of human hearts and deeds and the brightness of God’s blessings.
Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’
Words of Grace For Today
It’s all too easy to say, ‘Yes, I have God before all other gods!’ And then run off to serve the requirements and demands of life as we have chosen to put together for ourselves of those promoted or sloughed off on or left for the dregs by this society. Still we choose a life, and it’s demands are ‘other gods’ to us, taking our lives and life energies and time, so that we barely have anything left for God.
But we still say, ‘I have no other gods before God!’
Everyone agrees with us, because they do the same deceptive dance.
This civilization, it can be argued, requires this of us. God will have to make do. So we choose this civilization that is more barbaric behind the scenes, behind closed doors, in dark alleys, and all too often in the open bright of the day for all to see. Then we are aghast at the barbarism displayed. We demand better gun control. We demand better care in senior’s homes. We demand more housing for the homeless. We demand fairer taxes. We demand sanctions against the unwarranted aggressors.
There is nothing we are able to do, because we are not willing to pay the price of eliminating all barbarism, for it would take too much from us.
Which, if the cost would be nuclear bombs going off in North America near cities and military bases, I guess I’m not quite willing to pay that price either (since I live near the biggest air base in Canada).
So how can we honestly, wholeheartedly, say with Peter, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’
How can we honestly and wholeheartedly follow the first commandment, putting God before all else, and not allowing anything else to gain the stature of a god in our lives?
We cannot.
Thank God, God knows this long before we figure it out.
God planned before time for this, too.
God forgives, cleanses, and renews us, and sends us out to tell of God’s great mercy and bountiful grace that saves us again and again from ourselves and all evil … and God gives us the Holy Spirit to guide us so that we can at least strive and somewhat have no other gods before God, and know that only Jesus has the words of eternal life. So we turn again, to Jesus, in prayer begging for forgiveness and life, and in thanks for the promise of life abundant.
Just another day, God watching our every thought, cheering us on to blessed living sharing God’s wonders with all people.
Some give freely, yet grow all the richer; others withhold what is due, and only suffer want.
Acts 20:35
In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Words of Grace For Today
Give to the poor?
Keep for one’s own future, security, and dependants or descendants?
Give to get rich?
Hoard to avoid starvation?
Help others a little?
Make it look like one is generous while really being careful to keep enough for oneself and one’s future?
There are all sorts of attitudes to have concerning the poor.
The greatest difference is whether one considers oneself poor. The richest people worry that they are not rich enough, do not have enough, are barely making it, can be wiped out in a day or year. The poorest people can live generously sharing what little they have.
In three small villages in Africa, a place close to my heart, the people were not rich by any standards. Many years ago a wise elder saw how the wet seasons were sometimes sufficient to provide water and growth and food to carry them through the dry season, and sometimes not. That elder had brought his village together and convinced them that they would better survive and even all thrive if through the times of plenty and hard times they would share among all members of the village. For decades the village survived and often had enough to share or trade with neighbouring villages.
A descendent of that wise man grew up not knowing hunger and was able to paint on dik dik skins scenes from their life high on the plateau. She also dreamed. One day she set out to realize her dream. She travelled away from her village for days to ‘see the world.’ She arrived at the ocean, where fishers plied the sea in small outriggers bringing in their catch to feed their families. She befriended one family and offered the small gifts, her paintings, she had brought along on her ‘adventure of a lifetime’.
When she returned she had a greater gift to offer her village. It was such a great gift that she shared it with a neighbouring village, and they shared it with yet one more. The fisher’s family also received this gift and shared it with their village and they shared it with two more villages. The gift was simple: they would come together, all six villages, as one village. Their children would travel to the other villages high on the plateau or down to the sea. Perhaps they would find mates there. The bonds would grow. They would share what gave them joy where they lived and in the other villages. And they would share what they could to feed, clothe and sustain each other in a bond of cooperation.
Now centuries later there are twenty villages, for the people have had more than a few children. These villages are known for miles and miles around. The people are generally happier than others around them. When difficulties arise, they respond more graciously with each other and with the real unsolvable problems of life. And, above all, the children grow up knowing that they will always have enough because they and all the villages together will share among themselves, and even with outsiders, all they have.
The attitude that sets these people apart from their good neighbours is one of gratitude.
This is the gift that the wise elder gave and shared with that one family by the sea, which they shared with their villages and with two more villages.
Today, have we the possibility of sharing this attitude with everyone we encounter?
He satisfies the thirsty, and the hungry he fills with good things.
Philippians 4:19
My God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
Words of Grace For Today
To be satisfied.
When one has so much, that may seem to be a cart blanche that will fill one’s every wish, a great fulfillment of whatever one can dream of.
When one has not much, and really not enough, to survive even one day at a time, God’s promise that the thirsty will be satisfied and the hungry will be filled, and not just filled but filled with good things and the promise that God will satisfy our every need … well there just is not better news that anyone could give us. No more going hungry. No more enduring thirst with nothing good to drink. (That’s not a reference to finding a good Scotch, or a good wine. It means good, clean, cool water!)
To be satisfied.
For most of the people in the world, it’s great news!
If you really though that ‘satisfying the thirsty’ meant Jesus provides a good wine or scotch, then this probably is not good news for you at all. Someone is going to help God provide the food and drink, and all that satisfies people’s every need. That probably means those that have more than they need.
So today, for those already with all their needs met, is probably going to be another bad day. But for those of us who need to work just to stay alive another day, God’s promises give us a boost.
Food, Drink, and all our needs. Yes, thank you God!
It’s going to be a rainy, thunderstorm kind of day, so sit safe and work when you can. Just because God promises, doesn’t mean that we are not going to be the ones doing the work to make it happen! Rest for bed at night. Joyful, thankfully onward. There’s lots to be done.
I’m not sure the purpose in all that cow crap and straw piled in the barnyard was,
But now it makes for fast-growing tall weeds
that take a lot energy to mow down.
Psalm 104:1-2
Bless the Lord, O my soul.
O Lord my God, you are very great.
You are clothed with honour and majesty, wrapped in light as with a garment.
You stretch out the heavens like a tent, you set the beams of your chambers on the waters, you make the clouds your chariot, you ride on the wings of the wind, you make the winds your messengers, fire and flame your ministers.
1 Peter 2:9
You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.
Words of Grace For Today
What is it for?
The grass gets long, so that I can mow it?
The bugs are ferocious, so I can wear a head net to protect myself?
The wind blows, to knock down weak-rooted trees to provide material to build a shelter?
The trees fall too far away to haul in by hand, so the straps hold them behind the truck in low 4×4 pulling them in?
The sun shines brightly and hot in the window so the shade is drawn to keep it cool in here and I do not see intruders invading the yard to steal firewood?
The medicine that I need to live without pain and eventually cancer is not covered by Seniors Blue Cross, and even though the medicine I need has been approved twice before and fully covered by Alberta Income Support, this time requires yet another doctor’s letter costing up to $150 (when that’s all I have for groceries and gas each month). There is no possible purpose this has happened. It’s wasting my life, my limited finances, my time and a lot of government time and money to go through this approval now for the third time and worse to not approve the medicine, making an appeal necessary and emergency funding requests in the interim … unless of course I want to risk developing throat cancer and living in great pain in the meanwhile and risking that my back and other muscles will spasm with the least provocation, disabling me wherever I happen to be, including out in the freezing temperatures of winter emptying the ashes from the stove (as it did last time, and I barely made it back to the shelter where it was warm) or out in the bugs that would eat me alive slowly until I wasn’t any more.
The courts and the witnesses, including RCMP, lie, so that … opps, that one is hard to come up with a purpose for … maybe so that we eagerly await God’s judgment?
All these things have some truth in them.
The one truth that is not lost by human deceit and greed is that God is clothed with honour and majesty, wrapped in light as with a garment. God stretches out the heavens like a tent, God sets the beams of your chambers on the waters, God rides the clouds as chariot, God flies on the wings of the wind, God makes the winds God’s messengers, fire and flame God’s ministers.
So what are we humans purposed for?
God makes us a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that we may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called us out of darkness into his marvellous light.
Not bad of a bunch of rag-tag sinners.
Of course only sinners can proclaim the mighty acts of God, because the greatest, mightiest, and most wondrous act of God is …
when God forgives us miserable sinners our sins. Actually we are really good sinners, which makes us miserable people.
We are forgiven, not to save our sorry little butts, but rather so that the world has something to see: God saving the worst, the least deserving, the most hardhearted, stiff-necked people the earth has to offer.
We may wish God chose us because of our great personalities and wondrous things we do, but that just ain’t so.
God’s people have a history, a real ugly history. Only God’s intervention makes it somewhat tolerable to start to tell or hear.
God’s miracle of saving such people as us, makes our stories (God’s story) the greatest story every told or heard.
What part are you playing in that story today, before God saves our sorry little butts, or after?
You shall worship the Lord your God, and I will bless your bread and your water; and I will take sickness away from among you.
Matthew 6:31-32
Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
Words of Grace For Today
Quite sure sickness is rampant among us. Coming out the back end of the Covid pandemic, and it’s not done with us yet by any means, is anyone ready to say that as we worship God our food and bread is blessed and we have all sickness taken away from among us? Covid is simply so contagious that measures to stop it are useless (well not really but people are no longer willing to pay the small price of wearing masks and keeping physical distance and restricting their social interactions to a small group of people so … well so measures are not kept and therefore governments are giving up on keeping them). The greatest sickness is exemplified by the guy who says Covid was a big hoax. Tell that to the families of all the people who died!
I’m sure that if I do not work hard for wood to heat with in the winter, and persist to find money to buy groceries with and show up at the food bank to supplement the ever smaller amount of groceries I can afford, and, and, and … I am sure if I do not strive heftily, I will meet my physical death.
So these passages are difficult to hear.
The truth of the matter is, when we worry about food and water, rather than actually working to ensure we have them, our worry sucks the life right out of us.
The truth of the matter is, sickness will never be wiped out from among us, not completely, and when we either think that it can be and behave like it has been or we ignore that sickness is part of life, we endanger ourselves and so many people around us.
The truth of the matter is that God created the world and said it was good! Hunger, poverty, drought, thirst, illness and death are part and parcel of our being able to choose to either love God or not.
Today is another day of opportunity: to ruin our days with worry and denials of sicknesses and death OR to enjoy our days with thanks for everything God gives us, and appropriate work to secure our daily needs and have enough to share with those without enough, and to live sensibly and cautiously so as to foster our own health and the health of those around us.
The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and for evermore.
2 Thessalonians 3:3
But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.
Words of Grace For Today
Yesterday the rains fell, the winds blew, and I slept, fitfully with wild dreams in tune with the ruckus outside.
I woke to see leaves against the back window of the camper. Winter tarps strung on frames quickly assembles as the cold set in, gave out around the camp. Tarps danced with anger in the wind.
I wandered out in rubber boots and my bathrobe to survey the damage. The top rain tarps were whipped back exposing the insulating tarps. The protection for firewood was mostly gone, and I freed the tarps the rest of the way to keep it from ripping itself any more. The tree, well … a tree was blown over onto the back of the camper. Thus the leaves at the window were that tree’s, yesterday a good 6 feet away, today up close and pressing on the glass.
I had hauled in wood the day before yesterday. The ‘ropes’ were still in the truck. I positioned the truck to pull a rope, wrapped around another tree (low for better leverage and less risk of pulling that tree over on to the camper) and on to the tree kissing the camper as high as I could reach (for better leverage on that wayward wood.) With a tug in low 4×4 the tree came upright, and then settled against another tree back towards the ‘pulley’ tree. I reattached the rope straight from truck to fallen tree, and backed up (praying the tree would not find it’s way back on to the camper just 6 feet away). It followed the rope and settled nicely in front of the truck (also a concern that I may not be far enough back and the tree would more than kiss the truck!)
A Kiss, Thankfully, Just a Kiss.
So it was: my morning. A day with plans to endure the rains. I’ve survived a flood, watching waters rise to within a metre of destroying a house that I build with my own hands, crossing up over the river valley to the plain away from town. Then travelling (instead of 3 km to town) back and around and over the dam up river (the only road still in tact over the river) 17 km to get to town, and hearing the rain each night, each day, and the reports that the dam was softened and shifting.
Real dread fills my bones still when heavy rains persist day after day.
This tree, this rain, did little damage that cannot be repaired. The tarps and their supports needed to be better designed and built before another winter. Now it will be done a bit sooner in the summer. A good thing at that.
So it is that I can heartily echo these readings:
The Lord will keep our going out and our coming in from this time on and for evermore and the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.
It’s just another normal spring day (normal given climate change.) What will I do with it? What will you do with it?
