They will collapse and fall, but we shall rise and stand upright.
Hebrews 12:1-2
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.
Words of Grace For Today
When we think we stand on our own, we are doomed to collapse and fall.
When we know we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, so great a gathering of God-made saints, then …
well then we are reminded how Jesus endured the cross, it’s shame, and was resurrected and ascended to sit at the right hand of God …
and we are inspired to set aside every weight and sin that clings so closely to us from our past, our present and our future
so that we can run with perseverance the race that is set before us.
That race is not at all trying to achieve perfection or earning God’s favour or saving our souls.
None of that is even remotely possible for any human.
No our race is against the Evil One who would keep us mired in our sin.
Our race is against time itself, to strive to share so much of what God has given us, in order that there is none left when we are taken home,
home to that house that has many rooms, and plenty of room for us all.
When we know that we are surrounded by such a cloud of God-made saints, witnesses to Jesus’ Grace and Love, then we know we live as God created us to live, in God’s own image, following Jesus’ example of serving others and giving all we have so that others may live.
Even if the first light of the day is the sun already set, and reflecting in the popcorn clouds, we know we live in the light of Christ.
When we know that we are surrounded by such a cloud of God-made saints, witnesses to Jesus’ Grace and Love, then we shall rise and live upright, honest and kind, gracious and generous, and filled with hope for each new day.
Take courage, all you people of the land, says the Lord; work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear.
Romans 15:13
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Words of Grace For Today
It’s a good thing our lives are not dependent upon what other people do to us and around us.
Since what makes or breaks us
sometimes is the least expected
someone else messing with our lives with their irreality or their attempt to ‘climb to the top’, right?
In the book titled Sound Pictures: The Life of Beatles Producer George Martin, written by Kenneth Womack, the author reveals a strategy behind Beatles records.
Martin and the band decided to have Ringo sing one song on every Beatles album. And it wasn’t just to be nice to Ringo. In the first wave of Beatlemania, Ringo was the most popular Beatle.
Years ago, comedian Mitzi McCall and her husband Charlie Brill were a comedy team called McCall & Brill. They were a nightclub act that finally got a big break to be on the Ed Sullivan Show. But that big break happened on February 9th, 1964 – the historic night the Beatles also appeared.
The comedy team came on right before the Fab Four’s second set that night, but they couldn’t hear each other while performing their sketch because the 14-year-old fans were screaming for the Beatles.
Seventy-three million people watched that night. It was their big opportunity – and no one remembered McCall & Brill. Their agent didn’t call them again for six months after that. They say they never watch the video of that night.
Later, McCall would share one funny moment.
She was standing with John Lennon before the show, looking out the window at the screaming crowd outside the theatre. She turned to Lennon and said, “Can you believe this is all for you?”
Lennon shrugged and said, “It’s not for me. It’s for Ringo, actually.”
And that’s why the Beatles always put a Ringo vocal on every album. As George Martin said, it was just good marketing.
As for us, what makes or breaks us is God’s Grace, and God’s promises are what give us hope for each day:
Take courage, all you people of the land! … Work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, according to the promise that I made to you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear.
No matter the challenges that we face this day we pray may the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing, so that we may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
But Ruth said, ‘Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.
Galatians 3:28
There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
Words of Grace For Today
Often said of Covid-19 pandemic is that we are all in the same boat on this one. Everyone needs to get vaccinated in order for any of us to be safe. That means everyone in the world.
We are not in the same boat, though. We are all dumped out onto the ocean, that is true. The problem is some of us are in private luxury yachts burning diesel to manoeuvre with chefs preparing 3 meals a day with coffee, snacks, and an open bar tea at all hours, others are in luxury sail boats eating gourmet foods, some of us are in smaller boats on survival rations handed out by our governments, and many, many people are hanging on flotsam praying for their very lives.
Naomi is an elderly widow in a foreign country whose two sons have also died. She is leaving to find her way back to her homeland, in hopes of living out her remaining years there. Ruth, one of her widowed daughters-in-law will not abandon her even though Naomi directs the two daughters-in-law to return to their mothers to seek new husbands there.
Ruth promises, even in this hopeless, bleak culmination of time and events, to stay with Naomi, to adopt her homeland, her people, and her God. There is not much hope in any of that, now is there. Not at that time when women had no standing or property or ability to be gainfully employed (with notable exceptions). So Ruth accompanies Naomi and together the two make history, enough that the Bible contains the Book of Ruth.
What would the world look like if we were not so able to abandon all those people hanging on to flotsam in the pandemic of Covid-19?
What would it take for us truly to be united as one kind of people, on privilege of people, on status and wealth of people?
God would have to come and forgive us all our sins, making us equally acceptable before God, based solely on God’s Grace. Then God would have to send us forgiven people out into this wonderful and terribly broken and overcrowded creation to extend that same equal and unconditional forgiveness and love to each other. We would finally be united as beggar-sinners, blessed by God’s own generosity towards us all.
And this God demonstrated with Jesus’ story is exactly what God did do for us all.
So we are united as one under Christ, without distinction, without class or privilege or wealth differences. When it counts we are all in the same boat … with Christ making our way across the dead sea of our sins and past evils that still hold us in bondage.
When it counts we are all in the same boat … the trouble is we continue to sin, and cannot stop ourselves, so that some are climbing out of our shared boat with Jesus into their private luxury yachts, others are tossing people out of Jesus’ boat into the open ocean to die, and yet others are jumping ‘free’ because they cannot stand the thought that they are at best beggars for God’s mercies.
When it counts those of us who are saved by Christ and follow Christ … we are all in the same boat … and we work hard as we are, knowing we are God-made saints, and simultaneously still sinners, yet inspired by the Holy Spirit to be God’s love and grace for those around us.
We certainly are in the same boat and the rations are not fancy. The seating is crowded. Yet we are still afloat … by Grace alone.
Call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.
1 Peter 5:7
Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.
Words of Grace For Today
DO NOT WORRY!
Which makes one focus all the more on one’s worries.
Cast all your you anxiety on Jesus!
Now that’s a great collection of words that can foundationally change one’s life for the better. For we know that anxiety drives one into a survival, pre-rational thought option pattern of responding to the world (or at least to one’s imagined threats in the world.)
Those choices are not that helpful in most situations, and the likelihood that we imagine a threat that is not real at all or at least not as threatening as we perceive it is … well … it is so likely we can say it is the standard for most of life. This fear based reactions to life makes us vulnerable to those many evil people who use fear in others to control them, to move them to make decisions not at all in their best interests, but to the advantage of the one controlling them! It’s sop for despotic political leaders taking and maintaining power; after all democracy (or any form thereof that responds to the public needs and best interests) is not very efficient, or preferential to those who have or want to have position, power, and privilege.
So to be able to cast away our anxieties, not declaring them unreal (even if most are) sets us free from being controlled by fear. Then we are able to proceed through our days, using our God-given brains to think clearly and make choices that will benefit those around us.
The latest examples are all those people who read the fake reports about vaccine dangers and decided to not get vaccinated, or to wait. So they did not get vaccinated. Now they populate the ICU’s and hospitals and after that drain on our too-limited health resources, they live the rest of their lives with health compromises no one would choose, unless the other choice is death by Covid suffocation.
After we’ve cast all our anxiety on Jesus, then we are able to give God praise and thanks.
What a life God offers us, a life that responds to reality, instead of fabricated fears used to control us, destabilize our lives and the community life around us, and eventually the national security of our country and many other countries in the world.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
1 Peter 2:23
When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.
Words of Grace For Today
The urge for all humans is to respond to attacks with attacks of ones own, but with a greater intensity.
This leads to wars on a personal scale in marriages, among family and friends, within communities, countries and between countries. It leads us into the worst that humans can bring to bear on one another, so horrible much of it is unspeakable.
What am I to do about the RCMP Jones who fabricated evidence and coordinated others to bring false reports, who did this just because she could, even though I was innocent and bewildered at why or how anyone would do such a thing?
What am I to do about my ex who created so many lies about our life together that life became unbearable, and no matter what I tried or sacrificed or gave her she only created more worse lies about me and our life together, and then created more and more lies for the courts, lies that I could not even imagine where they came from? Or the children who came to court to lie as well, trying to get me falsely convicted? Or the prosecutors who gleefully took the cases, presented the lies to teh courts and created more and more lies on their own for the courts to hear? Or the lawyers who were supposed to be my lawyers or work to inform me of the court processes, and simply did none of that, instead tried to make my testimony totally useless in court?
What am I to do with the judges themselves, who received these lies eagerly, and made ruling after ruling to enable a false conviction, and when all the evidence was in they still had to lie about the evidence in order to falsely convict me, and especially those who did it so cruelly, naming my kindness as something that had created fear, as if my kindness could at all create fear!? Or the judges who removed sections of testimony and then played games and made up more lies to ensure I spent $1ks with no hope of hearing the audio of the section that was removed from the transcripts?! And on and on go the inexplicably dishonest and cruel things that people with authority did in order to convict me and send me to jail for crimes that I did not commit, which left the children suffering cruel borderline personality disordered ‘parenting’!
What am I to do with the pastor, bishop, doctors, office managers, church council people, community leaders and many others who joined in the creating of lies about me, so that I am cut off from my church, cannot receive medical care even as my health requires more and more medical intervention, am not safe in the community as on many occasions people put my life at risk, some violently, some with reckless breaching of Health Orders, and some with threats to my person, well being, and survival?
My list is not complete even at that, and there is more and more that time reveals to me that I did not know of, and so much more that I will never know about, yet billions of people today and through history have stories that are so much worse!
What are we to do with such terrible evil directed at us, often (as is my case) with no rationale reason that it the evil be directed at us?! There is plenty of random, senseless destruction of life, but this is focused and directed evil against us, though there is no reason for us being chosen, except some insane perversion of reality. What are we, the victims of this destruction and evil to do? What are the rest of you people, who are not the victims of such senseless, useless, and avoidable evil, supposed to do?
What are we to do when it is impossible to judge 100% correctly who is doing what to bring about such atrocities against innocent people?
Jesus says forgive as we are forgiven. This brings us freedom from being victims to being blessed by God!
What if the sins are not even acknowledged by more than a handful of people, and otherwise the evil is continued by the same people, choosing new victims as the violence and destruction mounts and becomes systemic?
I have forgiven those who suffer mental illness, my ex, and the children effected by her.
I cannot forgive the others, especially those with authority and position, who are responsible to ensure this kind of injustice does not happen. I also cannot respond with increased vengeance or violence and destruction. I will not allow myself to become like them.
I have bound their sins, and made it known so that they have opportunity to amend their lives, and God can celebrate a victory first that their destructive evil is acknowledged and stopped, and God can celebrate a second victory, that they have received freedom from the Great Deceiver’s grip and begun to life a life of service to Jesus the Christ.
Binding sins is not to be judge over others. Binding sins is not to condemn others. Binding sins leaves the judging and the punishments or mercies to be in God’s hands. It makes known what has been done, even when it cannot always be known completely who has contributed knowingly or unwittingly participated.
Binding sins does bring the victim freedom from being a victim, and allows one to stand blessed each day.
The Suffering Servant of Isaiah, and Jesus (reported also in 1 Peter), do not even respond with a declaration of the evil done and the binding of sins. They suffer in silence the violence done to them. This may seem to some to be the better response. I cannot agree. One needs identify evil and hope that the perpetrators will amend their lives, or at least, as a ‘civilized’ society we will collectively recognize the evils done against so many innocent people.
One cannot live well and seek revenge, though.
Lies are lies forever, always without end.
Truth is truth, always and forever.
God’s Grace gives us boldness to be those who forgive and who bind sins. Without it we would be left breathless. With it we are given breath each day by the Holy Spirit.
In the path of your judgments, O Lord, we wait for you; your name and your renown are the soul’s desire.
2 Corinthians 5:10
For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.
Words of Grace For Today
The morning wakening after long hours of sleep, enough to repair and rejuvenate the body, blossom into pure joy, simple joy. The fire is still warm, stoked to last again for hours. The door opens to frosty grass (suppressing the last of any bugs or wasps which would have been ready to buzz about), and fog has settled over the lake, making for great photos (or so, anyway). The smoke from the beast well-fed, meanders over the meadow into the trees. The fresh pressed coffee wafts clean inside with plenty of blueberries to top the morning cereal. Prayers include thanks for precious people, a large number of my families, now and of origin.
Then as breakfast satisfies the hunger and thirst of the night (cutting back to lose weight for better health outcomes) the fog descends over the meadow encasing it in a white glow that ends visibility just at the tree lines.
All this on a day that promises progress to prepare for winter. Old logs are ready to cut up and stack for firewood. A few new pieces of lumber wait a bit of construction before the tarp goes up to provide shelter from the rains and snow, and a few simple sewing jobs will improve the comfort on cold nights.
What more could a person want?
Well, I have a long list. Anyone who dreams of making life better has a list of things that would help the small and large improvements to one’s life, to the lives of others close and even for strangers.
So what are we to make of this life? Is it just the daily grind, the daily joys, the obtuse strangers and the warmth of friendships, the lies of enemies and the powerful trying to protect their privileges, and the small kindnesses one shares and receives with so many people?
God walks with us.
That is a double edge sword, cutting for us against all evil and fabrications by enemies … and it is the edge that cuts the sin and evil of us as well. It is promise to save and promise to put to an end: good is saved and evil is sent back to primordial void, right?!
Yes! Justice will prevail, and our enemies will be exposed, our sin will be cut from us, and we will be left pure and unmolested by our enemies baseless attacks …
except …
except read Jesus’ story! There one discovers anew that God’s judgment is not bent on destroying us but on saving us, forgiving us, setting Jesus’ record in place of our own at our judgment day, renewing life in us (a spirited, passionate life of commitment to being God’s unconditional love for others), and sending us out to live a life abundantly full of and spreading God’s Grace everywhere.
Like the fog that settles in, God’s mercy and wholehearted love for us and all people, covers us. Then God’s forgiveness provides our ‘daily bread’ like heat, breakfast, and opportunity to give God thanks for our family (some who love us good and always, and some who find hate and lies and fabricating blame for others as their way through life). Before the day is too far spent, God then blesses us with the golden sunlight dancing on the fog, dispersing it into the trees and beyond, as God’s promises give us hope … hope that today all will be well, and tomorrow all will be even better!
You shall not defraud your neighbour; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a labourer until morning.
Luke 6:31
Do to others as you would have them do to you.
Words of Grace For Today
This sounds a lot like labour rights, or as they are written in Leviticus, limits on the wealthy. The problem with limits on the wealthy is
everyone identifies ‘wealthy’ to mean someone with more money than they have.
The person with an income of $10 million a year but does not have a jet for personal use, may be isn’t wealthy, right?
The person with an income of $1 million a year but does not have a fancy house on the lake with their own boat house and pontoon boat, is not wealthy, right?
The person with an income of $200,000 a year and owns their own home but does not have enough to travel more than two times a year to Europe and one other trip to warmer climes in the winter, is not wealthy, right?
The person with an income of $50,000 a year, a small home, and an inexpensive economical car, but cannot travel more than to the mountains a few times a year, is not wealthy, right?
The person with a minimum wage job, who rents a two bedroom apartment, has a nice truck, and a small family of four who eat well, but cannot manage to save a down payment to own their own home, is not wealthy, right?
The person with an office job that pays $5.00 a day, has their own bicycle, and a rented small cubical sharing a kitchen and bath with 30 other cubicle residents in a high-rise, but cannot afford their own shower, like those on the top 10 floors of the high rise, is not wealthy, right?
The beggar who sits on the street morning and evening, usually receives enough to feed their family of three living in a tin shack and washes in the river at mid-afternoon when it is not too full with other people, is not wealthy, right?
The orphan child, orphaned by the latest virus, like millions others, has enough strength to beg for food and eats every other day, maybe, but has not stable place to live, is not wealthy, right?
The war-orphaned child, starving like 100s others in their village suffering famine for a fifth year, who will die today, is not wealthy, right?
No matter who you are, no matter your wealth, these laws of life apply: You shall not defraud your neighbour; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a labourer until morning.
More clearly prescribed for us all:
Do to others as you would have them do to you.
There are so many people in this world suffering illness, violence, and maltreatment caused by humans, and even more who are tormented by their inability to find a good purpose in this messed up world we make for ourselves and the next generations.
There is no way to make it all better.
There is no way to even start small and hope that one can make it right, from the richest sharing enough, so that the poorest have a life to live.
The only way to begin each day is to know that all people, from the wealthiest to the poorest, are God’s creatures, whom God loves, whom God sends us out to love.
We start loving all God’s people when we realize how much God has given us, not by our own merit, but undeserved Grace, which makes us the richest people on earth, for we live with God’s favour and blessings … which blessings can never be measured in material possessions, or power, or fame.
God’s blessings are measured as immense by the heart that sees …
God in everyone, everything, always, in all places, and knows
that God created it all, blessed it all, and walks with us all each day.
Therefore all is well, all is well, all manner of things are well.
Then the Lord called, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ and he said, ‘Here I am!’
Acts 18:9-10
One night the Lord said to Paul in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent; for I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to harm you, for there are many in this city who are my people.’
Words of Grace For Today
God calls us in many and various ways, each individually called and promised that God is with us already, and that God will walk with us each day of our lives.
We do not need to answer at all, and God will still walk with us. If we turn about towards God and follow Jesus, God will walk with us. If we turn away from God to follow some other hollow way of living, filling ourselves with all the variety of creation’s possibilities, God will walk with us still … and suffer what we do to ourselves and to others around us.
God calls us and knows that we will be afraid, and that we cannot help but be afraid. God asks that we order our fears under God’s promise to be with us: That ought to inspire a greater fear of God than any other fear possible in this world, even the fear of the Devil, the Great Deceiver, grasping at our very being with promises of all kinds, yet all of them empty of life abundant for us and for people around us.
Our fear of God, subsumed under God’s promise to walk with us, to protect us (even in death) from all harm, and to forgive us, give us new life, and send us out with the purpose we were created to fulfill (namely being God’s unconditional love for all people so that they have life abundant) gives birth to a more powerful love for God, more powerful than even our fear of God.
God calls us in many and various ways. When we say, ‘Here I am! Send me!’ we tell God nothing God has not known since before time existed. What we do with these words is recognize God’s wondrous reality for us: God walks with us and knows where we are all the time, and knows what plays in our hearts, what fears consume us, what nightmares haunt us, what evil shreds at our being …. Still God loves us, heals us, and sends us out scars and all …
to be unconditional love for others.
It is a small task that encompasses not only our whole lives; it encompasses the entire universe.
God calls us in many and various ways …. and we answer if we dare! No matter, God walks with us.
This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Luke 21:33
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
Words of Grace For Today
What will you do, or have you done, for Thanksgiving this year?
Will your celebrations reach all in your family?
Will your celebrations reach anyone beyond your family?
Will you pause, reflect and consider why you celebrate as you do?
Will giving thanks be the centre of your celebrations, or just a small piece, or even an aside to all the other activities?
As we celebrate Thanksgiving year after year, it loses it’s meaning for many of us. Instead it takes on as its purpose, the immediate experience of our Thanksgiving foods, football games, and family gatherings. We learn to identify Thanksgiving with the warmth of these traditions, with the results of our own efforts. Giving God thanks has become an obligatory part of our weekend.
Doch, the true warmth of Thanksgiving remains the spirit on fire God gives us humble saints, so that, by our labours, we can share that warmth with those struggling to survive the coming cold, and all evil. (KAS sermon for Thanksgiving 2021)
(‘Doch’ is that wonderful word from German that means ‘but rather’, a word that encapsulates God’s response to our sinful ways.)
God’s Word will endure forever. God’s Covenant with us will survive forever even if heaven and earth come to an end. God will always be our God, and we will be God’s people.
Since God does this for us though we certainly deserve nothing, each day gives us opportunity to give God thanks in thought, word, and deed.
Then Naaman said, ‘If not, please let two mule-loads of earth be given to your servant; for your servant will no longer offer burnt-offering or sacrifice to any god except the Lord.’
Romans 12:1
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Words of Grace For Today
Naaman is a great Aramean warrior … who has leprosy. A slave girl taken from Israel in a raid advises Naaman’s wife that the prophet in Israel can cure him, so the Aramean king sends Naaman with great treasure to beg the king of Israel to cure him. The king is distressed and cries, ‘Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.’
Elisha hears of this and sends word to Naaman to come and be cured. Naaman comes, Elisha directs him to bathe in the Jordan seven times, and Naaman erupts in a rage at how senseless this is, and how the Jordan is no better than the rivers at home. His servants intervene and ask him if Elisha’s directions were more difficult, would he not follow them. Since they are so simple, why not follow Elisha’s prescription. Naaman relents, bathes in the Jordan, and is cured. He returns to give the great treasure he carries to the prophet of God, but Elisha will accept no gift.
Naaman responds with his insistence of two mule-loads of earth, a promise to not worship other gods (except when he brings his master to worship his master’s god).
Repeatedly in scriptures the references are earthy, mundane, even scatological.
What is clear is that God does not ask of us anything other than or less than a sacrifice of our own hearts, minds and bodies in response to all that God does for us. Bringing great treasure does nothing to win God’s approval or thank God for God’s great deeds. For what more can God for us than to cure us of our diseases for which we are cast out of the community by God’s own people? It is often said by elderly people, if we have our health, that is everything. It is not actually true, but it does reflect how health does determine the baseline of our physical lives, which does determine much about the parameters of our physical lives. The truth is that our spiritual health determines everything about the parameters of our lives, no matter our physical limitations.
No matter how great we think we are, no matter how wealthy we think we’ve become, no matter how much comfort we live in, the value of life is measured only by God’s presence with us. Everything else is at most secondarily significant and most is barely worth considering, except as a means to share God’s Grace with others.
We reach high. We reach far and wide for the greatness that will make life, all in vain.
A young fisher lived with his beloved wife in a humble fisher’s shack near the shore. The day she found out she was pregnant her husband caught the largest fish he’d ever seen or heard of. He celebrated because it would feed them for months. Then the fish spoke and offered to fulfill the fisher’s wish if he were set free. The fisher loved his wife and knew she wanted a true house for a home, and he made his wish. He arrived on shore to see their shack gone and in it’s place stood a marvellous house.
As the pregnancy progressed his wife became more and more demanding, never satisfied with her marvellous house. She wanted a queen’s castle and to rule the country. The fisher caught the magical fish again and freed him for his wish fulfilled. He arrived on shore to see their house gone and in it’s place stood a huge castle.
It was not long and his wife was again not satisfied with her castle and ruling the country. She wanted to be pope and live in the Vatican. The fisher caught the magical fish again and freed him for his wish fulfilled. He arrived on shore to see their castle gone and in it’s place stood the Vatican including St. Peter’s Cathedral.
Late in the eighth month of her pregnancy the fisher’s wife became more and more unsatisfied being pope, and she demanded that she become God and live in God’s own home in the heavens of eternal glory. The fisher caught the magical fish again and freed him for his wish fulfilled. He arrived on shore to see the Vatican gone and in it’s place stood their humble fisher’s shack. There indeed God lived … and twins, a girl and a boy, were born the next morning. (free retelling of Fisher’s Wife)
No matter how high, far or wide we reach, God sends us higher, and we inevitably fall, fall free, fall as trapeze artists with no safety net to catch us.
Doch, when we inevitably stumble into free-fall, since we know God alone saves us, we can remain calm and still, fully trusting that God will catch us, sometimes with something as simple as bathing seven times in the Jordan, and bring us home to God’s humble ‘fisher’s shack.’
