Category: Perspective

Advent Darkness, Advent Light

Thursday, December 2, 2021

What Little Truth There Is

What Little Hope There Is

What Little Life There Is

…

Christ’s Light

Has Come,

Is Come, and

Will Come Again

Isaiah 51:4

Listen to me, my people, and give heed to me, my nation; for a teaching will go out from me, and my justice for a light to the peoples.

1 John 2:8

Yet I am writing you a new commandment that is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

Words of Grace For Today

The daylight grows shorter each day, at this latitude markedly, as we are only 20 days from the winter solstice. When clouds and precipitation block the light during the few hours the sun is above the horizon the drear and darkness grows on us, as if the end of time were approaching though we trust that is not so. In these times the winter darkness teaches us well what we may or may not know so well from our own experience: that injustice of the nation is prevalent, here and now for so many people, and the injustice of the world order (or chaos as it really is) tears so many people from life, and even more from living a life respected as a full human being.

Then we read the promise that God will bring words of truth to bear on our world, that Christ’s Light shines already bright for all people. We read these words of promise and hope with eager hearts, though hardly more so than the billions who suffer the chaos of injustice worked for the privilege, comfort, and power of the few.

When people recognize the Light of Christ, the world chaos can but fail as Christ’s way replaces human greed.

For this day we wait, for freedom from darkness, for freedom from blatant injustice, for freedom from all evil, and for freedom to serve Christ fully, without reserve, with our whole hearts, minds and strength. For this day we wait. On that day we will celebrate the coming of Christ as we have not ever yet.

This is the advent of awareness: that Christ has come, is come, and will come again, to bring into the light all that is done now as if in darkness, all that is done to throw others as captives into darkness, all that is done to supposedly ‘set things right’ when the actions are more unjust than those they pretend to correct.

This our advent. Advent as we prepare to celebrate Christ’s coming, again.

Let Your Face Shine

Tuesday, November 30, 2021

We Are the Ones

Who Shine

With Christ’s Light

As Snow Sparkles Between the Shadows

Psalm 31:16

Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love.

Luke 12:25

Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?

Words of Grace For Today

On the coin of money is inscribed ‘In God We Trust.’

This is one of the more blatant and dreadful ironies of our lives: the world seeks coin to enable the collection of resources (through payment with the coin) and to ensure the bidding of the holder is done by others (through payment with the coin).

Those of us who cannot or do not have enough coin, worry about our futures: can we keep at bay the despair of hunger, the life-ending extremes of the environment, the decay of life without good medical care, or the loss of sanity as we are isolated (as an easy target for our enemies and separated from the social fabric of life.)

This worry motivates us to work, and to work hard, to ensure some kind of safety in our future, some kind of food supply in our days to come, some kind of health care so that what ails us can be discovered, diagnosed and treated, some healthy connection with other humans who do not wish us harm. Our worry itself does nothing. It adds not even a minute to the span of our lives. What we do to work through our worry may or may not succeed in providing life and life abundant for us.

Life in all its great goodness that God created us to enjoy does not require any of this that we can work for, though. Life abundant requires only one thing and that is God’s steadfast love.

God’s steadfast love moves us from worrying.

God’s steadfast love moves us from worrying about ourselves.

God’s steadfast love moves us from worrying about ourselves to working to be God’s love for others.

God’s steadfast love moves us from worrying about ourselves and on to knowing that we are marked with the cross of Christ, which does not just mark us like coins with the greatest irony of all times. The mark on us changes us from the root of our being to the last days we live in God’s good creation: we become God-made saints.

When our enemies or our shortcomings or the lack of things we require to stay alive threaten our future we can pray: Let your face shine upon your servants; save us in your steadfast love.

Like the sun rising for a new day, sparkling, dazzling in a field of snow, God renews Christ’s light in us, and we shine, and we sparkle, and we transform the world from misery to happiness, from despair to joy, from hunger to nourished … from lost to found.

Waiting for Comfort

Sunday, November 28, 2021

God Uses Every Means

to Get Us to Listen and Prepare Us

(even Morse code)

for the Coming Days

Of Celebrating Christ’s Birth

Psalm 119:76

Let your steadfast love become my comfort according to your promise to your servant.

Luke 2:25

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him.

Words of Grace For Today

Waiting.

Waiting for an event that is so much more than just another everyday occurrence.

Waiting for an event that is so much more than the greatest thing in one’s life.

Waiting for …

Waiting for God to break into the life of humans, and make a statement so clear about God’s love that it will shake all the foundations that humans build on, for everything that humans build.

Waiting for God to reveal how God relates to us, in our broken, sinful, destructive lives, which we seem incapable of setting right.

We wait.

We wait again this Advent.

We wait again this Advent for the celebration of our Saviour’s birth.

We wait.

Yet there is no way that we can wait idly for this celebration, just ticking off the days, eating the chocolates out of the advent calendar, and hoping that this celebration will bring life to us again, renewed life, and God’s favour … after all that we do as humans to one another.

We wait for our enemies to be converted to reasonable, truth abiding, honourable humans once again, if they ever were such people.

We wait … and the Holy Spirit works in us, helping us to see …

Helping us to see beyond the portents of this time, as storms increase in magnitude month by month, as temperatures rise so that glaciers recede at record rates, and so that ice caps melt and ocean levels rise covering islands and seashore cities, as wildfires burn away forests protecting mountainsides and rivers, as earthquakes increase, as droughts grip whole agricultural areas leaving farmers with no crops to sell and people without food to eat, and as rainstorms pour water in record amounts on dry and vulnerable areas flooding homes, roads, and whole cities, and whole mountainsides give way to mudslides that block off roadways halting transport of goods in its tracks, leaving retailers shelves thin, and Christmas wishes changed from a special gift to a wish that our lives and the lives of our loved ones will be preserved.

Helping us to hear beyond the news of these disasters and the ever- mutating and more dangerous variants of Covid spreading to our areas.

Helping us to trust …

Helping us to trust God’s promise that God’s steadfast love will be our comfort …

a comfort like no other.

Thus comforted we are able to reach out to save many people, people we know, people we do not know and people who are our enemies …

saving people from disaster with needed, real-time help,

saving people from the wiles of the Great Deceiver with needed, real-time love and hope.

Helping others to trust God’s promise that God’s steadfast love will be their comfort …

a comfort like no other.

Where Do You Put Your Heart?

Thursday, November 25, 2021

Looking Up,

Do You See the Trees,

Or

the Heavens Above?

…

The Forest or the View to God’s Grace?

Zephaniah 3:16-17

On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak. The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

Ephesians 2:19

You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.

Words of Grace For Today

What do we need today,

a warrior who gives us victory over our enemies?

Or

to be renewed in God’s love?

There is, among all the things that occupy us in this life, only one thing that counts: our relationship with God.

Those that lie to the courts which have acted unjustly on their lies will have their lies turn back on them. There will be no escape for those that live by the lie, and try to kill by the lie.

Those that fear and love God, know God and God’s presence every day.

We are no longer strangers and aliens in God’s Kingdom. We are citizens with all the other God-made saints of all times, together children of God, members of God’s house.

Here we live.

Here our enemies’ lies have no meaning …

Here our enemies’ use of the unjust courts have no meaning, except

…

except their lies and perverse use of the unjust courts define them as God’s enemies.

That is no place to be on this planet, for there is no escape from God and God’s justice.

For us, there is home, always home in God’s blessed care.

Therefore we do not fear, no matter what lies our enemies threaten us with.

For we are God’s own people, God’s own blessed people, God’s own holy people.

Idols OR Love

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Idols cannot create this beauty,

Only God’s Pure Love

Creates this kind of Pure Love.

Deuteronomy 29:17

You have seen their detestable things, the filthy idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold, that were among them.

1 Thessalonians 3:12

May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you.

Words of Grace For Today

There are so many idols. These used to be made of wood and stone, sliver and gold. They are also made of things that build perverse hopes, perverse power, perverse wealth, perverse status, perverse lies, and … all kinds of perverse things.

There are so many kinds of love, so many ways that it holds us, supports us, gives us life … makes things as God created them to be in so many ways.

In each moment we get to choose to worship our idols, our perverse idols that rob us and others of life.

OR

In each moment we get to choose to receive and give love that is able to create life for us and for others.

This choice is not something we can choose by ourselves. We need the Holy Spirit to guide us and inspire us, and help us to choose what is good and right.

In this moment how will we choose?

In this moment how will you choose?

The Devil’s Coming!

Monday, November 22, 2021

‘The Devil’s coming!’

says one loon to the other.

‘The Devil’s always coming.

Keep swimming. We have fish to catch.’

the other answers.

Nahum 2:1

A shatterer has come up against you. Guard the ramparts; watch the road; gird your loins; collect all your strength.

2 Corinthians 5:18

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

Words of Grace For Today

How do we see the world? How do you see the world?

How one sees the world makes all the difference for life, whether one scrambles to possess, connive to have more, and manipulate others to help you get more, whether that is more power, more wealth, more possessions, more pleasure, more control, more of anything or even of people.

The Devil takes no pause in attacking in the daylight, with an incomparable force, with incomparable soldiers (people as pawns), and with shock and terror to strike fear into every heart.

The Devil also takes no pause in working in the shadows, in the hearts of people driven to have more, in the minds of even those who think they are doing the best they can do (and those who know they are doing the worst things, just because they can and it serves their wishes.)

However the Devil attacks, the only thing that is sure is that the Devil has always, does always, and will always attack at every possible moment.

So …

If you think you need to protect yourself from the Devil, and you work your lifelong trying to defeat the Devil’s ability to control, dominate, and use you to destroy and de-story others, well … well then you will always lose out to the Devil, even when you think that you have won. Your life will become (has long since already become) a shamble of self-deceit and arrogance, and you, long ago, have become a danger to everyone around you.

This is the cry to stations: A shatterer has come up against you. Guard the ramparts; watch the road; gird your loins; collect all your strength.

…

If on the other hand you know that you will always lose to the Devil and the Great Deceiver’s attacks on your body, mind and soul …

and you know that the only defence against the Devil is the one Jesus provides, the promise given at our baptisms, that God will walk with us and always protect us from the Devil … If we trust God alone to defend us from the Devil’s attacks …

and as the cry to battle stations is sounded again and again, we know that we are already working out God’s Grace in our lives, bringing good news to the oppressed, binding up the broken-hearted, proclaiming liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favour, and the day of vengeance of our God; comforting all who mourn.

We can do this even while those around attempt to defend themselves from the Devil’s attacks with all their hearts, minds and strength, because we trust the gifts and promise given to us in our baptisms and that all this is from God, who reconciled us to Godself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

Instead of trying to defend ourselves, which is an effort doomed to fail, and effort that is needless, we live abundantly, living out Christ’ reconciliation for all people.

It’s not easy.

It’s not futile like fighting against the Devil.

It is the best life we can ever imagine.

Seeing With God’s Vision

Sunday, November 21, 2021

We may not see anything clearly

Doch

God Gives Us Vision to See

God’s Grace

For All

Proverbs 21:2

All deeds are right in the sight of the doer, but the Lord weighs the heart.

Romans 16:19

For while your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, I want you to be wise in what is good, and guileless in what is evil.

Words of Grace For Today

When we commit ourselves to an action, hopefully we know that it is a good and right thing to do. Sometimes we may be totally wrong, and our own blindness makes us think that we are right when we are actually fully wrong.

God knows.

God knows if we are doing something right or something very wrong.

When we do something that we know is terribly wrong and we do it anyway, then … well … then we serve the devil in all the devil’s horrendous and terrible ways.

Since we so often think that our terrible actions are as great as anything, we can hardly decide how to proceed in our lives doing only God’s will. In fact we never know how to evaluate what we plan to do, whether it is good or bad.

We can only confess our sins every day as a start, and then trust that God will both forgive us, and renew life in us so that we can answer God’s call, to be God’s grace in every day for everyone we meet.

We can pray that we will be wise, knowing how to be bearers of joy for ourselves and for other people, filled with gratitude for all that God provides for us, for all that is good that God brings out of us each day.

Shattering Enemy Heads

Friday, November 19, 2021

Our Imaginations of God’s Justice

Are Darkened by Our Own Sin

And Wish to De-story Others.

Psalm 68:21

God will shatter the heads of his enemies, the hairy crown of those who walk in their guilty ways.

1 Thessalonians 4:14

Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.

Words of Grace For Today

Scriptures teach what everyone knows: God does great and mighty things, awesome things, wondrous and frightening things, life- and hope- creating things.

Life after the end of life, after death, seems a thing far fetched (to some if not many people.) Christians are not the only faithful people who embrace it as the hope of all hopes, grounded firmly in the centre of our faith, namely that Jesus was crucified for crimes and sins he did not commit and that three days later God rose him back to life. By this God demonstrated clearly that evil and death itself are not more powerful than God. By this God teaches that scapegoating (the killing of an innocent person in order to ‘pay’ or cover for one’s own sins) is not something favours. Rather God prohibits it just as God prohibits killing, sacrifice of people, especially children, and a host of other acts all too common among people, acts which all destroy other people, good people, by robbing them of life abundant.

Even though God prohibits these sinful, life destroying, de-storying actions, humans still commit them profusely. The hope in life after death includes the promise that in our new life, sins will be dealt with justly and with grace, and all will be free from oppression, abuse, and de-storying. The Pslamist puts this image graphically: God will shatter the heads of his enemies, the hairy crown of those who walk in their guilty ways.

There are few people, other than those who know they qualify for such an end, who would not hope that their enemies would cease to be.

God’s grace is more complete: God promises that God’s and our enemies will definitely cease to be … to be our enemies, for God will save them and convert them. They will sit with us among the children of God.

We pray: come soon, Lord Jesus, that our enemies will be defeated and we will live in peace. And they will know your peace, freeing them from their obsessions to de-story other people.

This is our story …. Let it be known far and wide.

Dream, Dream Away

Saturday, November 13, 2021

Dream, Dream

While the Northern Lights Dance

in the Darkness.

God’s Promise for Our Future

Is So Much Greater a Dance

Spectacular!

Isaiah 45:15

Truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Saviour.

Ephesians 3:20-21

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.

Words of Grace For Today

Be careful what you pray for, and what you wish for;

God has ways of accomplishing more than we can imagine

and calling us to lives that we never imagined possible

working with, for, or because of people we never thought God would make us suffer.

People are full of shtako.

People are full of blessings.

Which will you be today?

Which do you wish or pray for today?

Remember God may fill your wish and a prayer with something more challenging than you can imagine possible!

So are we to simply stop wishing, praying, dreaming, and hoping!?!

Not really, eh!

Just get ready for the ride: living as God’s saints, deliverers and agents of Grace is the wildest ride possible!

Hang on tight to the only thing that is actually secure enough to stand the stresses coming our way: God’s promises, grace, and love.

…

‘Caught’ch’ya dreaming!’

Fresh Wisdom

Friday, November 12, 2021

A blanket pours down in the Darkness

Lit by the Light of Christ.

Isaiah 2:12

For the Lord of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up and high.

1 Peter 5:5

In the same way, you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders. All of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’

Words of Grace For Today

It is true that God gives grace to the humble, and I am very sure and proud that I can say that God gives grace to the proud.

The Lord of hosts certainly has a day (or eternity one would hope!) against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up and high. Just so God has a day against every kind of sin, and no one lives without each hour committing a sin that God has a ‘day’ (an eternity) against.

There is order.

There is order that God created in the universe.

There is order that God created in the universe for us to discover, understand, and use … or rather to learn to live in harmony with. As much as we learn to live in harmony with the order God created life is healthier for us and those around us.

I am not so sure that accepting the authority of the elders is exactly the order that God created, for wisdom does not always come with age or authority assumed and exercised, nor does wisdom come with the freshness of youth. Wisdom is a gift that God sprinkles freely and randomly … and somehow some people seem to come up short, and not just short but kind of a vacuum of wisdom, no matter their age or intelligence.

Respecting each other, now that is a must for health.

Elders respecting youth, youth respecting elders. Men respecting women and women respecting men. Respect among and between all races, genders, faiths, and levels of wisdom even; this is how we live in harmony with the diverse universe God created. Respecting an idiot does not mean obeying an idiot. It is to respect that even the greatest, most powerful, most stupid idiot is still one of God’s creatures, and as long as these idiots breathe God is giving them time for the amendment of life, and we can learn to do so as well, and work to contain the effects of their idiocies on the rest of humanity.

God has a day against …

God has a day against all idiocies and sins, against all lies and false witnesses, and against all corrupt judgments and delusions of power. We need not make that day come sooner, nor stop praying that God’s day will come very soon.

Those with any wisdom want God’s day against their own sin to come soon, very soon, for their day before God is determined already as Jesus’ record will be used in place of our own … we will continue to be God’s saints, free then of sin, free to exercise God’s Grace that is so abundantly poured over us, like a fresh white blanket of snow pours over the darkness of the night.