Category: Sunset

Security Based on God’s Truth

Sunday, September 25, 2022

In Overwhelming Darkness of Evil,

God’s Light Is

Always With Us

Psalms 121:3

He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.

1 Corinthians 1:4-8

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind— just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you— so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Words of Grace For Today

As the challenges of every day and of facing corrupt and even evil people continues without end, there is only one security available to any person. This security is that God walks with us, guides us (as much as we listen), and protects us. Before God we need not fear anything at all. Given that assurance is there anything we need fear?

No.

Yet, as the scheming is underway to blame us again for what we have nothing to do with as guilty people are let run free to commit crime after crime, one rightly fears both those who claim to be agents of justice, and those who openly declare with words and deeds that they have no concern for their crimes. For history has shown they run far from truth to find someone to blame, guilty or innocent.

In the end, the unjust and evil will answer to God’s justice. And we will live always walking with God at our sides, suffering with us, bringing hope into every situation. That security has no equal.

So we take this one day at a time, preparing for winter, justly hoping it will not be as hard as last year.

Thanks we give for all the gifts God gives us, as they provide us avenues to see God, right by us.

Those Darn People!

Saturday, September 24, 2022

It’s All Weeds,

Beautiful Weeds

In God’s

Good Creation!

Zephaniah 1:12

At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the people
who rest complacently on their dregs, those who say in their hearts,
‘The Lord will not do good, nor will he do harm.’

Revelation 3:17-18

For you say, “I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.” You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich; and white robes to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen; and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.

Words of Grace For Today

We are all wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

Okay, I’m often of a different assessment of my situation. It’s not often that good.

Except I do keep myself clothed, mostly appropriately; and I do wear glasses, terribly scratched as they are, so that I can see clearly enough to prepare for winter and keep producing photos that are sometimes even good; and occasionally I have two quarters to rub together and use to fill the water tank (so that’s $25 to drive there and back) and I have not yet run out of water though it’s been close a few times; and while people may pity me, though I think it’s not many, as most cheer my unjust suffering, and I try to make a blessed case of my circumstances; but I’m caught on the wretched part. Don’t know how to change that, since I’ve confessed since I was a young child that I am a wretched sinner, needing God’s forgiveness.

I would guess everyone can produce a similar short accounting of how they are or are not wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. All of our efforts to say we are not simply help prove how so we are, and blind to the fact.

All too many people through all time have lived neither fearing and loving God, not caring, assured in themselves that God ‘will not do good, nor harm.’

There are and always have been the saints, people faithful to God, if still wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked, we are also humble or so about it all, and we turn our eyes and hopes to God.

In return God promises to walk with us. That makes God quite familiar with our wretchedness, pitiable-ness, poor-ness, blindness, and nakedness. God knows what God is getting into long before we realize where we are at, where people have been for so long. Why did God create and why does God continue to create such a universe with such people in it?

Love.

It’ll make you do the darnedest things.

(Thank God for that, too!)

Since I Have Chosen You …

Friday, September 23, 2022

Life is Golden All The Way Down,

Even Amidst Death

When We Know God Has Chosen Us.

First Samuel 12:22

For the Lord will not cast away his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.

Ephesians 2:8

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.

Words of Grace For Today

Bill sat next to Janet after their dance. They’d danced a dance each day together for the last year, after they were married, both in their late 60’s.

Remembering as Bill did how wonderful it was to be chosen by Janet so long ago on the floor of the High School dance, in the semi-darkness, so lonely, so frightening, so foreign. Then Janet came along. Janet who had dated Ted for as long as anyone in their class dated, until they’d broken up three months ago. That Janet, who’d he’d always watched and admired and wished he were Ted, until they broke up and Ted started dating Daniel and Janet dated almost anyone she wanted and not many were chosen. That Janet asked him if he would dance.

She said she’d been watching him. Watching him watch her. For years she had seen him. For years she had wanted to watch him, to ask him out. It was so frightening.

That had been the start of a whirlwind of wonder and a world that was so colourful Bill barely had time to catch his breath. Senior year, she said she wanted to be with him for the rest of their lives. A week later Bill had asked her to marry him. She had stood up in shock and walked off … and never came back.

That Janet now was his wife, and he was her husband, after two separate lives of joys and sorrows, wonders and such deep loses. And they danced.

Always one or the other would ask, ‘Since I have chosen you, will you dance with me tonight?’ And always the other answered, ‘Since I have chosen you, there is no greater honour than mine to be able to dance with you.’

So God asks us, ‘Since I have chosen you, will you dance with me today?’

The Glaring Bright Light of Truth

Monday, September 19, 2022

Shine

in

Our Darkness

Psalms 103:6

The Lord works vindication and justice for all who are oppressed.

John 12:46

I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness.

Words of Grace For Today

There are so many ways that we humans take life from others.

God sees everything that is done and will bring vindication and justice based on truth for all from whom life is stolen.

What is done in darkness will be seen clearly by all and all will know the truth of what is done to others who have done nothing to deserve what is done to them.

And those who have knowingly, or intentionally not known, what dark deeds they participate in, will have a bright light shone on their evil thoughts, words and deeds.

Quite the day! Right!

As all that we, also have done that is evil, will come out into the light.

Only those for whom God has mercy will survive at all.

…

Thankfully God offers all mercy.

Today, another day being God’s children who offer mercy to even the most evil evil-doers.

Shine, Jesus, Shine.

In All the Moments After …

Tuesday, September 13, 2022

In the Dark, We Learn to See the Light.

Psalms 118:14

The Lord is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation.

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

On this side of disaster, destruction, and demise (unearned but foisted on us by our enemies that claimed to be our family) we breathe and know it is a miracle.

We see the sun rise, and know it is a miracle.

We see the grass grow, the pine trees fill with acorns, the chicks grow to mature ducks and geese, and we know it is a miracle.

We work hard to prepare for the hard winter predicted ahead, and see the resulting piles of wood, completed repairs and improvements, and we know it is all wonder-filled miracles.

For God has become again and again our salvation, our breathe, and our hope.

So we would hope for you, that you would know the miracles that God works wondrously in your days, and thus find peace in the Holy Spirit’s power to transform the worst of the worst into blessings unending.

16 Tons?

Monday, September 12, 2022

Pilot or Passenger

Every Flight,

Every Life,

Has A Beginning

That many others have made possible.

Psalms 78:3-4

[Remember the glorious acts of God,]
things that we have heard and known,
that our ancestors have told us.
We will not hide them from their children;
we will tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might,
and the wonders that he has done.

Matthew 10:8

Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.

Words of Grace For Today

While living a life, self-sustained and self-determined, no great mishaps interrupting one’s plans and trajectory, it is all too easy to forget so much.

How one’s ancestors worked so hard to bring us to the beginning we were given as a gift.

How God provided for their survival in wondrous ways.

And how at each turn in our own lives, God is there, walking with us, calling us, blessing us, begging us to return to God.

Then disaster strikes. Small or huge, particular or general. And our self-sustained life is no longer possible, as if it ever were that.

Then we will only survive if we remember what our ancestors have taught us about God’s great blessings, and we return to God.

What then?

Simple: Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.

One day awaits us each morning, filled with opportunities to remember, to return, to serve others with the love that cures, raises, cleanses, and casts out.

It’s not 16 tons and deeper in debt to the company store, but it is that each day we receive more than we can possible give back, and we live blessed to be deeper and deeper in debt to God for all the blessings poured over us. It is impossible to repay that debt, and it will never be called. Miracles and wonders.

Chips Down? (or up?)

Saturday, September 10, 2022

When All Is Burned Up And Goners,

To Whom Shall We Turn?

Daniel 6:11

The conspirators came and found Daniel praying and seeking mercy before his God.

Romans 12:12

Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.

Words of Grace For Today

Lots of things to do when the chips are down, or up for that matter.

Like pray and seek God’s mercy, though like Daniel it may cost more than you can imagine!

Like rejoice in hope, which if the chips are up I would guess that’s a lot easier. I won’t really know. Not much time spent in my life with the chips up.

Like be patient, even if you are suffering. Of course to panic while one suffers is to let the suffering consume one, which has a whole other depth of pain to it, so being patient, calm, and looking for a reasonable way out of the hell-hole one’s been tossed into … well that is really the only thing to do.

So the lions are hungry, the gates are closed, you are their only prey. Best be calm because lions will attack sooner if you trigger their hunting instincts by showing fear. Being calm has a slim chance of communicating to the lions that they’d be better off not attacking at all. It can be done, or at least it is reported to have been done, if by no one else, then by Daniel.

Of course there are many different kinds of real life, metaphorical lions. They’ll kill one as viciously, slowly, and painfully as the African kind.

Which brings us back to prayer. That really is the attitude to take in all matters, chips up or down. Giving thanks for all God’s blessings, chips up or down. Begging for mercy, chips up or down. And asking for guidance to the next day, chips up or down.

There’s always a ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ or two out there. Always a emperor or two (wanna be’s are worse) out there.

That means there is always plenty of opportunity to hope, endure, and pray.

There’s always plenty of reason to give thanks. If for little else, then that every hell-hole comes to an end when it’s filled in. One hopes one is not part of the fill.

Today it’s another 24 hours chocked full of opportunities, challenges, suffering, and blight. Pray for a portion of joy to endure it with gratitude. Then work like the dickens to make things better for everyone.

Singing Amidst the Going to ‘Hell in a Hand Basket’

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Life Throws Lots of

Curve Balls.

God’s Light Still Shines

On Us.

Psalms 84:2

My soul longs, indeed it faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh sing for joy
to the living God.

Matthew 18:20

For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.

Words of Grace For Today

Devastation.

Unjust wars taking foreign lands, causing millions exile and thousands death.

Extreme heat, storms, rains and floods, droughts, earthquakes, and you name the new extremes of climate change.

Illnesses old returning in force, new ones racing through the 7 billion people plus on earth.

Corruption in courts, cops, and councils.

Violence next door and at home.

Lack of housing, clean water, food security, adequate clothing, employment opportunities.

Selfish and destructive strivings, yearnings, and desires.

The world is going to ‘hell in a hand basket’ quickly enough. Why do we have to help it along it’s way so effectively?

How are we to deal with all this?

We need to understand the root causes and work to end or at least mitigate them!

We need to work to mitigate the ‘downstream’ effects on so many lives as much as we can.

We need to get our own ‘houses’ in order, our own hearts, minds, and souls in order, except that is impossible without God cleaning, organizing, and renewing us from the inside out.

This God does through Jesus, the Christ, moving us from thinking we can earn our way forward, to relying wholly on God’s grace each day anew. God heals our weary, embattled souls.

For this we give God thanks, as we gather, knowing God is present with us always, also where we gather. God listens, so we beg and pray for help and healing and resolution and mitigations, and freedom from destruction from without and from within.

Because God not only promises us exactly that healing, but also pours it over us prodigiously each day, we return God thanks in our songs of joy.

The world may be going to hell in a hand basket quickly enough. We do our part to impede this progress as we are able and we trust God that Evil and Hell will not triumph in the end; not in our lifetimes, and not in the time of humans in the universe.

On with the day’s work that promises to be enough or more for the precious time given to us.

Blessed Assurance

Sunday, September 4, 2022

God Sees All, Hears All, Loves All

Psalms 22:20

Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog!

1 John 5:15

And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him.

Words of Grace For Today

There is little that is more deflating than to have people create a lie about oneself, and to be silenced for years and decades, as everyone refuses to hear the truth. Instead, silenced, one is imprisoned, left bereft, scorned, and ostracized.

We need not fear that God treats us this way. Exactly the opposite, God listens, knows the truth, and allows no false accusations live before God and anyone willing to listen.

Knowing that God hears us, provides all we need for life abundant, and allows no ‘dog’ have any power over us, we enter every new day, with an unexpected and surprising assurance and courage.

We know that all there is that is required for life.

We get to offer our ears and hearts to those who others have also silenced and ostracized.

Today is another day for eyes, ears and hearts open.

Rise Light And Shine … In Us

Monday, August 29, 2022

The Light Will Find Us,

We Need Not Search For It

nor Fear It Is Gone.

Psalms 74:22

Rise up, O God, plead your cause; remember how the impious scoff at you all day long.

Ephesians 1:9-10

God has made known to us the mystery of God’s will, according to God’s good pleasure that God set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.

Words of Grace For Today

For what shall we ask from God for this day, if not that God’s will be done also among us?

The Psalmist sings to God to rise up and state God’s cause, remembering how the impious scoff at God. Is the wish behind this prayer that God will judge and condemn the scoffers, the impious. If so then it is yet another example of humans trying to beat up others using God as a weapon. Or in other words: do what I tell you is proper behaviour and observe proper religious rituals in order that God will save you.

Ephesians has our answer to that kind of ‘easy’ bending of God’s Word and Promises of old. God has revealed the mystery of God’s will to us in Jesus the Christ, and it is in a Word: Grace. Christ came to live, die and be raised from the dead in order that we might know God’s first and last wish for us all is to love us, forgive us, and send us out to be that love to others.

There is great darkness always in life, always ready to steal our hearts from us and toss us to the wolves of self-reliance, self-saving, consuming for security, zero-sum stealing life from others that we might live in comfort.

Christ light shines in every darkness.

We are that light for so many people, if we but shine with God’s Grace and Love, instead of fear-motivated judgements and cries for conforming and compliance to our remake of ‘god’s rules.’

Ah, the freedom.

Ah, the wonder.

Ah, the awfully awe-filled, awesome light that rises this day again for us to live in.

Thunder may be scary but it’s easier to compartmentalize. This Light, it exposes every bit of our being, and God’s as well.