Category: Lake

What Do, What Can We Delight In?

Wednesday, August 18, 2021

W hen the Evening Closes In

And The Dark is At Our Door

God’s Steadfast Love

Carries Us

For God Delights In Us.

Jeremiah 9:22-23

Speak! Thus says the Lord: ‘Human corpses shall fall like dung upon the open field, like sheaves behind the reaper, and no one shall gather them.’ Thus says the Lord: “Do not let the wise boast in their wisdom, do not let the mighty boast in their might, do not let the wealthy boast in their wealth; but let those who boast boast in this, that they understand and know me, that I am the Lord; I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight”, says the Lord.

Luke 9:25

What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?

Words of Grace For Today

What are the things that we delight in?

Many of us work for profit, a little more than we have, “Just a little more, please,” we beg God. “Make our lives just a little easier, a little more secure, a little more hopeful! Give us enough that the challenges we face are overcome, our enemies defeated, and so that we know that our futures are secured.”

So we, the wise, boast quietly about our wisdom, trusting that our wisdom will deliver us into a good future. So we, the mighty, boast quietly about our might, trusting that our might will deliver us into a good future. So we, the wealthy, boast quietly about our wealth, trusting that our wealth will deliver us into a good future. Or whoever we are, with whatever we have, we use it all to try to ensure our good futures. It is not actually boasting, we say. But we rely on ourselves and our own.

What are the things that God delights in? It is as God acts, with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth.

These things, by God’s Grace alone, are what can secure us a future that is worth living. Everything else leads to living in futility, struggling on our own to secure our futures, when the whole time we waste the little time we have on earth.

Each days challenges, our enemies’ evil actions, and the unknown in our futures are exactly the opportunities God uses to demonstrate that God walks with us, right with us, no matter what. We can rightfully boast only in God’s gracious love for us. We need nothing more than God’s gracious love to know that our futures, whatever comes, are fully secured in every way that they need to be, in order for us to live life fully as we are created to live it.

As the evening closes in on us and the skies darken, we pray in thanks for all the blessings God provides to us, starting with our daily food, and that we are able to breath, the good work we are able to engage in, and more than anything else we include thanks for all the people we love and who love us.

We lay down to sleep trusting that all is in God’s hands, God is with us, and the morning will come with new opportunities for God to show us and all people God’s steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth.

We strive to make life a little better for ourselves, and all the people around us. We willingly give up the little that is our lives in order to give others the basics of life and to demonstrate to them God’s steadfast love that accompanies us each day. Life is a miracle, a miracle that surprises us each day. Each morning we trust that the coming evening will provide rest after good work of the day, followed by another marvellous morning, or we will wake with God at home with Jesus and all the saints in light.

Not bad for our options, eh?!

All by Grace …

Monday, August 16, 2021

No Matter

How Grand Our Accomplishments Appear to Us

They are Only Like Weeds

That Blossom When Watered and Given Sun

By God’s Good Grace

Psalm 115:1

Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness.

Romans 12:3

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

Words of Grace For Today

I woke to mow back the weeds and grass to keep down the mosquitoes and give fewer places for wasps to hide and surprise me when I’m out walking and working.

Do I get credit for putting in the sweat time, going back and forth across and up and down the hill? Why not? After all I was the one up before 6 am to be out before the hot sun heated the meadow and hillside to over 30⁰C when mowing risks heat stroke, swarming by black flies and an unwanted encounter with wasps.

George lived his whole live long working hard ‘in the trenches’, sometimes literally, for the city. He started out as a labourer and ended up a labourer who knew more about the infrastructure of the small city he lived in (especially what was where underground) than any other person alive. Others could access the plans and records. George had been there to install, upgrade or repair almost every bit of what lay underground. Even in his 70’s George was exceptionally strong, stronger than four or five men his size and he was not short at 5’11”.

Does George (like other hard manual labourers in the world) get the credit for a life of good, honest, hard work providing services to people who knew little of his work or how it provided them water, sewer, electricity and gas into their homes and business?

Sue raised two sons and two daughters in some of the roughest conditions possible, moving from the wilderness of northern Minnesota, to the heat of Arizona, to the wild temperate climate of a very rural part of Alaska sort of near Anchorage. Her children all married, became productive contributors to society, and had their own children. Sue travelled back to Minnesota to care for her elderly and aging mother, to her children spread across the west, and provided a home for her husband, most often with a gentle and firm honest kindness. Does Sue like so many mothers and fathers actively raising children get the credit for the goodness in her children and the kindness she provides to so many people?

The world would answer these questions of credit and say of course! Each person gets the credit for the good they do … and the bad they don’t do. And likewise those who do evil things get the discredit for their deeds. It is simple to measure a person’s goodness or evil by what they have accomplished.

This measure is not God’s, and God’s answer to who gets the credit for all these good things done over different lifetimes is not the person who lived the life. The credit goes to God and God alone for creating, forgiving, sanctifying (making holy, into saints), and renewing life in these people so that they would not be caught as prisoners of their own sins, instead they are freed to do good things in God’s creation.

For by the grace given to us we know that it is not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness.

Giving God an Earful, and Then …

Sunday, August 15, 2021

In God’s Creation

God’s Glory Is Always Grand

And

Our Place is Always

Quite Humble

Job 40:3-4

Then Job answered the Lord: ‘See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth.’

1 Corinthians 15:9-10

For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Words of Grace For Today

Job answers God, ‘I lay my hand on my mouth.’

Anyone who has read Job even a bit knows that Job does not ‘lay his hand on his mouth.’ Quite the opposite. Job is an example of one who speaks clearly, desperately and angrily at God. A good example Job is, too, in this way; an example that shows we can throw everything at God, everything that is in our hearts and on our minds, no matter how desperate or angry it may be.

The second half of that lesson is in the verses above. After Job has thrown everything at God, Job is more than ready to listen to God. Job does keep quiet. And God gives him an earful (which is more like a whole body-ful and a lifetime-full.)

Job knows God is the One great enough to handle all his pain, all his suffering, all his anger, all his frustrations. Remember Job has, through no fault of his own (though his enemies and even friends continually tell him it must be his fault – not really good friends) Job has lost all his livestock, his workers, his home, his wife, and his children. Job has lost everything and his health is failing. He is very near slipping into his grave. To put it in perspective, the view of how most people viewed misfortune was that when someone suffered a loss of any kind, it was because that person or that person’s parents had sinned. Job’s losses are so great that it seems so obvious to people that Job must have sinned greatly. The book of Job, in part, is the story that corrects that view. Just because one suffers, does not mean that one has sinned in a way to deserve that suffering.

The story of Job and that lesson needs to be repeated often, for the lesson is hard to learn and even harder to remember. Even in Jesus day (John 9:2) the disciples ask Jesus ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ And in our day, we so often dismiss the poor, the disadvantaged, the outcasts, alcoholics, addicts and co-addicts, the falsely accused and convicted because we think in some way or another or even directly, they have reaped the rewards from their own sinful living.

In this way we try in vain to build some protection for ourselves, some false barrier between us and the disasters that have taken these people down. Truth is, though, we could all be taken down. When an innocent person like myself can be falsely accused, the police invite so many people to make false reports, the lay pastor and church leaders create false scenarios and make false reports, even banning me from church, the lawyers invite false testimony, plenty of people provide outright lies under oath, and even the judges lie about the evidence in order to convict me (and the judges did not lie about peripheral things, they lied about the key evidence that exonerated me, and created false evidence needed to convict me) … when all this happens to an innocent person, then the truth is simple: there is no justice available to anyone (not even my false accusers) and anyone can be convicted of anything at any time. We live in a country where the courts are easily able to be no less than barbaric and cruel. It is one of the signs that our societal contract is shredded at it’s core. There is no protection for anyone, and all continues on it’s merry way as if the justice system were actually just because we are all too afraid (rightfully so) to admit that there is no justice system, there is only an institutionalized system of bullying people, whether they have broken the law or not.

Like Job, we need to take this to God, in all the horror that it is for us all, and then listen to God’s response.

Paul provides us an example of how we prepare to listen to God’s response. Though he writes and is listened to by many people as an authority, a messenger from God, Paul does not become a bully over others. He remains humble, knowing his place and knowing God’s place in his life. God walks with him. He remembers always that though he worked harder than any of [the other apostles] … it was not [Paul who did this blessed work of sharing the old, old story of Jesus and his love], but the grace of God that is with [him]. Paul remembers clearly the days when he persecuted the followers of Jesus, and even organized the stoning of Stephen.

Paul knows his place. Paul knows God’s place. Paul counts on God to keep God’s promise to walk with him, no matter the suffering that comes his way, .. and the suffering comes in spades.

Paul and Job are examples for us, to bring everything to God, and to count on God to keep God’s promise to walk with us, no matter what.

Job recovered, and regained more than he had lost. It rarely works that way in life. More often we come to the end of our suffering by the release of death, and being called home – as Paul was, like so many other martyrs for Christ.

God’s Law; God’s Love

Saturday, August 14, 2021

My Enemies Full of Lies, Hate, and Injustice

Exiled Me to the Wilderness.

They Did Not Realize That

This is God’s Promised Land,

Where I Live as a Holy Hermit

With My Joy Complete.

Psalm 119:52

When I think of your ordinances from of old, I take comfort, O Lord.

1 John 1:1-4

We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us— we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

Words of Grace For Today

It is a fine line between living fully alive and appearing to live though one is in all ultimate matters dead.

It is the line between a) giving God control of all that we are and have, or b) taking (well, assuming one is taking) control of what is God’s.

The Psalmist takes comfort in God’s ordinances from of old. All good and well, except the Psalmist takes comfort not because they are a gift from God or God has guided one’s life to goodness or that God has convinced the Psalmist of his/her own sins and with mercy saved her/him from those sins. No, the Psalmist, with as much arrogance as one can have, takes comfort in God’s law because the Psalmist claims to have kept them all and has the audacity to burn hot with indignation at the wicked who do not keep God’s law!

That’s faith based on hate for others, a total miscomprehension of one’s own place among the worst of sinners, and an attempt to take on God’s role as judge – and turning that role into one of condemning others! Hate-based faith is widespread, unfortunately. It has fuelled, does and always will fuel strife, conflict, and outright wars … and it has nothing to do with God’s communication of reality in many and various ways, and most clearly through Jesus, the Christ’s story, the old, old story of Jesus and his love.

The writer of 1 John puts it more correctly, more life-giving, and without a hate base, if confusedly with so much Johannine imagery of life, light, Word, beginning of time, abiding, revelation, eternal life, fellowship, and complete joy.

How else do we humans speak about that which exceeds our language and our knowing and anything that is of our comprehension?

The meaning of life is simple, using Johannine imagery: it is to live in complete joy, given to us by God, and brought full circle by us sharing it with others. It is to live in fellowship with Jesus, the Light of the World from before time to beyond time. It is to live eternal life now, sharing that life with all other people. It is to recognize one’s place as God’s humble creatures, given the gift of eternal life that is only a gift for us if we share it, testify to it, and include others in that gift.

The meaning of life has nothing to do with judging others, or claiming one’s ability to follow rules, laws or ordinances. The meaning of life is to recognize God’s truth in all things: Grace and Love make life possible. Hot indignation consumes life … for all people.

God, we pray, save us from hot indignation and the arrogance that would have us claim we are better than others, especially our enemies.

Give us the wisdom and patience, the courage and character, and the love and hope instead to endure the injustices that our evil enemies work against us … so that one day they may encounter your truth in our testimony about your Grace: the old, old story of Jesus and his love. On that day our joy will indeed be complete.

Dumbstruck

Monday, August 9, 2021

Winter, Spring, Summer, or Autumn

God’s Gracious Wisdom

Leaves Us All in Awe,

Dumbstruck.

Isaiah 11:2

The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

Luke 20:26

They were not able in the presence of the people to trap him by what he said; and being amazed by his answer, they became silent.

Words of Grace For Today

God blesses us all with gifts. Most often we ignore them as gifts, assuming we have full title to them and all they can bring to us.

God blesses some of us, it seems very few of us, with amazing gifts of the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

Quite understandably when those who claw their way on their own efforts to positions of power and status, at others’ expense and lives, encounter the one so blessed they attack to undo what is foreign to them and therefore a threat to their fragile ‘house of cards’: simple goodness and kindness.

The encounter rarely goes as they planned or hoped and if …

if they are at all honest or honourable, they will quickly realize that this person embodies for God the reality of God’s rule over all, which their lives so contradict, and yet which is what they seek to achieve on their own …

and

they are dumbstruck, with awe

and

with fear.

Such is the encounter with God’s blessings that are not denied or rejected by the person receiving them.

The world needs more such blessed, holy saints … those who God chooses as God’s own children, who do not pervert or attempt to control God’s blessings. The world needs saints to embody God’s will for all on earth, namely that we live for each other, simply, gently, kindly, and graciously.

The wasps built another new nest, since I did not eliminate their queen with the second nest destroyed. That nest was eliminated last night, for the wasps are so plentiful that they make simple tasks a huge risk, as they buzz my face without notice if I am outside working or walking.

To have a safe place where I can live the wasps need to be reduced in number so that this space is rarely prowled by wasps. Thus the nest must go and all in them. So last night at 1:20 the new nest was saturated and the wasps all eliminated, queen and all in the nest.

This is not how God calls us to live with other people, no matter how threatening their prowling is in our lives, no matter how many times they have ‘stung’ us leaving us incapacitated for days, weeks, years.

It is not difficult to image how much better life would be if one’s enemies and their ‘nests’ could be eliminated.

God chooses that even our enemies receive grace, and the time for the amendment of their lives. Better a convert (a grace-made saint-sinner) than a dead wretchedly evil sinner.

The sun rises. The sun sets. Another day in God’s creation as a blessed grace-made saint-sinner. When we recover from encountering God’s awe-fully wonderful and gracious wisdom our prayer is the same: God bless all goodness, leave sinners dumbstruck at your gracious wisdom, and eliminate all evil … in us sinners, all (also in our enemies.)

Blaster or Refuge Giver? Which Are You?

Sunday, August 8, 2021

Just Another Sunset

Which is Everything.

For It Is God’s Promise Fulfilled.

Isaiah 25:5

For you have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat. When the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm, the noise of aliens like heat in a dry place, you subdued the heat with the shade of clouds; the song of the ruthless was stilled.

Luke 1:51-52

He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly.

Words of Grace For Today

God definitely favours the poor, those in distress, and those lowly in life.

God provides the refuge, shelter, relief from the storms of the wickedly ruthless. God lifts up the lowly that they may not be so low as not to be able to live, and live abundantly.

God definitely does not favour those who cause others distress, those who are ruthless, those proud and haughty, nor the powerful.

God subdues the ruthless who are like a blast of heat or a blast of a wintry storm (snow and ice or rain, it matters not). God stills the song of the ruthless who think they have won so they sing their songs. God knows theirs is not a song to have sung by anyone. God scatters the proud with the terror of their own thoughts, the turmoil in their own hearts. God takes down those who are powerful and cruel.

There are many who camp for months on crown lands, never removing after 14 days their equipment, or they play a game and move every 21 or so days to a different campsite, so it looks like they have not camped in the same place. They are proud. They are hard on the land. They are sure that they are entitled to special treatment; they do not have to obey the laws.

There are many who come for a weekend, or 4 to 7 days, maybe even 14 or 28 days, and they camp with a wonderful view of the water, a mere 2 or 10 or 15 metres away. Perhaps they are oblivious to the proper care of the land and water, that camping is allowed but not within 30 metres of any body of water. They come in large motorhomes, in huge 5th wheel units, or long bumper pull campers, or short motorhomes or even tents. They claim the right to enjoy the water up close and to party and have open fires and drink at all hours and walk between campsites drinking.

Then there are those who bring quads and side by sides, who erode the fragile roads, plow through the brush, and make noise at all hours with their engines. And the partyers blast their loud music into the wee hours of the morning.

It is hard work to respect the laws and respect the land. Moving every 14 days, leaving crown land for 3 is expensive. Setting up and tearing down is not simple or easy.

What does God do about these proud people who destroy the land and water for their own ease and enjoyment.

Nothing.

God sends enforcement people from time to time; but they do little.

God sends educational people even less often; and they do precious little.

The Devil sends bullies and they simply rip up the place.

We thank God, that the storms of evil are calmed, if not all, then the ones that would steal our lives and our safety from us. We thank God that many of the people who come, even if they disrespect the laws and the land, do show a minimum of respect for other campers, and we are able to survive.

It’s not very high that God has lifted up the lowly homeless campers, yet it is high enough above the rock bottom of sure and quick death that there is always another sunrise to enjoy, another rain storm cooling away the searing heat, another snow storm laying down enough for skiing, another sunset to close out a full day, and always another gentle, kind person to speak to.

These are God’s people, doing God’s work of providing refuge. Are you one of these?

Or are you one that blasts others to get ahead?

God provides refuge. That keeps the grave at a distance. That keeps alive the promise of new life each day. That enables us to be God’s people for others, providing them refuge.

Giving Freely, or Taking and Destroying

Saturday, August 7, 2021

The Greatest Gift Given:

To Share the Beauty Evident Everywhere

Even in a Simple Blade of Grass

At Sunset.

1 Chronicles 29:5

Who then will offer willingly, consecrating themselves today to the Lord?

2 Corinthians 9:7

Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Words of Grace For Today

Arnold began life in poverty in a dictator run country, occupied by the Soviet Union, the son of a pastor, who served a number of small community parishes. That position came with a parsonage and large parcel of land. It was the pastor responsibility to provide care for all the people in the parish and to care for the land and the parsonage … and all the churches he served.

That meant that the ‘poverty’ that Arnold grew up with was relatively luxurious. He enjoyed running water and a toilet that flushed. Apartment complexes had toilets at one end of the building, the excrement falling in a large pipe from each floor to the bottom. There was no running water, just a high trafficked ‘outhouse’. Coal provided heat though it meant gathering it, carrying up the stairs, starting and stoking the fire for cooking, warmth and hot water. The smell of coal smoke was everywhere. Out in the country in the parsonage with it’s land the smell was barely noticed. Where many had not place to run and play, the parsonage land provided all sorts of places to play and find solitude with birds and animals the only noise to be heard.

In the world of adults, though, the secret service police recruited so many informants that one never knew who was watching and who would inform on you, even if it was not the truth. Arnold learned well from the secret police how to observe others and to make the best of their weaknesses for one’s own good.

Arnold lived his whole life vowing never to be one of the people others took advantage of. He would be the one to enjoy the best luxuries of life, whatever that cost other people around him.

Arnold was a ‘taker’ and a destroyer, an accomplished fabricator of lies to cover his own weaknesses and to destroy others who threatened him, most of all those who knew his weaknesses. Being a destroyer and a taker has it’s high cost … of guilt or psychotic oblivion to others or dread of being discovered. Arnold suffered terror jags every day, as most destroyers do knowing well that ‘what goes around eventually will come around.’ Hiding the truth costs more and more lies, until one cannot tell what is true anymore, not at all. The terror becomes inexplicable and inescapable.

Tina grew up a missionary kid in Africa, then in Minnesota. Her parents were medical missionaries, ones who brought caring and curing as the reality of Jesus’ old, old story in this world. Their actions spoke God’s love. They gave up lucrative careers in Minnesota to serve in Africa. When a tropical disease almost killed and fully disabled her mother, they returned to Minnesota to serve as medical ‘missionaries’ even there, giving all they had to provide care for many children and patients and people in the community.

Tina learned early that no matter what happened, the measure of life was certainly not money nor luxuries nor privileges enjoyed. The measure of a good life was in giving what one had. In all she did, she worked hard, listened to people, provided good words, assisted people further in their own lives, and never developed any idea that she had to acquire or possess or earn property, things, wealth, position, status or power. Serving was it’s own reward. Life would take care of itself, or rather God would provide what was needed in life.

Tina was a giver, a self-denier in order to provide for others. Tina enjoyed what she did, even when Arnold took her to the cleaners, ran her through the courts and into prison for crimes she had not committed, and left her destitute, so far in debt she would never be out of debt in this lifetime, barring a miracle of money. Even destitute Tina gave and gave and gave, even when all she had was a funny word, an encouraging word, or just a smile. Long ago Tina offered herself, being ordained as a pastor, dedicating her life to sharing the old, old story of Jesus and his love, not merely with words but also with actions of caring for all people and all creation.

These passages have long been used to encourage people to give generously to their congregation’s coffers to cover the costs of churches equal or greater in majesty than the wealthiest in their communities. Sometimes, well rarely, the pastor was compensated well. More likely the parish saw it as their duty to keep the pastor in poverty so that she or he would not sin with the evil’s of money, which really was the parishioners’ sins of greed and coveting the education of the pastor (well what used to be the good education of the pastors. Now that education of pastors is watered down to only the basics of learning how to do whatever will keep parishes alive, serving whatever passes for faith – which is more likely corrupt power. Forget any integrity in caring God’s Word or the traditions and heritage of the church alive in the parishes. So dishonest pastors flourish, corrupt parishes thrive, and the rest suffer. Nothing new for the Devil has always worked best in churches.)

These passages speak to a much more profound part of life. It is not the offering plate or the volunteering in the parish that is so crucial. These are of minor importance in God’s Kingdom. These passages address our attitude of being grateful for everything we are and have at our disposal – our gratitude for God providing all that is needed and more, our gratitude that when we were and are still wretched sinners, God chose and chooses to love and forgive and give renewed life and walk with us.

Giving to God flows freely and cannot be forced, or it corrupts those who force and those who give. It also corrupts those who try to force others and those who do not give, but take everything they can get from life.

The crucial matter is how we make up our minds to give what we give. Do we decide to give so that it makes up for the ‘taking’ we do in the rest of our lives? Are we like Arnold, takers and destroyers, giving only to cover up our greed, hatred of others, and our scrapping to have everything we can get? Or do we decide to give because God has given us everything? Are we like Tina, givers and bearers of Jesus’ love that brings life to others? Do we share, knowing that what we share never was ours anyway? It is all on loan from God for the purpose of sharing it with all other people, in Jesus’ name and as signs of God’s love for all people?

Choose we do, each time we make a decision: do we serve God or do we serve own ‘interests’?

Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Salvation

Tuesday, August 3, 2021

No Matter How Evil Presses in on US

God Promises Light,

Christ’s Light

for God’s Saints.

Daniel 3:28

Nebuchadnezzar said, ‘Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants who trusted in him. They disobeyed the king’s command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God.”

Acts 12:11

Then Peter came to himself and said, ‘Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hands of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.’

Words of Grace For Today

Sometimes God saves people from death by the hands of their enemies and even provides recognition in their enemies of the enemies sins against them, God’s judgment of those sins, and the righteousness of God’s people (by Grace alone … and innocent where the false charges are concerned!)

But that’s the exception.

Peter, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are among the fortunate ones who were not killed (or falsely convicted) by Herod, Nebuchadnezzar, and countless other unjust people of power, including corrupt judges today.

Evil runs rampant in the world, in history and still today … and countless people go missing, having been disappeared. Countless people die of neglect and the consequences of other’s sins: from war, from unnecessary famine, from evil’s need to hide it’s dark and cruel works.

We give God thanks for the few people who were saved from destruction and death. We give God thanks that even those of God’s people who are destroyed or killed unjustly are promised eternal life and justice. We give God thanks that as God is gracious and merciful to us, so God gives those who are horrendously unjust with the power they have that same mercy and grace, giving them every opportunity to repent, recognize God, and confess their sins. God gives so many evil people more than ample time for the amendment of their lives.

Today, we breathe yet another day, enjoying the bounty of God’s creation, it’s beauty and wonders. We bask not in the sun, but in the light of the son, who forgives us each day again and again and gives us renewed life. To Hell with evil (in God’s good time), this is life as God intended us to live it. So we breathe yet another day, grateful and gracious towards others, even those that would destroy us, for we remember the old, old story of Jesus and his love for us and all people.

Truth is Blessed. The Wicked are Tormented By Their Own Sins.

Friday, July 30, 2021

The Blessings Of God

Bring Serenity

To Those Who Trust God

Accepting Forgiveness Readily

And Sharing Blessings with All People

Like the Reflection of a Destructive Storm

Those Who Destroy Others

Are Tormented Always

By Their Own Sin and Evil

Psalm 32:10

Many are the torments of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord.

Romans 5:5

Hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Words of Grace For Today

When Arnold had finished with Tina, having sent her to jail for crimes that she did not commit, he still suffered the terror jags. With all his lies about Tina he had created, or rather constructed, a wholly fictional character, which he’d applied to Tina and presented to the church, the courts, and even the children. That character had very little that was true about Tina. Almost all of the terrible things in that character came from Arnold’s own sins and crimes many of which haunted him out of his terrible past. The church, community, and courts, able to know very well that it was only fiction about Tina, had accepted the fiction nonetheless as true about Tina. They continued to do so even as it was more and more clear that they had added their own lies in order to convict, ostracize and ban Tina. Their increasingly worse sins were bound, to be judged by God. They church and judges continued to protest that they had done nothing wrong. It was impossible to have them accept the terrible truth about what they had done, thus they were in God’s hands. Every denial of the truth set them further and further apart from reality, from a healthy life, from the goodness of creation, from all of God’s blessings, from God’s love, and from all hope.

Tina, forced by poverty to live homeless in the wilderness, with help from friends that loaned her enough to get by on each year, lived in the middle of the goodness of creation beside a small lake. There reality was an unavoidable part of every day. Life threatening cold in the winter, and mosquitoes, wasps, and heat in the summer did not allow for any denials about reality. Wood needed to be collected, cut, split and burned to create a warm and safe space in winter. In the summer grass needed to be cut to minimize the mosquito population, wasps deterred or nests destroyed to allow use of the small and very old borrowed camper, and shade needed to be sought and created around that camper in order to mitigate the searing heat that made midday activities dangerous to impossible. Surrounded by the peace of nature, for the most part left alone by other people as a holy mystic, and required or at least able to exercise sufficiently most every day Tina’s health recovered from the terrible cost of suffering Arnold’s abuse, the gaslighting joined in on by the police, community, churches and the courts, and the life threatening ‘medical’ treatment provided by some doctors and nurses.

Tina saw the goodness of creation in the ebb and flow of the seasons as the lake sang and then moaned in bass tones as it froze and then quietly thawed and in a day or two was cleared of ice by a strong wind, the birth of new robin chicks and the care the parents provided the one that too soon glided out of the overfilled nest, the arrival of fawn’s and beaver pups, the fruit of the various berries in their own seasons, and then the welcomed night freezings that cleared the air of all mosquitoes and wasps, the ground of all ants and pine beetles, and the arrival of snow deep enough to ski far beyond where one could walk in a day.

With nothing but her clothing still sufficient for each season, a tent and good sleeping bag, and a bicycle, Tina counted her blessings as friends and family loaned her, gave her, and provided for her more than enough to survive on; she lived and thrived and wrote and took photos … and every morning gave God thanks. Life was reduced to the basics and it had not been so good for a long time. She saw God’s blessings each day, poured out on her and she shared them with the few people she saw during each week.

In spite of everything, all the terrible lies told about her, all the challenges she faced nearly every day to live, Tina knew like no other time in her life that God sustained her and that she had every reason to hope … for hope had not disappointed her at all.

She was able to trust God fully (well almost), and she counted on God’s love surrounding her, pouring over her, flowing freely to the few people she spoke with each day. She knew better than at any other time in her life that the Holy Spirit guided her, that Jesus was present all around her, and that God created and sustained her in everything.

Arnold chose to force his success in life at everyone else’s cost. Tina was only one of his victims. And he paid dearly, daily with the terror jags that disabled him, with the fear of any criticism, with the profound self-doubt that haunted him along with his unshakable knowing the truth of his own terrible treatment of Tina and so many other people. His past haunted him. He knew someday it would catch up with him, one way or another.

Tina lived blessed, not perfect though forgiven, and free … all a gift from God that she knew she did not deserve, and which would never be taken from her, not by all her enemies nor even by all the evil in the world.

Blessing Us Dirt

Thursday, July 29, 2021

God’s Light and Blessing

Makes Even

Dirt

Golden

Ezekiel 36:9

See now, I am for you; I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown.

Acts 17:28

We too are God’s offspring.

Matthew 20:1

For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard

Words of Grace For Today

I always enjoy the biblical humour: the good news Ezekiel shares is that God is for the people, and they are compared to the dirt of the earth that is tilled and sown in order that something good will grow from it.

The people are, in this metaphor, nothing, just dirt to be trod upon … until God chooses to use them, to turn them over with the plow, to put something good into them that will grow, taking nutrients from their useless dirt, in order to produce food that will sustain others in life. And yet they, though useful to God’s project of providing food for others, and though God is with them, … they remain still dirt.

God turns to them, and they are tilled and sown.

So it is with us.

The dirt of the earth are we, and yet God uses us, tills us with the plow turning us over into something that lays bare the darkness of us, and then God puts good seeds in us, they grow, and food is produce for others, and we remain only dirt, the dirt of the earth. In this metaphor if we become or are and remain the salt of the earth, nothing will grow in us, and others will have no food. Best we are simply dirt, so that others may live.

This we are, the dirt of the earth. Still God claims us as offspring, as God’s own children. Is it really a jump to a completely different metaphor. Yes, but no not really.

God’s children are only something special and good for the rest of creation because God makes it so. God’s children are saints … only because God makes us saints. We remain stains on the face of creation, sinful stains, even as God makes us saints.

The real story is that out of such dirt and such stains God demonstrates everything about God’s love for us: God makes saints out of stains, out of sinners, out of dirty old dirt. That is God’s miraculous work, that God can make saints out of us.

It may seem humorous to be compared to dirt as Ezekiel pronounces God’s blessing of turning toward us, humorous for the unexpected impossible comparison … but then that is what God does all the time. God surprises us with the unexpected.

God blesses us and claims us as God’s own children … though we certainly do not deserve it.

Now what are we going to do with this unexpected blessing, this daily unexpected, life-giving, astounding blessing!? What else other than to share it with as many people, especially those the world would call unfit, unacceptable, incapable of being a blessing for anyone.

God calls for workers, to care for the vineyard, to bring in the harvest, and make the wine. That’s us, dirt, children, and workers.