God-Talk – Page 7

Out of Bounds?! Brought Home, Again!

Friday, April 8, 2022

Go This Far

Not Past The Treeline!

Or Do You Live Outside the Boundaries?

2 Samuel 12:13

David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’

Nathan said to David, ‘Now the Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die.’

Colossians 2:13

When you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses.

Words of Grace For Today

Going out of bounds.

Growing up in Tanzania before the land was so densely populated so that our backyard went on for miles and miles of bush once we crossed the dry creek bed (which flowed strong and dangerously in the wet season) and on two different farms in ‘northern’ Minnesota both of which were surrounded by open land for miles, and in the Twin Cities where our back yard bordered on an old farm yard surrounded by acres and acres of undeveloped land which continued across the road into a huge impenetrable swamp, when we played we had free reign for miles. In each place there were boundaries as to how far we would venture, sometimes how far we were allowed to venture, sometimes how far we had agreed with each other to venture when we played. There had to be boundaries so that the games we played would work.

We did venture outside the boundaries, of course. We were after all children.

We did venture outside the invisible boundaries, like the time my older brothers killed a bird, started a fire, roasted it, and we each had a small bite. So exciting, in part because killing was ‘out of bounds’, starting a fire was ‘out of bounds’, and eating a wild bird was ‘out of bounds’. Thinking about it today the fire was reasonably dangerous, but eating a wild bird was ridiculously dangerous. Today, with all the ‘new’ diseases around it would be even more so.

Then there was the time that I just absently minded, not yet 5 years old, ventured beyond where my three older brothers were playing in that dry creek bed behind our house in Kiomboi. I was making what-I-cannot-remember in the sand and gravel. Darkness approached. My brothers probably yelled for me to come with them. They took off for the safety of the house. I continued to play, unawares of what was falling fast all around me. It was a short hike back home. Twilight lasted a mere 24 minutes at best. Once it was into dusk …

At night in the dark, as we were tucked into bed, each in our own bed, four beds, four older boys, in one large room with windows on one long side and one shorter side of the oblong room, the shrill piercing vicious cries and growls, the gaping mouths filled with big teeth, the yellow eyes and long noses of the hyenas more than often enough would jar us back awake and keep us awake for hours. Not that the hyenas wasted that much time at the windows, but our hearts would make up all sorts of terrible scenarios of them breaking in through the glass and/or the screens if the windows were open to cool the room for the ‘quiet’ of the night.

There I was, out of bounds playing in the sand and gravel of the creek bed, darkness falling fast as I was unawares. And then it fell. I jumped up in terror-alarm, and sped as fast as my panic fuelled short legs would carry me along the path between the bushes. The growls began behind me, the shrill cries pierced my little mind and my legs just would not pump any faster.

When I reached the closest door, the door to the kitchen, I grabbed it with what strength I had and …

…

Susanne, our house helper, pulled me in, closed the door behind me, and soothed my fears, before she stepped out the door for her walk home.

I was safe, and that welcome from Susanne told my little heart and mind that, though I had strayed outside the boundaries of safety, I was welcomed home, even if that welcome cost her her own safety as she made the trek to her own home of safety somewhere out there past the dark boundaries for us little boys, though well within her boundaries.

David steps many times outside the boundaries God has set for the ruler-warrior of the Israelite nation from its infancy to its heyday. The time he must pay with his life is when he has not only taken Bathsheba for his own, but he has ensured that her husband, his good general on the battlefield, will not return. David arranges for ‘friendly fire’ to kill Uriah, so that he can keep her, and cover up that she is pregnant with his child.

Nathan steps up to give David a lesson, a lesson that proud, powerful David needs, in order that David can confess once again how far out of bounds David has ventured, this time worse than many other times. The punishment must be David’s own life in exchange for Uriah’s.

Like Susanne at the kitchen door, once David has confessed his terrible sin, Nathan pronounces God’s forgiveness and welcoming of David, back ‘into bounds’, back into the safety of living in God’s house, in God’s creation, within God’s boundaries, boundaries that keep us safe from ourselves and from the evil ‘hyenas’ out there ready to tear us apart without hesitation.

So it is as always that God’s unconditional and steadfast love restores us to life. We can trust that even when we stray ‘out of bounds’, as we confess God promises us that we shall not die. Indeed God makes us alive together with Christ, forgiving us all our trespasses.

Stay safe today, and always. Know that even when we stray, God welcomes us home to safety with open arms, and the honest love of friends like Nathan, and soothing comfort of people like Suzanne.

Images of Blessings and Dangers to Life Itself

Thursday, April 7, 2022

Spring Snow Falls Heavy on Rust Leaves That Forgot To Let Go Last Fall

Are We Also Out of Sync with Creation

Has God Blessed Us Beyond All Imagination or Image of Blessing?

Genesis 49:22-26

‘Joseph is a fruitful bough,

a fruitful bough by a spring;

his branches run over the wall.

The archers fiercely attacked him;
they shot at him and pressed him hard.

Yet his bow remained taut,
and his arms were made agile

by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob,
by the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel,

by the God of your father, who will help you,
by the Almighty who will bless you
with blessings of heaven above,

blessings of the deep that lies beneath,
blessings of the breasts and of the womb.

The blessings of your father
are stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains,

the bounties of the everlasting hills;
may they be on the head of Joseph,
on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers.

by the God of your father, who will help you, by the Almighty who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb.

1 John 3:18-20

Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

Words of Grace For Today

Images of God’s blessings reflect the world of the writer.

These passages from Genesis use the image of the bow held taut, arrows shot at one by one’s enemies who press hard against one (seeking one’s death), in counterpoint to God’s blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb, blessings that are stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains, the bounties of the everlasting hills.

The bow and arrow are no longer common in the arsenal used to kill us by our enemies. Mighty warships with great guns, fighter jets with smart missiles, drones for surveillance and armed with missiles and guns, automatic rifles, RPGs, tanks and artillery, fighter helicopters, nuclear submarines, silent submarines, radar, sonar, anti tank missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, and propaganda. Closer to home the weapons are hunting rifles, shotguns, poisons, deadly-wrongly-provided health care, webs of lies and deceptions, and corrupt police, lawyers, prosecutors and judges.

The deadliest, the least detected or spoken of, are always the psychological assaults, most destructively spun by one’s who have pursued, won, and spoken of love, though love is so far from their capability. Their self-interests are everything to them, and the lies told never end until one is dead and gone and hopefully forgotten … for if and when the truth is known the false-love persons are most detested and shamed … for they attack under the guise of what all know (even if they pretend not to accept): namely that love is the one precious piece of life that God gives us so that we can overcome all other challenges to life, and with love press on to live honest, honourable, and holy lives.

So we say with the writer of 1 John: Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

In love we see God’s attitude toward us and all creation, and by love we are emboldened to live and live abundantly, blessed with all blessings ever imagined, including God’s blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb, blessings that are stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains, the bounties of the everlasting hills.

Covid Costs! Listening to Whom?

Monday, April 4, 2022

What Do We See?

What Do We Hear?

Whose Voice Do We Follow?

Psalm 23:2-3

He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.

John 10:27-28

My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.

Words of Grace For Today

Covid has exacted a huge cost on us. Not to mention the cost to global, national, and local economies. Not to mention the many people Covid has killed in one of the most excruciatingly painful ways. Not to mention many of those who survive serious Covid symptoms continue seemingly without end for years long-covid: fatigue, pains, circulation and nerve malfunctions, organ malfunction, brain fog, and depression. So much depression.

The greatest number of people suffer even though they have not had Covid, or the symptoms were so mild they barely noticed more than as if they had a light bout of the flu or a bad cold. The suffering is part and parcel, we are told, of living through a pandemic.

Mark Gollom described it this way:

“pandemic fatigue”
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney recently said that, despite the rapid spread of the Omicron variant across the country, Canadians may be at their “outer limits” of what further public-health restrictions they’re willing to accept.
While many people are “burnt out” on COVID and COVID-related news, many [say]
‘We’re sick of it. We hate it, but we’ve got to do it anyway.’
However, the researchers also discovered that pandemic fatigue affects “a substantial minority of people” who tended to have “greater levels of emotional burnout, pessimism, apathy, and cynical or negative beliefs” about the pandemic.
“In other words, pandemic fatigue was associated with heightened self-interest to the expense of community needs,”
That has led to a form of “systematic desensitization…. it’s as if we had built up antibodies against fear.”

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/pandemic-fatigue-omicron-covid-19-1.6290026 Dec 18, 2021

There are many, many more things going on with all of us, not all of us equally, and some of us to the point that we are nearly totally debilitated, unable to live anything like normal, even taking into account that we may be isolated physically from others.

The words that describe what we suffer go on and on like this: languishing, languor, lethargy, apathy, listlessness, supine (laying on one’s back), supineness, anxiety, fearlessness, angst, dread, disquiet, foolhardy, imprudent, reckless, irresponsible, depression, desolation, despondency, gloominess, dispirited, bleakness, Weltschmerz ….

Or as University of Calgary classics professor Peter Toohey put it in an interview with CBC’s Chattopadhyay: We’re experiencing the ancient state of “acedia”

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1800018499786 1 year ago

There are so many voices blaring all over the place, whispering in corners, projecting over crowds and chat rooms, telling us what to think, what to do, who to blame, how to ‘return to normal’, how to be done with Covid, how to cope with Covid, how to live with Covid, for while we may be done with Covid, Covid certainly is not done with us!

Which voices will we listen to?

Like never before, like always before for every person in every generation how we see the world greatly determines what we see, how we feel (the emotional response that takes in all our perceptions, mixes them up with our convolutions from our past experiences), which in turn forms our ‘take’ on the world happenings, which in large part determines how we respond.

So how do we start each day?

Do we enter the new day with angst, panic, depression, apathy, detachment and fear?

Do we listen to the voice that we know, the voice of the One who knows us completely, who created us and loves us and forgives us and renews us.

The One who makes us lie down in green pastures; who leads us beside still waters; who restores our souls. Who leads us in right paths for God’s name’s sake.

Whatever else we know about this day, first and foremost we know that No one will snatch us out of Jesus’ hand.

With that assurance, we are ready come what may.

Roundabouts

Saturday, April 2, 2022

God Works in the Most Roundabout Ways to Bring Us New Life

Like Traffic Circles Now Called Roundabouts,

Moving Traffic Through Intersections Most Efficiently

Saving Fuel and Carbon Footprints

Exodus 13:18

So God led the people by the roundabout way of the wilderness towards the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of the land of Egypt prepared for battle.

Romans 8:28

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

Words of Grace For Today

Silvia lay, unable and unwilling to move for fear of what might happen next. Maybe everything would disappear and she’d find herself waking up in her own bed as the sun rose casting rays of warmth across her bed … and she’d still be unable to move … or would she, hope against hope, be able to get up out of bed and stand on her own two feet. The news was expected, feared, and finally hoped for. Even the worst news would be the best news. It’d be her last possible escape from the pain and spiralling descent into despair her life had become.

Silvia had heard that God works in roundabout ways, almost always. That our challenge is to trust that God works for our good as those God has called to love God and all God’s people and all of creation. She had heard that so long ago in a different lifetime, but she had not been able to believe it, back when the world made sense. Back then she’d worked to help refugees settle in safety in her neighbourhood and across her city, and prayed every opportunity she could for them and for the many refugees who never found their way to safety, and for the millions who never escaped the violence that ruined their neighbourhoods and cities. She knew that some people ruined life for so many other. She figured she had to undo their destruction, at least the little bit she could. It was all up to her and people like her. God may well save people, but she could never figure out how one could believe that. That was back then.

For almost a decade now she had given her body every chance to survive it’s own battle with itself. Cancer had seemed someone else’s concern … before that day back then, so vividly burned in her memory: a call from the nurse asking her to come see her doctor that day. Could she make it in an hour. He would be free for a few minutes. …

And then the news:

‘youhavestage4melanomaradiationshouldstartthisafternoonfollowedbychemotherapy.’ It was all a blur from then on, the IV’s, the nausea and pain, the fatigue and insomnia, the loss of hair, skiing, tennis, hiking and even walks in the parks, and the puking her guts out, the weight loss until she was a thin pencilled in skeleton on a two dimensional bed sheet. There were breaks in those ten years. Breaks from the chemo and from the despair and from the puking. There was even a temporary bit of weight gain. But there were also bone breaks, and spirit breaks, as the cancer showed up in her bones, more chemo and radiation and then it showed up in her muscles, and then in her stomach, then in her everything.

‘In everything’ was just 3 months ago. The doctors, for there were three of them that time sitting next to her wheelchair, … the doctors said radiation and chemo were out of the question. She was not strong enough and the cancer was growing too fast to wait again for her to rebound enough from the last treatment regimes. But …

But there was an experimental treatment in the first stages of human trials, and since she was terminal with less than a few months to live she would probably qualify. It involved DNA manipulation and nanobots and … That’s all Silvia heard before she passed out. She woke hooked up to what looked like an octopus coming out of a dialysis machine with tubes running in and out of each of her legs and both sides of her neck pumping blood in and out of her. More tubes ran in and out of her stomach, her nose, and other places she could not see or feel anymore. She blinked, the nurse noticed, the doctor came and she was put back under.

When they were done with her she was carted off home to recover. Safer than being in the hospital. A nurse watched her round the clock. A week later they did the same thing all over again. She felt weak. But at least it was not like radiation. Her hair continued to grow back. There was a quarter inch on her head now. And it was not like chemo. She could sleep, eat, and her strength continued to return. She remember that first Wednesday waking up and the sun warmed her face and she did not need to puke. It was by comparison heaven!

Each week it was the same. Her Mondays disappeared in the hospital and Wednesdays she woke up at home. Three months she had not seen a Tuesday. The snow was surely melted and the trees would be budding. But she could not stand and walk. Not that she did not have the strength, but the protocol was she had to remain sedate, quiet, relaxed at all times, or they would sedate her to ensure she stayed still … but the less medications the better for the experiment. This week, after her ‘dialysis disappearing Monday’ wrapped up they’d carted her up to a hospital room and, while she was still unconscious all day long on Tuesday they did thorough blood tests, biopsies and imaging.

Now Wednesday afternoon, the doctor called and asked her to come in. It really wasn’t up to her. The nurse had all the work of prepping her for and loading her on to the stretcher and into the ‘ambulance’ (actually an empty van with anchors for her special stretcher was all it was) for the ride to the hospital.

She remembered that first call by the doctor to come to the office as soon as possible. Could she make it in an hour!

And then the shock of the deadly news.

The doctor said this time, ‘There is no sign of cancer anywhere. The treatment seems to be working. Even better: some of the damage to your heart, liver and kidneys seems to be repairing itself! We want you to start physio with the nurse at home. Come in each week for continued treatments, though you will not be unconscious. Let’s see if we can get you walking this week, and jogging a bit again before the end of the month. You should be able to ski again next winter.’

After the shock subsided, Silvia prayed with thanks, something she’d not been able to do for years. Before this shocking news holiness was all that had remained for her. She had hoped to die, to be done with the suffering, and to walk with Jesus into her eternal home. Now she could hope that she would walk, jog, and ski again. She understood how roundabout God could work, how roundabout God had worked in her life. She wondered what God had in mind for her next. Whatever it was, she prayed she’d be up for it.

Broken and Contrite Hearts

Friday, April 1, 2022

God Starts With Contrite and Broken Hearts

And Teaches Us to See

Wonders upon Wonders.

Psalm 51:17

The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

1 John 1:3

We declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

Words of Grace For Today

It is a difficult row to hoe.

Offering God one’s broken spirit, one’s broken and contrite heart is an extremely difficult row to hoe.

After 12 years serving in the navy Lt.-Cmdr. Nicole Dugas has resigned. Lt.-Cmdr. Jennifer McGean has resigned in support of her friend. CBC reports: Cmdr. Ian Bye, sexually harassed her and abused his position of power as a senior officer in charge of base administration. He was charged with making a sexual comment in the mess on Oct. 22, 2020, given a written warning and fined $1,500. The navy released Bye in July 2021 as “unsuitable for further service” following an administrative review, according to a letter sent to Dugas. Three other senior, male officers involved in the handling of Dugas’s misconduct case were not held accountable, Dugas and McGean claim.

No one is surprised.

The military has long been an institution based on abuse. We not only expect it, we condone it and demand it. Basic training is designed to break the spirit of a young soldier to be, so that under fire in the field (and in all other aspects of military life) the young person will obey orders without hesitation and without questioning them. That has changed sort of maybe: soldiers are not to follow illegal orders, but then we expect them to anyway. We demand this, so that our soldiers can fight when told to, supposedly to protect our freedoms.

Anyone with a head on their shoulder knows, though, that soldiers are ordered to fight most often in order to guarantee the continued wealth and power and privilege of very few. Today that most often means huge corporations that are larger than most countries.

Since we know the military very rarely is put into action to protect our freedoms …

Since we know basic training is designed to break the spirit of soldiers so they will do the unthinkable for really bad reasons …

Since we know that the commanders of soldiers were all soldiers (even if never less than officers) who were broken in basic training …

Since we know that being broken in basic training really is to be abused and not to have a choice then or forever after to be free of it …

Since we know that those who are abused almost always become abusers given any chance of power over others …

Since we know that abusers rarely contain their abuse to one specific kind of abuse but rather spread abuse like a sawed off shotgun …

It therefore does not surprise us that abusive commanders also sexually abuse those under their command, that women are readily made targets of this abuse, and that those higher up in command have a difficult time dealing with abuse of any kind at all, since climbing the command structure seems to require one to be an abuser grown out of being abused.

It will not, or should not, surprise us, when we start to read how female commanders abuse those under their commands, and that their abuse is of all kinds including sexual abuse.

Given that, we ought to do everything we can to stop the abuse … but we’ve boxed ourselves in a pretty deep, cavernous, in nearly inescapable hole.

…

For generation upon generation humans approached God, hoping to control God’s power over them and their surroundings and their enemies, or at least to sway God to act a bit in their favour every once and a while. The standard approach was to bring God a sacrifice, always a sacrifice of some other animal’s life, or (horrors of horrors, as it is still done today on the altar of capitalism to the god of greed) … or the life of another human (or as is done today still, the lives of many, many other human lives.)

It did not take long for intelligent and insightful and inspired humans to recognize how dangerous and destructive this ‘sacrifice’ mentality was, as they knew that God was not to be controlled or swayed by the killing of others. What people will come up with, when the Devil takes control! Wise people knew that God asked for the spirit (built up by the Devil’s deceptions) of proud humans to be broken, so that they recognized their privileged place in creation as those loved by God. So the Psalmist writes even to us today: The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Most humans set on making their way up in the world view contrite and broken hearts as the debilitating destruction of their core and their way upwards.

God’s ways are not human ways, to be sure, for God starts with our contrite and broken hearts, forgives with unconditional love, and restores us to a fullness of life that cannot be achieved on our own, and cannot be taken from us.

For we live in fellowship with the saints of all time, with Jesus our Saviour, and with God the Creator, and with the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps some of us, in the right positions of command in the military, can start to overcome their own being abused, and the abuse that is all around them.

This we hope for, and pray for. Also that the abuse and bullying in the police and in the courts (for they are as horrendously swallowed by abuse coming from the top down to all people) will be overcome as well, by God’s immeasurable power of Grace and steadfast, unconditional love.

Not even a fool would pray for anything else, not even on April Fools’ Day.

Snatched from the Burning Coals

Thursday, March 31, 2022

Cool, Clear, Water

of Life.

Amos 4:11

I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a brand snatched from the fire; yet you did not return to me, says the Lord.

2 Timothy 2:13

Even if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.

Words of Grace For Today

God works in all sorts of ways to bring us to participate in creation the way God created us to fit into creation.

We seldom cooperate, so driven are we to get somewhere in life. We turn what is good and blessed into trouble upon trouble for ourselves. We build castles and kingdoms, enslaving others to produce bread and wine for us.

God takes our castles and kingdoms, and our schemes of enslaving God’s people and overthrows them, so that we have nothing left. In that nothingness God demonstrates to us how much God has given us. God takes our self-assuredness and faithlessness to God and offers us a new beginning. Always God remains faithful to us, to what we need in life.

God’s faithfulness is the one sure thing in life, and most of us wave it off as easily as waving away a beggar or a homeless family or a refugee.

As sure as a day’s worth of steady spring snow covers everything with a fresh and pristine blanket that glistens in the next day’s sun, so God spreads blessings to everyone.

The faithful are those who notice, and share the blessings with others. The rest melt in the brilliant light of Christ faster than the snow on a warm spring day.

When the fires we create would consume us quicker than a dry log in the hot coals of a wood stove, Christ reaches in and delivers us, renews us, refreshes us with clear water, and sends us out to share the cooling water of life.

The Power of the Sound of Sheer Silence

Monday, March 28, 2022

Where Do We Find God?

Nowhere!

God Is There

And by Faith Shows Us

God in Us,

God among Us, and

God Everywhere around Us

1 Kings 19:11-12

He said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.

John 3:7-8

Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’

Words of Grace For Today

People have tried, in vain, to locate and control God since the beginning of time.

We’d expect, given the traditions that swirl about, that God is present in demonstrations of power:

in mountain and rock smashing winds, or

in ground splitting earthquakes, or

in the fires after the earthquakes.

God simply is not to ‘be found’ anywhere, or in anything.

God instead continually surprises us, demonstrating God’s wondrous power and might in unconditional love, a love that reaches so far beyond our tit for tat reckoning among people and our evil efforts to stand high in comforts, status, ‘power’, and wealth, standing high on the backs and heads of those we’ve stomped on to force them below us!

So we are reborn.

How it that possible? …

Well …

It really isn’t, unless, like the wind that we cannot see except in the effect it has on trees, flags, water, and dirt (and sometimes objects like vehicles tossed off highways, or houses shredded into the skies), …

Being born again is not possible unless like the wind the Holy Spirit comes and works God’s Will in us and among us, and then we see how much power the unconditional love of God has … for our hearts, minds and hopes find their focus in being God’s unconditional love for others!

Now that is a miracle, as powerful as the sheer stillness in which God appears to Elijah at Mount Horeb and as the bush that burns without being consumed when God appeared to Moses on that same mountain generations earlier.

It is a miracle that God works every day in us, and among us, and whose effects cannot be ignored, though only faith will help us understand what plays out in us and among us, and around the world, from the beginning of time to the end of time.

Breathe!

Breathe and get ready

to see God! Everywhere!

God is With Us and …

Sunday, March 27, 2022

What Will We Do,

With God with Us

Every Moment of Every Day?

Proverbs 14:31

Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker, but those who are kind to the needy honour him.

Matthew 25:40

And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

Words of Grace For Today

When God says God will be with us, that is good news for us, and …

And it is not good news for those who would do us harm or those who have done us harm.

While so much is done that people will be accountable for, what people will be accountable and fully accountable for, is what they do to God.

There are no rules of evidence, perjury that accounts for anything at all, or half truths that can make any difference at all. God knows everything. No corrupt police or unjust judges or criminals (though they are all pretty much the same, aren’t they?) can do anything to deceive God.

Justice will be based all on truth, and on truth alone, as what is done is done to God’s people and God’s own self.

Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.

Only God’s Grace saves any of us. I’m not sure what God does to those who harm God, whether it’s Grace or Justice, that God chooses in their end.

It’s not really important, other than to trust God’s Grace for ourselves, and God’s wisdom to work against all evil,

For today is a wonderful day, a day to give God thanks for walking with us each step of our lives.

God asks that we honour the needy, and provide care and truth for all of God’s family, all of creation, and even all God’s wayward people who somehow think they can get away with harming God’s good people.

Quite a task for each day …

each wonderful, awesome day that God gives us breath, grace, life, and hope.

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!

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.