Daylight – Page 7

Do You Realize, Angels Take Us …

Saturday, March 26, 2022

What Gift of the Angels

Have You to Notice Today?

Be Awestruck!

Genesis 24:7

The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my birth, and who spoke to me and swore to me, “To your offspring I will give this land”, he will send his angel before you; you shall take a wife for my son from there.

Acts 12:8-9

The angel said to him, ‘Fasten your belt and put on your sandals.’ He did so. Then he said to him, ‘Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.’ Peter went out and followed him; he did not realize that what was happening with the angel’s help was real; he thought he was seeing a vision.

Words of Grace For Today

To be uprooted up from one’s homeland, sent far into the unknown world sparsely populated by people though plentiful with wild animals, some wondrous and docile to human, others deadly ferocious (ever faced down a hyena or a wild boar?), and to be told one must find one’s spouse among the foreigners of that land, and settle there and make a new homeland for one’s offspring, for God has given this new land to them …

To be freed from one’s chains, guided past two prison guards, and taken out into freedom through a miraculously opened metal gate, all while one is barely awake and can only apprehend these events as if they were a dream, a vision of what is righteous …

To be stripped of one’s wealth and set deep in debt by false accusations, false reports, and unjust judges, and left to live homeless either in the city or in the wilds – and then to be guided by angels to find a meadow beside a small lake in the bush, to be loaned the tools and resources needed to establish a camp of a kind, and to build one’s safety from cold, heat, bugs, and thieves (and Covid it turns out, as well) with just enough to survive when one’s resources are less than $100/month …

One is given in these circumstances clear opportunity to recognize God’s angels at work. One finds it not difficult to follow whether that is an angel that guides one to find a spouse among foreign people in one’s new promised land, or an angel that guides one to freedom and life, or to precious solitude in the bush, or in many other circumstances as well, where one needs an angel in order to stay alive.

To live a life without hunger, lack of shelter or transportation, and always with clean water and air, and plenty of meaningful labour and people to love and be loved by …

Well that is to be given the greatest challenge, for one has little reason to notice God’s angels for one seems to ‘take care of one’s self’.

There is no limit of evil perpetrated against people by people. There is no limit to the work of the angels to guide all people to follow Christ. There is only our chosen inability to notice angels’ work in our midst.

Were we to notice more often, we would be awestruck day in and day out, and it would leave us little room or time in our lives for greed, avarice, and all other sorts of ‘luxury sins’. We would be astounded into giving God praise and thanks. We would find ourselves surrendering our lives to be workers along with the angels, bringing God’s generosity, Grace, love and hope to as many people as we possible could in our short life-times.

Take a peek.

See the angels at work.

Be awestruck this day and start to pitch in.

There’s a wondrous life to be lived where the angels have brought you thus far.

Where Angels Lead Us,

Is Sometimes a Frozen Wasteland.

Be Awestruck!

Hello, This Is 911. What’s Your Eme….

Friday, March 25, 2022

We are more different than sticks in a pile of wood,

No Matter What we look like, inside or out,

God promises to respond to each of us with generosity.

Psalm 91:15

When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honour them.

Romans 10:12

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him.

Words of Grace For Today

The number of not connected or dropped 911 calls increased dramatically during Covid restrictions, as people faced emergencies like never before, both in the kind of emergencies and in the quantity. For so many people who have come to count on help being just a phone call aways, dialling 911 and not getting any help (on top of the emergency their were facing) at all must have felt like their world was coming apart at the seams.

911 does connect us to a whole raft of services designed to help us given a whole raft of kinds of emergencies, at the best of the worst of times (could we put it that way?)

Heart Attack, Stroke, or Seizure? Call 911.

Fire? Call 911

Robbery in progress, vehicle accident, or burned supper? Call 911 (oopps, maybe call takeout for to deal with the burned supper – if you have the money!)

Cat stuck in the tree? …

You get the idea? Probably.

And normally someone answers, the call is recorded and transferred to the appropriate service (police, fire, or ambulance), who answers and dispatches someone to help you survive your emergency until life returns to ‘normal’, whatever that really is.

But when no one answers your call?

Lots of people through life have no 911 or 999 to call. No Police they trust to help. No fire department. No ambulance service. And if they have to pay for these services, there simply is no reason to make the call.

Whether we are used to a 911/999 service or not, for the real terrible emergencies in life we need to deal with it some other way. Some people think they are tough or that God does not exist and will try to muddle through on their own.

The large majority of humans through history, especially in emergencies, have called on God.

What if God simply were to break down like the 911 service during Covid? What would that be like? Even for the most faithful, when we call on God, God seldom answers in the expected manner.

God surprises us again and again with God’s power … power of self-sacrificial love and Graces, instead of tromping on the normality of the universe that God created and said it was good, thank you very much!

That’s why we need to hear again and again, each day is not too often, how God always hears and responds to those who call on God’s name for help. We need to hear that when the real shtako hits the fan God is there with us, God honours us, and God saves us. It simply is not the case that God only hears and responds to some people, to those with this language or this piety, or with this outlook on life. God hears and responds to all kinds of humans. God responds with generosity.

That’s a promise.

That’s a promise that is more sure than anything else in all creation, for God makes it to us, each of us, and to all of us.

That’s a promise that will fill the empty void in each and any life.

That’s a promise that we need to hear again and again.

Our Rock and Salvation!

Wednesday, March 23, 2022

The World Is Full of Challenges,

Doch

None Can Conquer Us,

for Jesus has Conquered the World.

2 Samuel 22:2

The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer.

John 16:33

I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!

Words of Grace For Today

To whom do we look for security, for deliverance, for help in our distress?

If you, the reader think that you will not be persecuted, then either you are one who has chosen to be one of the persecutors, or you are simply blind, deliriously blind, to the reality of what others are doing to you.

All of the rest of us surely know we are persecuted, for our days are made more and more difficult by what others do to us, trying to ‘step on us’ to get ahead.

Ahh, what all the world does to us! It is best not to recount all the evil done to us. It is simply too depressing, unless …

We need not let ourselves sink into this dark reality, as if we were all alone in our misery (along with all the other people oppressed and stomped on into misery). For we know The Lord is our rock, our fortress, and our deliverer.

Even more so, though the people in this world may persecute us endlessly, we know that Jesus has conquered the world. In Jesus we have peace, peace in the face of everything evil that each day and all sinful people would ‘throw’ at us.

So we take courage. Unfaltering courage for each day, based on God’s protection and Grace for us.

Thus our recounting all the evil we experience is only a small part of the complete story of how God gives us life each day. For we know The Lord is our rock, our fortress, and our deliverer.

‘Reframability’ & Possibility

Monday, March 21, 2022

Shadows Point to The Light

Each Morning, Noon, and Night

Psalm 143:8

Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning, for in you I put my trust. Teach me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.

1 Timothy 6:6-7

Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it.

Words of Grace For Today

While many strive to gain comforts, privileges, and securities (of many kinds, all futile), we seek the only gain that is sure: that God provides us love and faith (by Grace, ie as free gifts) and contentment in our lives, for while we come into life with nothing and we can take nothing with us, we do leave behind our own story.

What will that story be?

Will others gain faith from our stories? Or will they only learn to chase after what cannot offer them life?

It is not insignificant what story others have from us (as opposed to the stories that are untrue that many tell about us – those untrue stories work against the liars who create them and tell and retell them). It is not insignificant what story others have from us because each day, we humans are privileged to be able to ‘reframe’ our new day with how we think about life past, present and future.

That is: we are not written in stone from one day to the next. Some take this as opportunity to lie about their past and to scheme to ‘improve’ their future with more lies. Oh, what a waste that brings misery and despair to so many people, those liars and so many impacted by their lies.

God provides this opportunity to us each day (actually every minute), so that we can repent, that is so that we can turn our lives around, reframe them according to God’s Grace, Love and Hope for us (demonstrated in Jesus’ story), and proceed to be more of who God created us to be!

So we pray with the Psalmist: Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning, for in you I put my trust. Teach me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.

It is not that we have never heard of God’s steadfast love, or that we do not know God’s way for us, or that our lives are in ruin and need to be rescued from the hand of the Devil, the Great Deceiver (though too often that is the case). It is simply that since we get to reframe our lives, we also must reframe our lives. If we do not turn to God to receive the Word that will reframe our lives according to God’s steadfast love for us, the Devil will certainly provide all sorts of words, lies always, that will draw us in, slowly turn us away from God, and consume us, until we are nothing like the creatures of steadfast love that God created us to be.

So what do we want to be today?

What word will reframe your day, this morning?

May God save us from the Deceiver’s tempting words that suck us in to the downward spiral away from life itself.

May God provide wondrous words to communicate God’s steadfast love, grace, and hope for us.

In a Word, we pray (it is not too much to ask, and it is everything so we beg):

May we see Jesus each morning!

Where, Oh Where … !?!

Friday, March 18, 2022

Where Is God?

Down This Path?

On This Mountain?

Beside This Lake?

In The Crowded Cities?

God Save Us, Now!

Psalm 10:1

Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

Mark 4:38

But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’

Words of Grace For Today

I flew out in the fall to a remote fire tower to make a pastoral visit to the crew there. There was no way to announce my visit. I just took off, navigated by dead reckoning, and landed at the small grass clearing that served as a air strip. I’d circled over the tower and taken in the paths through the bush that wound the kilometre or so between it and the air strip. Airplane secured, I set off and …

hours later I was deep in the bush with no way of finding the tower in time to spend even a minute with the crew and still find my way back to the air strip before dark, and before dark I needed, most desperately needed to be in the air. There was no way a take off in the dark in an unknown airstrip was something I was even considering as doable. And anything not doable was certainly not ‘well, let’s see if it’s possible!’ So I oriented myself by the sun low in the sky back towards the plane.

As I came to a junction of paths in the bush, both directions on the new path hidden from view until I stepped into the junction, I got the scare of my life, or one of many.

There, not more than six feet to my right (the direction I needed to turn) was a calf and her mama, a cow moose. The calf was half size and still looked down at me. I froze. Moose have a pea size brain, and they survive only because they are bigger, tougher, and faster than most any predator.

Encounters with humans are so dangerous because, being so … well stupid … they are totally unpredictable and usually they charge, especially when their young are threatened! The results are usually -10 for the human and no effect on the moose.

Where was God!? How could this be happening to me? Why was this happening?

Always the photographer I reached for my camera hung on my shoulder, slapping my backpack with every step until I froze in my tracks. Why not document this so that if I did not make it someone would know how I came to my demise (or at least the last few seconds?) If I’d had a rifle, that would have been a smarter option, but useless as well, given the moose’s speed.

Before my hand was on the camera, mama and calf were well on their way across my path and down the to the left.

I breathed, settling the adrenaline rush to tolerable, and marched on. By the time I reached the plane all that adrenaline was gone. The take off was in the shadows, the sun just below the horizon, and my way home full of wonder.

God sometimes does save us from our own stupidity, from terrible circumstances, and from sure death. Other times we join the Psalmist’ and the disciples’ desperate plea: God where are you!? Do you not care what happens to us?!?

…

Only with time, and sometimes not even then, do we gain the insight to see and know … and trust that God walks with us, and suffers with us everything we suffer, and provides life abundant in every hour with every breath we breathe on this gift of creation God has brought us to live in.

So we pray, with full trust (or maybe barely any trust) that God hears us, for ourselves and for all other people faced with disaster, illness, and death this day, this week, this year: God be not stern with us, but gently save us and help us live each minute you gift us.

Recklessly Love God!

Friday, February 11, 2022

Boldly Catching the Curve

Following God’s Inspiration

and Blessings

Joshua 23:11

Be very careful, therefore, to love the Lord your God.

John 14:23

Jesus answered him, ‘Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.’

Words of Grace For Today

I am not at all sure that being careful is part of loving the Lord our God.

My experience and reading tells me that loving the Lord our God requires a foolish, even reckless, boldness, fuelled by a wonderful faith (given as free gift by God to us).

There is simply no way to get through life without sinning, though one can do one’s best not to hurt others, and to do one’s best to let God inspire and lead one to be a blessing for others.

God’s promise is that we are not alone. Even in Covid isolation and staying smart about it, we do not live alone. God walks right with us and ‘makes God’s home with us!’

Being careful?

Rather be bold, being all that God created and inspires you to be!

Sliding Off Into the Devil’s Doo-doo.

Monday, January 31, 2022

On the Bright side:

There’s no grass to mow

mosquitoes to suffer

or wasps to interrupt one’s being outside.

No Matter the Season

The Devil’s always got enough doo-doo waiting.

Jeremiah 3:22

Return, O faithless children, I will heal your faithlessness. ‘Here we come to you; for you are the Lord our God.

1 Peter 2:25

For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.

Words of Grace For Today

The first kilometre out is a drive through the woods, which never gets plowed.

The tracks have, with the heavy snowfall onto which another foot is falling now, driven on many times over, have been packed down, while the snow across the rest of the trail remains relatively soft snow. Where the loose snow to be removed it would become obvious that the tracks are elevated above the rest of the trail … and when the temperatures rose to near and above freezing the tracks of hard packed snow turned to slippery snow or ice … and driving on the tracks became nearly impossible. The vehicle keeps slipping off into the foot to two feet deep snow that’s not been shovelled away, and beside the trail the snow has accumulated to 3 feet deep in places.

High on the tracks all is fine, but slipping down into the soft snow puts progress to a sudden halt.

Sheep go astray. Vehicles slide off the tracks. People slip on the Devil’s temptations into trouble, deep trouble, and life comes to a grinding halt … or not. Sometimes deep in the Devil’s temptations and trouble we keep living on blithely to the damage we do to ourselves and others around us, pleased as we are that even if we are caught in the Devil’s doo-doo, others are worse off than us (because we’ve put them there!)

God promises, I will heal your faithlessness.

God brings us back to the Good Shepherd and the guardian of our souls.

Thanks be to God.

Now what are we going to do with this renewed life? More wallowing in the Devil’s doo-doo, or work as the God-made saints God equips us to be?

It’s not easy doing God’s Will. It’s also not easy shovelling out a kilometre of tracks built up into hard packed snow ridges, crusty snow between and deep fluffy snow to each side. I trust that God will help immensely. It will take me about 2 months before I could possibly complete the task and by then God will have sent a bit of spring to melt away the snow … and the water will turn the tracks to mush. A whole other challenge made worse by the packed snow left on the trail.

It’s not easy doing what is right, but it is still right to do it. So off I go with a shovel as often and as long as my body will allow.

What are you going to do today with the life God renewed in you?

I will heal ….

Sunday, January 30, 2022

It is Enough

To Be Loved

By Jesus

And Know It As Sure As the Setting of the Sun.

Hosea 14:4

I will heal their disloyalty; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them.

Mark 8:36

For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?

Words of Grace For Today

Jesus Loves You!

Jesus heals our disloyalty, loves us freely, and …

While we work to make our ways forward in life, to make a little (or a lot of) profit for ourselves, Jesus makes sure that we do not forfeit our lives.

there is more to it than it seems:

Jesus loves you!

And there is nothing more important in life than to be assured that Jesus loves us.

God’s Temple

Saturday, January 29, 2022

As Wonders Abound,

None Are More Wondrous

Than the Holy Temple,

The Holy Vessels

God Made Us To Be.

Ezekiel 37:23

They shall never again defile themselves with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. I will save them from all the apostasies into which they have fallen, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

1 Corinthians 3:16

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?

Words of Grace For Today

There are innumerable examples of how we have perverted life into something that is a zero-sum game, and we’ve taken it for all we can, mostly from others, as if that were our right. Some have perverted the image they have of themselves into an image of a godlet, and excluded God from their lives (as if that were possible anyway.) Others have turned themselves to pursue [fill in any thing, or pleasure, or position, or wealth, or … ] as if attaining enough of it would fill their lives, and all sorts of perverse things happen to them and the people around them because of their pursuits.

God simply created us with freewill, and we make a mess of it, a terrible mess of it, we certainly do, we do.

God does not leave us there, in the damnable places and conditions we create for ourselves. God comes, as demonstrated in Jesus’ story, to cleanse us, and to restore us as God’s people … so that we once again can be people who fear and love God above all else. We see again that God is with us always, that God has poured God’s Spirit into us, made us vessels that hold the holy of holies, so that we can be and do God’s generous, unconditional, love and grace for all people.

You, and I, and each person, are/am/is a holy temple; and our treatment of ourselves and of others as holy is properly warranted.

God don’t make no junk.

God just makes all things blessed, and us, God made holy.

Get used to it.

Be it, with gratitude.

Lost?

Friday, January 28, 2022

Caught In The Weeds Of Life

By What Do We Orient Ourselves?

Psalm 62:6

He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken.

Matthew 11:15

Let anyone with ears listen!

Words of Grace For Today

There are many things that we count on to keep ourselves oriented in life as we progress through each day, day after day. We might be tempted to compare our journey each day to a hiker on a trail to a mountain top where the view extends in all directions over the ice covered peaks of a magnificent mountain range. One goal, one path, and we trod on, climb on, take breaks to drink and to eat maybe even to sleep a night or two … always onward to that one goal and that one glorious view. That hiker orients their progress on a map, by GPS or compass, by landmarks, by the moss on the tree trunks, and then above the treeline by the sun or by the moon and the stars. Maybe a better comparison, we might think, would be to an adventurer on a trek to the north pole across the deteriorating ice, looking for so many work-arounds and water crossings, not being able to rely on a compass (and not having GPS to make that a non-issue).

Life is so much more complicated than a single path towards a single destination and a glorious view, so the comparison doesn’t help much to consider how we orient ourselves amidst each day’s challenges, complications, set backs, victories and rewards, and … and all the distractions or … or are the distractions not all distractions? Are not some of them the real gist of life?

How do we orient ourselves? By some distant goal or achievement? By some earned fame or landmark of wealth or accumulation of power? By some undocumentable attitude? By the love we receive from family, from children and grandchildren?

God created us for this journey, though it certainly is not on one path, not even one path for each of us 7 some billion on earth today. It certainly is not towards one goal either.

Describing life in it’s full colour, assailed by challenges and enemies, the Psalmist knows well the pains, sufferings, triumphs, losses, rewards, and joys of life … and with the imagery of being under attack assures us that God alone is our rock and our salvation, our fortress; We shall not be shaken.

The paths we take this day will be like many before, and perhaps like none we’ve seen. We can hope for a summit with a view to life all around us, but we are as likely going to be caught in the Devil’s deceptive net that shows us the world, and yet shows us nothing of reality at all, not at all.

God’s Word is spoken, sent out, brings unconditional love, renewed life, and a mission to be and share God’s Word, Grace, Love, and Hope with all people. We were all made with ears that can hear God’s Word. As we journey onward on our mission, Let anyone with ears listen! For in the Word of God we have all the orientation to the goodness and purpose of life that is possible.