By your strength you established the mountains; you are girded with might.
1 John 2:2
He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
Words of Grace For Today
God is the mightiest further beyond the existence of the universe. God established the mountains. God established the whole universe and beyond, also time itself. So great is God.
We on the other hand in comparison can only pretend at greatness.
It is terrible what we require. We require forgiveness, all of us require forgiveness.
God is great enough to speak a word and make it so. We on the other hand need more. We expect grace and forgiveness to cost us something, and for that God does so much more than speak. God sends God’s only son, Jesus, to live as one of us, to demonstrate God’s love, grace and forgiveness, by dying to demonstrate that God forgives us, demonstrating that Jesus pays (atones) for our sins.
The story is simple. The implications for us are wide and deep: we cannot pretend that God created the universe only for us, that we and not others can receive God’s Grace and atonement. Jesus’ death is God’s demonstration that God has paid for all our sins, for all the sins, of the world.
With a word God created the universe and all that is in it, including us, all of us. With a life God demonstrates for us sorry lot that God provides all that we need, including the demonstration for us that all our sins are forgiven.
All the other things that we need God provides as well. Life in God’s world is not a zero sum game where we have to take from others in order to have enough. In fact, God showers us with more than enough so that we can share it with others. In our sharing the goodness of life, the goodness of life is multiplied for all people, and for us. It is God’s way that the abundance of life comes to all people. It comes in such a quality as to ‘infect’ the whole world with it’s goodness exactly then as we share God’s goodness with others.
Covid 19 spreads, with new variants it spreads even faster, through droplets of virus in the air that spread and linger like the aroma from a meal cooking in the kitchen can be appreciated upstairs and downstairs, and for hours after the stove is turned off.
God’s Grace spreads even faster, through our sharing with each other the goodness that we find in life.
So while the restrictions are in place, call someone new each day, and share some goodness with them. For God’s sake, and for everyone’s sake, including your own sake.
May the Lord give strength to his people! May the Lord bless his people with peace!
Ephesians 2:17
So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.
Words of Grace For Today
Peace is not the absence of conflict, nor the absence of violence even. Peace can coexist with both of these, though it works to pull us from violence to negotiation with each other, and from conflict with each other to harmony with (not each other) … with God’s Will for us.
CBC gave air time to a woman looking to organize mass fasting to call attention to domestic violence. She wanted those fasting to explain why they were hungry, and how terrible it is, now with Covid 19 restrictions, for women to be caught at home with their abusers. She wanted men to find a better model of what men can be. She wanted to call attention to the many, many women who are killed as a result of abuse.
All sort of good and well, as far as it goes. She seems to want, as many do, for us all to forget that ten times, got that, TEN TIMES! as many men die from violence as do women. Her project is a common one voiced today: women need to be protected from evil men. There are no good men, just evil men.
If similar things were said about women, their would be an uproar of denunciation of the misogyny. But no one even mentions that this woman’s statements devalue men, categorizing us all as abusers and as evil men who need to rethink who we are in order to become something better. No one voices the realization that this is misandry (the hatred of and devaluing of men.)
Make no mistake: some men kill women. AND some women kill men. Some use force, some use manipulation.
As if to make it sound like women are under greater threat, among other misandrist statements, it is said men are afraid a woman will laugh at him; women are afraid a man will kill her. The reality is when a woman laughs at a man, she devalues him, announces it for many to see, and taking his respect from him leaves him easy prey for both men and women bullies and abusers to kill him, if not directly with force then with psychological manipulation until there is nothing left of his life, not at all, not at all. The truth is men are as afraid of women killing him (often using men to accomplish the deed) as a women are afraid that men will kill them.
Abuse is abuse. Gender is not really a factor. Stereotypes are a serious problem because the mask the real issues with false issues.
That’s what is so terribly wrong with this woman’s campaign to get people to fast; it assumes all men kill women, and forgets that lots of women kill men, and regardless of who does the killing and how, many more men (ten times as many as women), our brothers, fathers, uncles, sons, and grandfathers, are dying, murdered by others.
Peace is not to point fingers and eradicate the falsely identified murder or the murderers. Peace is much more profound. Peace, real peace, requires that we acknowledge true reality. Real peace is to first realize that a part of each of us contributes to the conditions and circumstances we all live under in our society. Peace is second to forgive ourselves and accept others’ forgiveness of us, and to accept God’s forgiveness (actually that has to come first before other forgiveness is possible.) Third, peace is to forgive others so that there is no more finger pointing or calling out for others to change. The change has to be made within each of us first, and we have to point to the other as already forgiven … so that they may choose to change. Fourth, peace asks of each of us that we be profoundly thankful that forgiveness is possible, that God starts us off down that path, again and again each day.
If we are going to fast (and some like me cannot fast without putting ourselves at great physical risk of needing hospitalization to recover or we die) then it is to fast quietly, for this is what we need most: an inward healing of our relationship with God, God’s creation and God’s creatures, especially other people.
If we are going to put on a campaign to raise awareness of injustice, and in particular avoidable murder, then we cannot tie that message to misogyny or misandry. That only exacerbates the underlying lies we tell ourselves about the polarized genders, which drives us further and further from any possible reduction of avoidable murder. It in fact raises the conflict to higher levels, which in turn gives rise to more pain, which gives rise to more violence (physical and psychological) and that leads to more destruction of people, including physical and psychological deaths.
We need models for real peace. God sent us Jesus to live that model for us. There are a great number of saints who have provided models as well. We need to remember the old, old story of Jesus and his love, and of the saints that teach us faith and real peace, giving us real hope. Remember the good examples (they were human so they were not perfect) of Martin Luther King Jr., Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, Bonhoeffer, and many others. Above all begin each day remembering Jesus and his love, and all God does for us. From gratitude for all God’s blessing we can find our way to peace, even amidst conflict and violence and injustices all around us.
May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us: Selah That your way may be known upon earth, your saving power among all nations Let the peoples praise you, O God.
John 1:16
From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.
Words of Grace For Today
In a warmer climate than mine, a group of friends ventured out from their hotel to go sight seeing. They were on a Spring Break tour, something usually reserved for college students. These were people in a collective mid-life crisis, as it were, seeking some evidence they mattered in life still, even though the vigour of their youth had disappeared, for some decades ago, for others only years ago.
When one man described them as a diverse collection of ‘old farts’ he was pretty spot on, if you allow that some 40 year-olds enter this category way too early in life. They included a sampling of a number of races and genders. They were not as a group too pale.
When a tourist hawker saw them he approached as a few others had, and offered to ferry them as a group in a pontoon boat around the outlying islands. The idea took off like wildfire. It was a lazy way to do nothing while being able to convince themselves they were doing something very adventuresome. They set a time to meet again at the pontoon boat’s dock, going in various directions to collect supplies for the day, food, water, alcohol (mostly rum), and some sun umbrellas.
It was a motley crew that set loose from the dock on what appeared to be a more motley collection of flotation things (some barrels) under wood planks with more than a few gas cans, two outboard motors, and the requisite rudder. There were half enough chairs for the crises-escaping group. One man, George, who was kind of a leader more than a participant, offered (wisely it turned out) to stay behind as ‘a safety reporting person’ he said. ‘Call me if you run into trouble,’ he called out, as if the groups was not in trouble already the minute they left together on this trip.
Two hours later George received a call, recognized the voice, ‘We’re sinking near the reef behin ….’ then the connection went dead. True to his promise he remarkably quickly found a ‘rescue service’, gave them the exact account with times and word-for-word the call. They recognized where the pontoon had most likely gone down and headed out in three larger boats. ‘We need two for the people and one to hold the other two against the current,’ they explained and added that it would be thousands of dollars per hour for each boat.
Out near the reef, the mostly sober pontoon ‘owner’ (actually an assembler of junk into something that might just float) had succumbed to the cries of the surely not sober passengers yelling that they wanted to see the reef. ‘Closer! Closer!’ With no notice the calm waters whirled into a ‘rip tide’ effect right under their pontoon, one stream going out, the other 2 feet away going in toward the reef. It whipped the poor ‘boat’ around and around until it came apart like matchsticks falling out of their box, spilling the people into the water. Luckily as quick as the rip started it ended, and they found themselves in the water pretty much as a group. The stragglers soon enough found their way to the group, everyone hanging on to flotsam or treading water nearby. Considering their state of sobriety the group did well for the first while … until the first circling fin was spotted.
More than one panicked, thrashing about trying to get out of the water. The one fin was joined by others. The more thrashing, the closer they came. One person panicked entirely and set out for the spot on the reef that stood out of the water. Grant, a millionaire developer, almost made it before a slight current caught him and whipped him against a sharp rock. Blood coloured the water for a bare minute before fin after fin swung in and back out as he disappeared beneath the surface.
Finally one sane head among the whole group caught their horrified attention in the moment they all went silent watching Grant’s disappearance. ‘Quiet! Listen! Calm Down! The more you thrash about and make noise the more they will come after us. We have to trust that George will be here soon enough to save us! If we do not trust a rescue is on it’s way, calm down and do what we can together, none of us will survive this! So Stay CALM!’
His advice took hold. The group gathered themselves together with pieces of flotsam deepest in the water making a ring around them. Just minutes later, though it felt to the group like hours, the ‘rescue service’ arrived, tethered two boats to the third so the two could approach the group. Out came the high power rifles and more than one fin trailed away with a dark streak behind it, others collecting around the streak until all the fins were out of sight.
One by one the crises-escapees were pulled from the real crisis they had driven themselves to seek out. One by one they came to their thankful senses about how fortunate they were as on the return trip the ‘rescue service’ exclaimed that this was the first time they had ever found a live person to rescue. The predators usually cleaned up the tourists’ messes long before they could arrive.
There was no hesitation at paying the exorbitant rescue fee. More than one person rescued was ready to offer them everything. One old hippy offered the remainder of her days on earth. Such it is when people are rescued from real danger that they create for themselves.
We all ought to know this from our own experiences before God.
From God’s fullness we have all received, grace upon grace and we ought to be ready to offer God all we have including all our remaining days.
Each one of our remaining days begins with an appropriate prayer of thanks: May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us: Selah May God’s way of grace upon grace may be made known upon earth, and God’s saving power among all nations! Let the peoples praise you, O God!
God sends ‘Georges’ and ‘rescue services’ of many kinds to save us again and again and again from our foolish sins. God often uses us, all we have and all the days we have left on earth, to rescue others. We become God’s ‘Georges’ and ‘rescue services’, more commonly referred to as saints.
There is much for us to do as God-made saints. If we do not start today, when then are we going to start!?!
… – – – … Cold Hard Reality … – – – … Our Own Sin … – – – … The Start of God’s Work for Us …. ..
Friday, February 12, 2021
The Sun Rises And Spreads Cold Cold Cold Light
God using the sun to draw smoke shadows on curves of snow
Proverbs 3:7
Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
Galatians 6:4
All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbour’s work, will become a cause for pride.
Words of Grace For Today
We become accustomed to life, unjustly lived, civilization’s thin veneer holding back barbarism, barely while so many wealthy, privileged, and powerful people utilize outrageous barbarism to hold on to what they value, i.e. their positions, corrupt as they are.
We become accustomed to life and are widely disturbed, our individual and collective mental health plummets, because a pandemic disrupts our customary living …
and we are left to face what truly lies beneath, behind, and beyond our ‘civilized’ habits. It is not pretty. It scares us. It drives us mad.
This is a small piece of the cost of living as if we could rise above fear of God. This is a small piece of the cost of pretending that we need not resist evil at every turn, lest we be dragged into the sea of it’s chaos, into it’s power to uncreate creation, dissolve all time, and possess life itself even as it all crumbles into non-existence.
Being wise in one’s own eyes is like the fool Trump, declaring himself to be so intelligent, even as he spouts idiocies that are easily proven to be false. Remember when he recommended that people drink bleach to eradicate Covid 19 from their systems. Bleach of course is a caustic poison easily eradicating life from anyone who drinks it!
Our own, your own, idiocies may not be so obvious to us, to you, though they probably are to others!
Daily we immerse ourselves in the old, old story of Jesus and his love; which starts with our past and continuing sins confessed and graciously forgiven by God.
We immerse ourselves in this story, not forgetting the beginning (our wretched inevitable sin) so that we do not forget how much we need to be saved from our sins, how much God does to save us, and how terrible our deserved damnation would be if God were not so undeservedly gracious with us. We do not forget our ongoing inevitable sins so that we do not rise to false pride.
Instead we readily accept the reality and confess our sins, knowing in that confession we also accept God’s forgiveness, which forgiveness enables us to also be God-made saints, simultaneously as we remain sinners. God has God’s way with us, and we love it!
We know our own works are pitiful. Our neighbours may look to be so as well. On our own nothing we do amounts to anything (valued by God’s criteria and measure). Aided, guided, and inspired by the Holy Spirit, God accomplishes great things through us. God saves others by giving them abundant life through our work.
Our pride in our work, and in our neighbours’ work, amounts only to pride in what God does through us. Though we last no longer than smoke we remain courageously, creatively humble as God uses us to paint Grace on this world. Meeting the new demands of Covid 19 pandemic and it’s dangers and restrictions is a mere trifle, measured by God’s criteria. It is another opportunity to see, receive, and share God’s unending blessings.
Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of your possession? He does not retain his anger for ever, because he delights in showing clemency.
Romans 8:32
He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?
Words of Grace For Today
Watching the prequel to Treasure Island, it is a ‘wondrous moment’ when the pirates unite to pulverize the injustice of the Carolina Governor Ash and the people who delight in unjustly hanging pirates. One moment battleships lay at anchor off Charles Town augmenting the fort’s guns all aimed toward the pirate ship. Captain Flint negotiates for a reconciliation between New Providence, home of the pirates, and England. Then an aide to Governor Ash assassinates an innocent woman, Miranda Hamilton, who clearly stated the raw justice due Ash. She has just then uncovered Ash’s betrayal of herself, her husband, and his best friend, now Captain Flint, leading to her husband’s death and their exile … and Ash’s ascendancy to Governor of the Carolinas. Captain Flint’s trial follows, a show of injustice if there ever were one, all to cover up the murder committed by the Governor’s aide. Ash describes this as the ‘civilization’ that Flint and Miranda seek to bring to New Providence.
Flint’s competitor, Captain Vane, realizes with Flint’s trial, a symbol of the ferociousness of pirates will be beaten down and all pirates are doomed. After Flint’s hanging no one will fear any pirate, and they will no longer be able to seize ships and cargo without too great a cost of life and limb. So Vane goes on a rescue mission, which miraculously succeeds, for this is fiction. No matter how impossible the success in reality would be – firing canons into the square where Flint and now Vane are held and in the streets as they flee to the sea – we want it to be so and so we accept the impossible as possible.
Then to great relief all pirates back on the Spanish man of war. Flint had previous captured this warship. Then Vane and his men had taken it in Charles Town’s bay during Flint’s absence. Finally in Vane’s absence the ship was regained by Flint’s men. On this ship for the first time both crews work together. The ships guns have already destroyed Ash’s unsuspecting warships, and now they turn to decimate the corrupt ‘civilization’ of Charles Town. They bombard it into the dust.
Ahh, justice! Raw, cruel justice for people who pretend to be civilized but are more brutal than pirates to their prey.
This is not the end of it all though. As Charles Town is lay waste, the untold wealth of Spanish gold, once guarded by the very man of war Flint captured, is taken from the Spanish guarding it on a beach by Jack Rackham. The ship carrying it has been driven into the island’s rocks during a storm. The gold is too much for just one ship. Rackham’s crew fills the holds of two ships with their take. This untold wealth makes New Providence’s pirates a power for the rest of the world to contend with. Finally the pirates have a chance against the great navies of the world ruled by corrupt leaders and corrupt countries that claim to be civilized.
We love it. Moved by images, cinematography, lighting, and music we see the progression as a good development which is most deserved; Justice in an unjust world for those most unjustly treated.
It is hardly that. It is accurate that civilized society is too often so corrupt and unjust, with the most cruel wielders of power ruining people left right and centre without regard.
The fictitious destruction of Charles Town and accumulating the Spanish gold is hardly a justice in an unjust world. It is more of the base nature of humans playing out in violent revenge and theft humongous.
In God’s creation, which this is, such violence and theft goes against all that God calls us to be and do … and we clearly see how tempting sweet revenge can be. The movie makers know this and play this out well.
God knows this and plays out very well the other story, God’s story which includes the old, old story of Jesus and his love. This is the story that demonstrates that God delights in showing clemency, and gives God’s own son to save us and provides to us everything else we need for life abundant.
We need and get to engage ourselves in that story, each day, morning and night, so that sweet revenge is not the template for how we live. Rather God’s Grace, modelled in the life and ministry of Jesus, becomes and remains the template for our days and each decision we make in them: to share God’s Grace and forgiveness with all people.
Now those moments of Grace are wondrous moments, truly wondrous moments, for God blesses them and us in them. They are for what God created the universe and us in it.
Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you endure; they will all wear out like a garment. You change them like clothing, and they pass away; but you are the same, and your years have no end.
Hebrews 13:8
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever.
Words of Grace For Today
For many people alive today death is very close and has been most of their lives. They live constantly under threat of being ‘disappeared’, of being tortured and killed, of starving (too often intentionally by those with power to influence or determine such things), limited basic necessities of life (lack of clean air, clean water, nourishing food, adequate clothing, sufficient shelter, meaningful labour, and the ability to love and be loved), of dying of illness (inherited or acquired from the environment – sometime intentionally so by those who can do such things), or simply dying of despair.
For a large swath of the population on earth today these threats to life are removed enough that we can, with foolish efforts and often disastrous results, deny these threats apply to us, or at least most of them … and to assuage our consciences we delude ourselves into thinking that those who live under such threats deserve it. We develop habits and rituals to try to further push death from us. At funerals we do not say the person died, we say they passed, or went to sleep forever, or [fill in the many and various ways we push awareness of death aside with words and rituals.]
No matter what we do:
All humans live finite lives.
The mortality rate for humans remains always at 100%.
No one gets out of life alive.
Resurrection and incarnation and other life after death beliefs do not negate that all of this life ends with death!
Death is obviously something that humans push back against in order to live through the challenges of our days. It is … well it is to live foolishly or to pretend that one can be other than mortal, but it seems to make each day a little easier to live. It only seems. In fact if distorts life into something it is not. It distorts our thinking about ourselves as if we could be immortal in some way or another.
God alone is immortal. Jesus, the 2nd person of the Trinity is immortal. Even though he lived a mortal life, was tortured, crucified, and died, he then rose back to life, and lives eternally.
It is this difference that God is eternal, and we simply are not, that we try to deny when we deny death or cover it’s reality with pseudo phrases, or with practices of denying death’s inevitability for each and every single one of us, or simply with reckless living – whether that is bravado, addictions, or lies, deception and attempts to create a false (preferred reality) for ourselves. Trump was not able to proclaim the most obviously stupidities to be true simply because he wanted it to be so. He could do so only because millions upon millions of people did the same thing in their lives and wanted him to do so as their leader; they wanted and still want reality to not be what it is. This ‘reality illness’ does not end at the USA borders, nor did it just begin in this or the previous century. It merely became so painfully obvious that after the first year of Trump’s presidency even comedians could not parody it anymore. It was simply too far beyond belief, except that it was believed by millions.
There is nothing more dangerous than not perceiving reality as reality. One becomes mortally vulnerable to the simplest dangers. The present polar vortex cold, if not respected as real, can lead to frostbite in minutes for bare skin, and quickly to loss of digits and limbs and even life. Carnivorous predators, like cougars, wolves, and hyenas if not respected are not choosy about their next meal. Denying they are there in one’s environment makes one an easier meal than the next living piece of meat. Of course being cautious about hyenas when one lives in North American, or cougars if one lives in Africa leaves one vulnerable to other risks.
We worship often, using liturgy that imprints on our consciousness, with music that lifts our spirits, and hearing sermons that proclaim the Gospel of Grace (not works righteousness) so that we ‘remember’ more clearly in each decision we make every day what is what, and who is who, and what the future holds for us: God alone is eternal, we will die, Grace alone gives us life and compels us to share it with others. We remember clearly every future – since the beginning of time until the end of time itself – is in God’s hands.
Thank God, God is gracious, judges us not on what we sinners deserve, but enables us God-made-saints to live abundantly (which is to live giving life abundant to everyone possible – until all people have life abundant!)
It’s cold, very cold. Be cautious outside. Go out dressed to cover every piece of skin. Travel in vehicles only with shovels, tow ropes, and a booster battery … and good survival equipment including first aid kits.
It’s a mortal life we live, always mortal. Be bold everywhere. Go clothed in the Grace of God covering every sinful piece of our souls. Proceed through each day renewed in one’s own baptism, assured of one’s adoption as a child of God, with God’s Word always at hand and a good hymn ringing in one’s head. Ensure the tools of diakonia, the work of serving others’ needs, are in our backpacks or pockets. Always carry the warmth of the Holy Spirit’s guidance, the Light of Christ, and the healing power of our gracious Creator. Never forget to remain grateful for God’s gifts no matter the challenges that we encounter; remain calm and creative. Hard work is a blessing not to be avoided, and always the results are in God’s hands, so protect one’s faith in God from decay or destruction.
As we may help hundreds of people have enough food, shelter, and a helpful ear, a little candle lit each day to remind one of God’s Light in every darkness may be the most important part of our days.
Remember: we are saints, the people that reflect the Light of Christ to all people, in every dark corner of creation.
We remember: we are also simultaneously sinners, deserving damnation and receiving forgiveness and renewed life each day.
Every person, no matter how evil their sins, though they deserve condemnation, like us, can receive Grace through us, if we are creative and courageous enough.
Courage and humility. It’s cold, very cold with death only minutes away; AND
It’s the warmth of Christ’s Light that gives us breath.
In God I trust; I am not afraid. What can a mere mortal do to me?
2 Timothy 1:14
Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.
Words of Grace For Today
A great uncle of mine, Sven, arrived in the new land (at least so goes the legend), as many Swedish, German, Norwegian, Scottish, Ukrainian, and many others (from even more nations in later decades) also arrived in the new land to be given a quarter section to homestead. Arriving in early summer the first task was to make a temporary ‘home’. There were no RV’s, mobile homes, RTM’s or Atco Units. He felled a number of think pine trees with an axe and piled the pine boughs on an A-frame of pine poles to keep most of the rain out. The bugs could not be helped. He went hunting for meat. Then he cleared a small patch of land and planted a crop that might just produce potatoes, peas, beans and carrots before freeze up. He went hunting for meat. Then he dug out a hole and piled up the dirt around it as walls, covered it with pine poles at a sharp pitch, and wove pine boughs in four layers to hold out the rain and snow. He went hunting for meat. He put in the wood stove he had saved for, stacked up a great pile of firewood, and built a simple bed, chair and table. That would have to do to get him through the coming winter. He went hunting for meat. The bear skins from the bears he shot would be his blanket in the coldest of the coming cold nights.
Each night he gave God thanks for this opportunity to start a new life in a new land. Each morning he prayed for strength to work hard through the day, to prepare for the coming months. The -45⁰ nights that first winter nearly did him in. When thieves stole a tenth of his firewood that made him worry about the safety of everything and his survival. Still he gave God thanks, for he prayed with the Psalmist: In God I trust; I am not afraid. What can a mere mortal do to me?
Each year he cleared more land for the garden and for crops. In his third year, now with a simple log cabin and a shingled plank roof, his lovely wife, Brigitte, joined him from Sweden, children followed and he added each year to the cabin, a room, another room, a porch, an entrance with a better door.
When thieves struck again, raiding his garden and grain store and stealing half his wood, he was distressed. He prayed that night again in thanks, the next morning for strength. He knew he was tasked with guarding the good treasure entrusted to him, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in him. The treasure was not the firewood. It was not the crops. It was not even the land that supported his and Brigitte’s life together with their daughter and two sons. Sven and Brigitte prayed and in thanks and for strength, so that they would guard their faith, for that was the treasure that God had given them. With faith they could meet every challenge calmly and creatively, figuring out what to do each day to ensure their survival and more, that they would live well.
Covid 19 is not easy, comfortable, or predictable. Many of our habits for surviving are not possible. Other habits for surviving are required of us. Some are dictated, many others are left for us to figure out. God provides, and we, assured of the gift of faith, pray morning and night, with thanks and for strength to meet the challenges of each day.
We trust God to provide us the ability and opportunities to work diligently so that more and more people will have what is needed to live, and to live abundantly. It’s not predictable or comfortable or easy. Still we have everything we need to make each day better for everyone: it starts with faith and creativity. It concludes each day, as night enfolds us in the dark and bitter cold, with thanks.
How else can we live, but to follow the examples of our faithful ancestors following Jesus?
What is Your Dream wish for these polar-deep-freeze days
for it to be summer when a tent is sufficient for surviving a night camping?
Isaiah 65:1
I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask, to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, ‘Here I am, here I am’, to a nation that did not call on my name.
Luke 14:23
Then the master said to the slave, “Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled.”
Words of Grace For Today
There is a name … a name which can free any person from every ill and misfortune, from one’s own real guilt and shame, and from the power of Evil. This name some people seek, for they know the universe needs deliverance and us all with it.
Others, actually most of us, try to deceive ourselves into thinking that life is just fine, that we can get by as things are, that we can meet the challenges of life on our own.
Truth is we simply cannot, and history is full of examples of people trying and failing spectacularly. Most people’s stories remain untold, though they would provide the same spectacle. Truth is we need a miracle to save us.
In the deep polar cold of these days the miracle would be …
Well, what would it be for you?
For me it would be for the truth to be known of these past fifteen years, for my reputation to be restored, and for the real culprits who knowingly created false police reports, false charges and false convictions to be exposed; for good order to be restored.
It is a bit too much to hope for, yet still is not real true hope is for those things that are too much to hope for?
Forgiveness does not have a different hope, neither does scripture allow that God does either. God does not wish good order to be restored by eliminating people who perpetrate such evils. God, rather, wishes that those people be transformed from agents of the Devil to God-made-saints even as they simultaneously remain sinners each day.
This is the feast that people on the roads and in the lanes are compelled to come and enjoy. That’s quite the paradox: God must compel us to come to a feast that we will more fully enjoy than we can imagine. At God’s feast we receive not just food and drink for our bodies, nor just for our minds, nor just for our souls. We receive food and drink for all that and all that for our neighbours, including even our enemies; for God wishes for them to feast along with us at God’s table of Grace.
All through history, all through each of our lives, God calls to us: Here I am, here I am! God calls to us even when we have not listened, do not listen and may choose forever not to listen. God is faithful especially when we are not. That’s the feast of Grace God puts on each day for us and for all people.
In the cold, God does not merely want known the truth of these last fifteen years. God wants known by all people the truth of all the years since the beginning of time to the end of time: God created and holds the universe together, each string, wave and particle, and each life with Grace. God wants us all to know that is the miracle, also today in the deep-freeze of -40⁰C or F.
To all those from the past fifteen years, from all the years since forever and until forever, who have create lies, deception, injustice and chaos, God continues to call: if you do not share the blessings I poured over you this day, when will you?
Each evening time is one day shorter for each of us, then each morning we are blessed with a new day. Each day as it passes is again one day less for us and each day again is another new day to know God’s Grace and to respond to God’s calling our names: Here I am. Send me. Use me to bring true justice, Grace and real hope to all people.
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
Acts 9:3-5
Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ He asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The reply came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.’
Words of Grace For Today
My father served as the first civilian doctor to winter over at McMurdo when it ceased to be a military base. He tells of being asked if he’d like to hop a ride with one of the specialists out on a snowmobile. The wonders of light against the ice and snow, the distant mountains in one direction, the ocean in the other, and the shear size all came through in the email to us ‘kids’. And it was cold, real cold.
Living then on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia the winters were cold and impossible for travel if it dipped below freezing and snowed. There were few if any snow tires on the vehicles there, and lots of balding summer tires, so the cars slipped and slid, jamming up the hillside roads, and even the gentle slopes along the coastal water. I could only remember cold from my previous ‘lives’ in Minnesota and Alberta.
Before he hopped on the back of the snowmobile, my father suited up covering every stitch of skin with protective gear. He did not say they travelled fast. It would be hard enough on the machinery at a reasonable pace. It was just that at -75⁰ C everything is a huge bit different…. He missed one small piece between a glove layer and a jacket (if I remember that location correctly). He felt nothing besides the regular cold and returned with a severe frostbit patch of skin. He was fortunate not to loose a piece of flesh to the cold-burn.
Cold, so cold that it burns skin dead with freezing very quickly. We can hear of it, but until one feels the cold it is hard to imagine how powerful the cold really is.
A hard deep cold has hit the prairies extending across the central US as well. It was down to -34⁰ here last night and will get colder yet through the next two nights if forecasts are to be believed. Still a short walk outside is easy, a longer work session possible, even a long walk is doable with the warmest clothing. Cold so cold it freezes skin without any pain is a whole other level of cold.
Like the jogger who went out in shorts for his morning 3 mile run in a deep freeze and returned to have both legs amputated they were so damaged from the freezing.
Saul is enthusiastic and powerful with letters to pursue, detain and punish heretics, followers of the crucified Jesus of Nazareth. Then Jesus shows himself first hand to Saul. That transforms Saul’s life of persecuting followers of The Way, to one of Jesus’ most dedicated disciples, spreading the Good News around the east and north of the Mediterranean Sea, which proves to be the birthing of the Christian Church beyond Jerusalem, which sets the ground work for the Gospel of Jesus Christ to reach us even in this millennium.
Job loses everything, wife, children, wealth, and even his health. His friends bring him encouragement to confess his sins. The widespread belief is that if someone suffers at all it is a result of that person’s own sins. There may be no relief from the suffering, so the only thing to do is to confess and beg God for forgiveness.
This belief is alive and well today under many guises. It is a handy way to blame those who suffer for their suffering, to avoid one’s own responsibility for others’ sufferings, and to convince oneself that one is above such misfortune (because one does not sin like ‘that’ person has!)
Job knows he has not sinned in such a way as to have deserved the horrific loses and suffering he has faced. Job has heard all about God, believes in God, and prays to God (and yells in defiance at God)!
Then God appears face to face with Job!
That changes everything!
Job responds: now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
It’s deep freeze cold. We do not know cold though until we experience it in person.
It’s God’s creation. We can believe in God, and pretend we’ve earned our place before God. Then God appears in person to us and … we know how undeserving we are of God’s Grace and …
We know first hand how wondrous and life-changing God’s Grace is for us and …
We know God’s Grace is nothing if we do not share it with everyone, as freely and as graciously as God has shared it with us!
Then there is beauty in every piece of life, just as there is beauty in the cold of coldest deep freeze polar cold.
For you have delivered my soul from death, and my feet from falling, so that I may walk before God in the light of life.
Acts 12:7
Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him, saying, ‘Get up quickly.’ And the chains fell off his wrists.
Words of Grace For Today
If we think … or rather, when we think that we are not doomed, doomed to die for our sins … When we think that we are not doomed to die in chains for crimes we did not commit, as a result of other’s sins … When we think we can somehow escape from the terrible injustice that sin throughout the world causes, our sin and others’ sins …
… Then …
Then there is really no hope for us, not at all.
When we recognize, first, that we get what we deserve, total annihilation; and second, if that does not get us, then we get what others deserve but choose that we suffer for them which destroys us, just perhaps more slowly and unjustly … then we know that we NEED to be delivered … and only God can save us.
In either case when God rescues us from our sins and from others’ sins of destroying us, then …
Well … then it really is like an angel tapping us on the shoulder and telling us to get up, our chains fall free, and we can walk out into the world.
Then we can sing with the Psalmist: We praise you Lord God, Creator, Redeemer, Advocate for you have delivered our souls from death, and our feet from falling, so that we may walk before God in the light of life.
It is no small thing to walk in the light of life before God. First to walk … that is no small feat when one remembers how close we just were to death. Second to walk before God … for it is in submission that we bow, kneel, and remain still before such as God the creator of the universe. Only very few people have ever seen God’s face and not been annihilated, have survived to walk anywhere. So to walk before God, that is a wonder and great miracle. Third to walk before God in the light of life, for that is to live, and not just survive or get by or put in our time or endure … this is to live in God’s light of life! This is to live so abundantly that God’s light shines everywhere around us, into us, and through us to the world around.
We, who were so close to death, now live to the fullest extent possible for a human. This is an extraordinary blessing from God that we certainly cannot claim to deserve.
This gives us reason to hope again hope, no matter the challenges that face us and threaten to undo us, no matter how destructive Covid 19 is or any other virus or disease or violence or injustice or anything at all, at all … no matter what comes our way, we still trust God walks with us and in God’s time all justice and truth will prevail, all joy shall return to the earth and all it’s inhabitants, and blessings will flow freely through us to all people. That will be the Day of the Lord, and for this day we patiently wait, providing to all we can everything we can so that God’s blessings may flow through us saints already in these days.
