I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
James 5:13
Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise.
Words of Grace For Today
Life is full of surprises.
Surprises that are good, and surprises that are bad.
Whatever life brings to us this day, we know that God claims us, forgives us, renews us, and sends us back into all that life is to be God-made saints, though we always remain sinners.
So we sing, and sing, and sing and dance giving God praise and thanks for all of life.
While we suffer, for there is no shortage of that in our lives as well, we pray, and pray, and pray to God, asking for deliverance, for forbearance, for endurance, and for hope … so that we can continue through the dark days as blessed God-made saints, to emerge into the light of life and joy and contentment … for all is from God,
so we sing and pray as long as we have being in this life,
and in the end we will return to God, still blessed as always, to live eternally with all the saints in light.
…
As for today … bring what may we are ready with our songs and our prayers … and the gifts God gives us to bring God’s Grace to bear on so many people’s lives.
For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.
Luke 1:78-79
By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Words of Grace For Today
It only takes a smile …
It only takes a smile to express the greatest things in life …
It only takes a smile to express the greatest things in life, which are to know that God has delivered us, and will deliver us,
for God has broken the rod of the oppressor. With tender compassion God has brought light to those who live in darkness and those who live in the shadow of death. God guides our feet (and our whole being) into the way of peace.
It only takes a smile to express thanks to God,
especially when that smile is given freely to strangers in need of hope,
especially when that smile comes flowing from the heart,
especially when that smile is followed by the hand and feet of the body of Christ freeing, and moulding, and assembling all that is needed to provide the basics of life to those who have nothing,
especially when that smile carries a promise that God’s favour is forever and always present in the generous, gracious gifts that share life abundant.
It only takes a smile that flows from the heart to the other person’s heart to say
I love you
and
God loves you.
Free up a smile or two or ten thousand today, add a twinkle from your heart … and make the world bright with hope.
Those who mock the poor insult their Maker; those who are glad at calamity will not go unpunished.
Matthew 5:7
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Words of Grace For Today
The forecast is for -30⁰ tonight, dropping there by sunrise or an hour after.
Now, at 17:30, after the golden sun spread its butter across the trees, snow, and ice, as the sun has set only an hour ago, the thermometer sits squarely pointing at -30⁰, meaning it will get significantly colder before the ‘warming’ (or shall we say more accurately ‘the freeking-cold-mitigating’) rays of the sun start the thermometer’s climb to levels where humans can survive and machines run and breath does not freeze before it’s in one’s lungs or constantly in one’s own face.
Cold, and the challenges it presses on those living in these climes, is nothing to mock or to celebrate when others suffer it .. but you, of course, you are so privileged because you do not have to (or get to) suffer the cold.
Those who are poor, (and I fit rather securely in that category not to emerge before my death, other than by some inexplicable miracle – thank you liars all and corrupt officials too many to count), know the cold better than those who can afford to find comfort even at the extreme ends of the climate … expanding lower and higher and more extreme in so many ways as those extremes are now with climate change. To us poor the cold is not a simple thing or a nuisance. It is life threatening, directly. Is there enough wood ready and available to keep the fire going hot enough to avoid freezing as I try to get at least some sleep? Is the grate from the street sewer warm enough to keep my sleep tonight to be not just fitful, but also not the last sleep I get as I comfortably freeze and shake off this mortal coil? Are my blankets warm enough for another night of nightmares and cold sweats and nausea? Will I wake? And if I do will my body be as whole as it is now, or will a limb or extremity be frozen solid or frostbit beyond salvation?
These considerations may be the focus of many people’s mockery: what did you poor thing do to earn poverty, for surely you deserve it, yes? Are you not smart enough to do better? If you had only worked harder when you were younger and able OR if you would have played along with the corrupt leaders, thugs and bullies, corrupt bishops and lay leaders included! Oh, you fool, for succumbing to addictions that will kill you sooner or later, so why should we be concerned if your death is a comfortable one today, costing us nothing in health care … rather than your death at a later date after huge costs to us all as you die from your addictions. It matters not, of course, that I and many other poor people have no addictions or perversions. Instead what informs the corrupt on lookers are the rumours and false stories about us, which are told to protect the hugely guilty people who have cheated us of finances and years of good life. Then of course, many others are driven to addictions to escape the cruelty of people in their lives, or to mental instability, or to plain outright madness, by the inexplicable cruelty of bullies, weak bullies, destructive bullies, pitiful bullies.
To us poor people be God’s mercy shown, should we be so blessed. As for me and so many others baptized as saints, we have discovered God’s mercy for us and all others. Therefore we trust that God, if no others, will deal with us … and indeed does deal with us … each day of our lives with mercy, love, forgiveness, and favour.
What’s your night look like, for the coming night of cold? Is it your heart that is cold? Or just the climate outside? Have you learned to respond to others, especially us poor, with mercy, and love, and
Made All That More Visible by the Wonderful Light,
So May the Light of Christ Make Obvious
the Fog of Evil and False Convictions
That Abound, Also Here!
Psalm 126:3
The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced.
Ephesians 1:3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
Words of Grace For Today
Every day the only way to survive, after the evil that has been focused on me to bring about my undeserved destruction, is to remember that the Lord has done great things for me, and I rejoice!
Fridays, we remember all those people who are falsely accused, harassed by the police soliciting false reports about them, fabricating evidence, and falsely convicted by judges who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! (Isaiah 5:20) We especially pray for men who are falsely accused by their spouse or partner, for there seems to be no end to the false charges and convictions based on obvious lies by women about good, honest men.
We pray that the Light of Christ will come to bear on each false conviction and those that brought it to be, that God’s justice will come to be for the falsely convicted and come down on all those that contributed to the false conviction and the destruction of their lives.
We pray, that as it is for me it will be for all those falsely convicted: that God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. And that those heavenly places will be where we are now on this planet earth.
I am poor and needy; hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O Lord, do not delay!
Romans 15:5-6
May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Words of Grace For Today
Most times when the disasters of life coming knocking on our doors, we seek solace and assistance from our families, if they are any good, and we have been any good to them.
When the biggest disasters hit, though our families may be there to help us, it is to God that we turn and cry ‘hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O Lord, do not delay!’
We hope that in all our times and in all our ways we will learn to ‘live in harmony with’ our family, so that when we need them or when they need us, together we will be the hands and arms of God which can offer them help and deliverance, for all in need.
Our prayer for this day, and every Thursday, is for all our families, that the God of steadfastness and encouragement will bring us through each day safely, keep our hearts and minds at peace with ourselves and with each other, and inspire us to see God’s goodness in each other and to be that goodness ourselves, with gratitude for all God gives us each day.
We begin by remembering who we are; we are poor and needy, as each day begins … and only God gives us more.
The Lord is the true God; he is the living God and the everlasting King. At his wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure his indignation.
Matthew 11:25
At that time Jesus said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants.
Words of Grace For Today
We all have places to go, if not that we actually go, then places to which we wish we could go.
Some of us dream of seeing the greatest man-made wonders: the great wall of China, the pyramids in Egypt, and in space the ISS. Or the wondrous features of earth: Siberia’s expanses, the ice shelves of Antarctica, the tundras of north Canada, the Grand Canyon, or … we each have our own list.
Many of us, though, have lesser places to go. Some of us must go on regular trips for business or family, and others of us have options to go places (or we wish we had the option.)
As we travel and others travel, we remember how powerful God is, that at God’s wrath the earth quakes. We remember that the greatest truths of God’s creation God does not reveal to the people who proclaim themselves ‘wise and intelligent’. Rather God reveals the greatest truths to the supposed ‘infants’ of this earth, the supposed ‘foolish’, ‘guilty’, and ‘outsiders’.
Today we remember all these travellers, supposed wise and God’s own children, and pray that God will accompany each traveller, on the way there, and on the way back, so that all travellers will live well before and after each trip that must be, and each trip that we choose to make.
We, also, pray that together we will remember how our trips cost the earth in CO emissions, and all of us a bit of our future, and a bit more for our future generations.
God, be merciful to us, as we poison the very earth you created for us to live on, as we travel to and fro.
Alas for those who go down to Egypt for help and who rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord!
Hebrews 2:1
Therefore we must pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.
Words of Grace For Today
Rest.
Today instead of looking to ‘Egypt of might and horses many and chariots strong’, not even when these things of might, many and strength in our lives are carried by so many and various ways of working, of securing money, favour, and power, of being our own people, today
yes
today
we rest.
We rest in the Promises of God,
The Gifts of God,
The Saints of God,
The Forgiveness of God,
The Grace of God,
The Generosity of God,
The Love of God,
The Faith given to us by God,
and
The hope, that
…
that all things will be well, all things will be well, all manner of things will be well,
because,
All manner of things are already, today, by God’s Word that Creates, Sustains, and Renews,
by God’s Will, all things are already today well, quite well,
Even now, in fact, my witness is in heaven, and he that vouches for me is on high.
Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Words of Grace For Today
It’s a quiet day ahead, for a cold winter Saturday, following many cold, cold days …
and not a little frustration with people who live by full disregard for truth, and who seek my death, sooner than later, but slowly so the suffering continues and they can be pleased with their sadistic efforts. It’s one thing to have one’s ex after you, it’s another to have the courts helping her. There is always more injustice than justice, more evil than good, and more death of good people (and not enough of evil people?)
How to remain hopeful that the future will be better?
…
Well, that is actually a futilely placed question,
for one cannot hope that the future will be better.
The only thing one can do is live well in the present, in the face of evil to be gracious and good. In the face of those who wish one dead, to live joyously.
The moments are not rare when the spectacular works of God can be seen here and now, they require only that one has ears to hear and eyes to see … and hearts to celebrate life with gratitude.
We have faith and hold to it as the future moves into the present and then the past. That faith is not something we conjure up or make or assemble … no in any way.
Faith is a gift … a gift freely given by God to us. Therefore it will never fail, nor succumb to evil of any kind or quantity.
Facing evil, God vouches for us saints, and there is no surer witness. More we do not need.
Therefore we see the future, not as something that need be better, but rather as more of the present gifts God gives us: that we are vouched for, and we can live gracious and gratefully and generously …
I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me, and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me.
1 John 2:2
He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
Words of Grace For Today
To have enough,
Not too much,
and
not to litle,
and
to know one has enough,
and though one could use more and dream of that perhaps, to still know
that for today, this is enough:
That is the gift God gives the saints.
…
One may think that has to do with things, food, property, profitable work, toys, power, reputation … or a host of other things.
Yet, none of that is all that important: one may consider air, water, food, clothing, shelter, meaningful labour, and love more important than the others.
What we need enough of is God’s love,
and forgiveness,
and promise of renewed life.
Enough is not that we have God’s gifts and promises, but enough is to know that God provides these essentials for life for all people.
All the livestock and the plunder of the towns we kept as spoil for ourselves. So at that time we took from the two kings of the Amorites the land beyond the Jordan, from the Wadi Arnon to Mount Hermon (the Sidonians call Hermon Sirion, while the Amorites call it Senir).
Mark 3:35
Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.
Words of Grace For Today
Ancient claims of land belonging to a particular people are seldom anything but a bit hypocritical.
The land claim of Jews in the Middle East is well known to be established on their claim that ‘their land’ was stolen from others and their right to it was that God promised the people land. To this day the displaced Palestinians have legitimate grievances and suffer terribly waiting for the world to provide a reasonable resolution to being displaced since 1947, and earlier.
Indigenous land claims in Canada are based on white people stealing the land, though the indigenous histories are not without similar events through their own histories.
As long as people have lived, the competition for land has been a repeated source of terrible struggles, losses, and long term grievances.
So we, in our history, record that we took land from the Amorites, and kept livestock and plunder from their towns.
We are no better than the worst of all humans.
We are only saved by God’s Grace.
Only if the Holy Spirit inspires goodness in us, inspires us to do God’s will, and inspires us to be saints, are we able to reflect God’s love for us to others.
The Holy Spirit’s work, God’s work (by God’s will) alone determines then who is Jesus’ brother, sister, and mother. God alone makes us children of God, makes us Jesus’ siblings, and brings us to recognize that we are all ‘in this together.’ We are all each others’ siblings.
Land claims are crucial to pay attention to and to honour.
More important is to honour the gifts God gives us, not to try to hoard them for ourselves, and to share them with all those in need.
