God Created Wondrously and Created us in God’s own Image
Job 9:8 – 9
God alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the Sea; God made the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the chambers of the south.
Colossians 1:15-16
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.
Words of Grace For Today
There are endless wonders visible to us in creation.
Covid 19 has throttled back our use of fossil fuels. Out of country flights are cancelled across the planet. In country travel is limited to essential movement only.
Gasoline sells for on average between 71.6 and 94.9 per litre. I bought gas for $.43 last week! The price I used to pay was as high as $1.20, and usually around $.95. Oil sold last week under $13 a barrel. It was as high as $113 in 2011 and from 2010 to 2019 averaged $72.5.
This virus has given us a reason to give creation a reprieve from our onslaught of carbon emissions. Areas that have had impossible air pollution over the past decades are showing air qualities the likes of which 40 year-olds have never seen there! That certainly is not the intent, but it’s likely a better reason for the global economic lock-down!
See https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/covid-19-air-pollution-1.5501810 for some astounding images of air pollution clearing.
The real connection is interesting. Air pollution taxes our immune systems, making us more vulnerable, also to viruses like the corona virus of Covid 19.
The wonders of creation in Canada are all around us, especially if you live outside the cities, near a real lake or near the mountains. Others cannot travel to enjoy this, but even in the cities there are parks where one can (still) walk by yourself or with your family, as long as one keeps physical distance from others.
The greatest marvel is that of all the wonders God created, God created us humans in God’s own image. We are not to try to be gods as if we were creators or controllers or destroyers of all creation. The later we’ve come close enough to accomplishing in this last century. This is the evil in us destroying all things around us, as we rationalize that we are doing what is necessary and good.
Humans are again and again capable of extra-ordinarily reflecting God’s Grace for each other, and for creation.
We notice these. Celebrate these. Share these. And we overflow with thanks and gratitude for the wonders of all creation, from sky to sea, to mountains, to the sinner/saints we see each day.
God guides us to both, as gift and blessing unearned.
2 Samuel 2:26
Then Abner called to Joab, ‘Is the sword to keep devouring for ever? Do you not know that the end will be bitter? How long will it be before you order your people to turn from the pursuit of their kinsmen?’
1 Corinthians 7:15
But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so; in such a case the brother or sister is not bound. It is to peace that God has called you.
Words of Grace For Today
God calls us to peace.
Peace between nations, between people, between spouses, and peace within ourselves.
Peace is much more than the absence of conflict.
Given merely the absence of conflict we humans always find our way into open conflict quite easily. It is because everyone is wrong about something, and they still think they are right. [Except of course me. I’m always right. Right?]
Girard provides that it is more complex than that, involving mimetic desires that lead to competition, which is ‘resolved’ through scapegoating. We compete with each other for what we see as limited resources/things. Aware we cannot afford open conflict with our closest friends we project our conflict on to some innocent, vulnerable bystander. Seeing that innocent as the source of our problem we destroy that person. Our urge to compete and destroy is ‘satisfied’, the thing we competed for becomes insignificant, and we are able to return to a ‘peaceful’ co-existence.
Except for the innocent person we’ve gaslit, attacked, destroyed and most often exiled or killed.
And except that, since we are not entirely oblivious to reality, we know we are now guilty of ruining an innocent person, of not working out our conflict with each other, and the root cause of that conflict is not addressed. It just goes underground in both of us, in our relationship, only to re-emerge at a later date. Then it will be an even less comprehensible conflict, which we will ‘resolve’ by destroying yet another innocent bystander.
Peace must be diligently sought anew each hour of each day, or it is lost. And it is lost long before anyone notices any conflict arising.
Peace is lost when we no longer see the souls of other people, for whom Jesus died, as the most important part of our own lives, when we no longer give everything we are to provide care for those in our daily lives, or when we no longer work to meet the needs and satisfy the yearnings of those with whom our lives are intertwined.
Peace is a marvellous way of being. It is fragile and can disappear in an instant with a [wrong] word or deed. It is threatened most by an errant thought.
God gives us peace. We can treasure it, with our hearts, minds, and strength.
Truly God is good to the upright, to those who are pure in heart.
1 John 3:21-22
Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.
Words of Grace For Today
Covid 19 puts many things into perspective.
When our boys were young they came asking if they could have coffee. They were intelligent and persistent. Being occupied and having uttered a few no’s! already I said to them that if they drank coffee they would die. Sort of true and it bought me some peace.
Not for long. They came back a few days later insisting that they be given coffee, it smelled so good! I said no, and repeated the half truth from before. If you drink coffee you will die. … Well, OK back then, a recent study had said that coffee was real bad for you, and worse for children; or so I rationalized it. But the boys did not fall away from but rather into some intelligence beyond their parents’.
They responded, yes, if we drink coffee we will die, but if we don’t drink coffee we will die, also.
So we want coffee.
God is truly good to the upright and pure in heart. And God is even better to the worst sinners, for whom God sent God’s own son, Jesus, to teach, heal and forgive … and then give his own life to redeem.
If we have boldness before God and obey his commands and do what pleases God, God will give us whatever we ask. And God gives whatever they ask for to even those who displease God, sinners that all humans are!
Not really. God answers everyone who calls on God. Most often God gives us what we need, not what we ask for. Most often the answer is simply NO, or wait, or maybe. Rarely God answers with a resounding YES! giving exactly what we ask for.
The temptation is to think that IF we behave rightly (and/or fill in whatever correct description you choose) THEN God will bless us with good things (and/or fill in whatever correct description of benefit from God you choose). This is the Devil’s way of getting us to think that we are little gods unto ourselves, that our behaviour controls God’s response to us.
When we start down that path, the Devil has us for life! Again. Until Jesus saves us again!
God’s reality is that BECAUSE God chooses (fill in whatever God chooses) THEREFORE we are blessed (and can think, say, or do whatever, or receive or fill in whatever blessing you want to include.
God’s reality is only God can choose to bless us. And we can only choose to refuse it. As we embrace God’s blessings it is only because the Holy Spirit moves us to do so.
The kind of religion that says we have to earn our way to God is as meaningless as counting backwards from ten. The best result is we end up unconscious. Anything else is painful to watch or experience.
God’s Grace though changes the whole world, from church being a social club with great language, coffee and tax deductions, to church being a calling to be more than we ever thought we could be, bringing abundant life to others in need.
After God acts, and we respond, then life lets loose, and our tasks vary according to our gifts and jobs and time. For now that will be a photo to share, occasionally. I get to create, you get to enjoy the result (or not.) Regardless whether we survive Covid 19 or not, we will all eventually die … for now the challenge is to be better than the best we imagined we could be. Pure of heart and obedient are just starters.
whatever that may be that the Holy Spirit has in store for us!
Ecclesiastes 9:10
Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.
Romans 12:11
Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.
Words of Grace For Today
Ecclesiastes is always so much fun to read, as long as you bring the humour!
The writer has a universe-size chip on his shoulder, which he called wisdom. Listen to the lack of Grace he exercises for others: ‘you are all going to Sheol’. In modern English … ‘to hell with you all. Work hard now, it’s all that counts.’
Sorry the idea is sort of right, but the reasons are outta this world, at least the one that God created. We do not need to work hard because this is our only chance; in hell there is no work!
That might at first glance make hell a place we’d like to live in … or at least visit to check it out. Plenty of people take the Devil up on his offer and create a hell for themselves here and now, and they are diligent about sharing it with others.
Truth is I have no idea if work, thought, knowledge and so called wisdom are part of hell. It would seem they are a lot of what people use to create hell on earth already. What I trust is that God created us capable of working hard, thinking diligently, knowing clearly, and possessing extraordinary wisdom. God also created us with plenty of zeal and ardent spirits.
Not that we always exercise hard work, diligent thinking, clear knowledge, extraordinary wisdom, zeal or our ardent spirits. Another temptation the Devil places before us is to be none of that, rather he tempts us to be lazy.
Yet this is exactly what God equips us to do, calls us to do … not the lazy part rather being zealously engaged in working, thinking, knowing and being wise.
All so that others may enjoy God’s blessings through us, God makes and redeems us so that we can work hard, very hard, physically and otherwise. We can pursue diligent discipline thinking about ourselves, God and others in this creation. We can possess clear and truthful knowledge, and above all we can have the wisdom how to exercise all of that: not for ourselves, but for others.
That is serving God
Instead of serving ourselves, manna, or the false promises of the Devil.
Choose as you may, as for me (since I have no house, nor household) I choose to love: hard work, diligent thinking, clear knowledge and maybe I can enjoy some wisdom.
So may we all work hard at not touching anyone else, or any surface someone else may have touched. Think clearly about how the virus could be on our hands. Don’t pause though to rub our eye as we ponder the new reality. Know what is true about the virus, and sort out stuff like Trump’s suggestion to ingest disinfectant, sarcastically or not! Finally be wise beyond our years: know that as we get older, this virus is harder on us; so enjoy everything we can, carefully, at home, or on walks with no one around.
Solitude, Beauty, and Hope. God provides these in abundance now.
You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me.
Mark 5:22-24
Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.’ So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him.
Words of Grace For Today
God rarely delivers us from our trials. Most often God delivers us in our trials.
Jonah tried to hide from God, to no avail. Neither can we hide from God. Jonah was tested severely, as we are, too. In the deep, the heart of the seas, the flood over our heads, God’s waves pass over us.
When we face our own demise we see life more clearly for what it is. When we face the demise of our children, we ought to see life more clearly for what it is. Sometimes though anxiety makes us act as if we were just plain stupid. Anxiety explains a lot of inexplicable behaviour, even during normal times.
Jairus, a leader at the synagogue, faces the death of his daughter. He comes and pleads for Jesus to have mercy and come and heal his daughter, so that she may live.
That should be an account that tears at every parent’s heart. My child is being ripped from life here with me … and what can I do? Jairus has heard of Jesus and goes to beg, to humble himself before Jesus, to beg for his daughter’s life from a man he knows can save her.
That’s faith.
That’s faith that can only be given by God!
That’s faith that brings life to those who have it and those near them.
Jairus’ faith brings Jesus to save his daughter’s life, and she does live.
Beneath the waves of Covid isolation, loneliness, shortages, fear of illness and death (our own and our loved ones’ … and even our enemies’) we gasp for breath,
We gasp … and humbly pray that God will deliver us and our loved ones, heal us all, and bring us all, even our enemies, back to live full lives, filled with gratitude and complete joy!
Still we gasp for air. Where are we caught so dark and deep, that we find little air?
Anxiety.
So we pray, free us from all fear, and make us into the people that can heal others with a word.
God’s Great Creation Teaches Us to Prosper and Know Complete Joy
Deuteronomy 30:9
The Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all your undertakings, in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your soil. For the Lord will again take delight in prospering you, just as he delighted in prospering your ancestors.
John 15:10-11
If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
Words of Grace For Today
To prosper. That is what is not happening for so many people the world over. The economies of most nations is at a near standstill, as essentials only are made, distributed, for sale and purchased.
So much that the world thrived on was not necessities, but the benefits of a very advanced global economy. Yet I have not met nor heard of a person who has truly prospered, who did so without doing on the backs of many other people who could not prosper.
To prosper seems to be equivalent to being able to get away with terrible crimes and sins against other humans, all in order to get ahead.
This is not at all what God would have us do or be in this marvellous creation.
Jesus comes to show us an exactly mutually exclusive way of being in creation; self sacrifice so that others may live well. Prospering at others expense is out of the question. The only kind of prospering is when one moves forward through ones days choosing goals and actions so that others may live and live well.
This is a quite foreign concept for many caught in the ‘logic’ of global capitalism, built as it is solidly on greed and making gains at others expense, accumulating power in wealth and using it to continually succeed in getting more money from others getting less money, endlessly.
Jesus had not yet seen global capitalism, but the previous generations had certainly seen themselves either among the conquering Romans or those the Romans conquered and ruled, to the Romans’ advantage. In spite of many wishes that Jesus conquer the Roman occupiers, Jesus instead offers to us that our joy be as his joy is in doing God’s will, and that our joy be complete.
To prosper, and to have our joy complete, all coming to us as we abide in Jesus’ love, so that God’s love will abide in us.
All this is gift; God chooses and acts. We receive and benefit. We live in God’s love. God is in love with us. And we in turn are in love with all creation and all God’s creatures.
Since time immemorial, God has called faithful people to retreat from the demands of normal life, and ask why and how one lives as one does.
This is now the time for us all.
Cancel that world tour vacation. Cancel that entertainment holiday. Cancel that weekend of expensive travel, motor sports, or casual sports. (OK, we’ve been required to do so anyway.)
God calls us to take this time and ask: how does God want us to abide in God’s love and have our joy complete? How does God want us to prosper … now during Covid 19, and after isolation is not needed for everyone’s health.
This is how we prosper: we love and give sacrificially of ourselves to others, as Christ did for us … on his cross.
Do not spurn us, for your name’s sake; do not dishonour your glorious throne; remember and do not break your covenant with us.
1 Corinthians 1:9
God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Words of Grace For Today
Jeremiah pleads with God not to break the covenant God made with their ancestor, Abraham. God alone made the covenant. It was not a bi-lateral agreement. It was not tit-for-tat. It was not a contract with the members agreeing on the exchange of things of value.
God made the covenant, simply because God choose to make the covenant. Thereafter, God returns numerous times to restate the promises. In addition to Abraham and his family and descendants being made, by God’s act alone, into the people of God, God makes promises: God will give the wandering Arameans land flowing with milk and honey. God will give Abraham and Sarah descendants as numerous as the stars.
God makes good on God’s promises. God makes good on more than that.
God comes in the human life of Jesus of Nazareth, God’s own son on earth, to live, heal, teach, suffer, and die … to pay for what you and I and all our ancestors and their descendants (i.e. all people) have done against God and the goodness of creation.
The story continues. Death does not win out, because God raises Jesus back to life.
God does this not because we deserve it, but because God so chooses.
God also chooses you and me to join in the fellowship of Jesus, the body of Christ on earth.
We may turn from God.
We may suffer as a result of sins.
We may face challenges we may not know we can even survive, like Covid 19.
God remains trustworthy. God remains a Rock for us to rely on. God remains with us!
This is the ongoing story of God. God remains with us, even when we no longer deserve the great blessings God has given us.
All good is to God’s glory. God’s glory is not our brokenness, doch God’s will to heal us.
May we be healed of all the ills that we face because of isolation, because of loss of loved ones, because of the illness we face, which may indeed bring us to death’s door.
On this and the far side of that door, God stands with us. God is worthy of our trust.
Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant; I formed you, you are my servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.
Hebrews 10:35
Do not, therefore, abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward.
Words of Grace For Today
Confidence!
Wikipedia defines it as: Confidence is a state of being certain either that a hypothesis or prediction is correct or that a chosen course of action is the best or most effective. Confidence comes from a latin word fidere’ which means “to trust”; therefore, having a self-confidence is having trust in one’s self.
Oh, to be able to have a confidence that is not bound by one’s own self, or about one’s self. Trust in one’s self is as fleeting as the beauty of the butterfly, the wisp of smoke rising into a clear sky, or of the moment of forgetting one’s own sins.
God provides this basis for confidence. God formed us! We are God’s servants! God will not forget us!
God. Now there is a Rock from which confidence can rise to hold us no matter what assails us!
No matter what we face, life or death, riches or poverty (and riches are so much more a threat to us than poverty every could be!), and kindness of truth or the cruelty of lies … no matter what we face God is our Rock. God made us who we are, claimed us, redeemed us, and equipped us as saints in this broken world.
This is confidence that cannot be broken. It is con– (with) fidere (trust) that prevails, even in the face of death, even death on the cross of Good Friday which is defeated in Christ rising in the early light of Easter morning.
Let us remember, and pray that God will hold us mindful of, the price paid for our holiness, the miracle that frees us from sin, and the reward that God gives us every day. We live in God’s blessings, no matter what.
We can say out of the confidence of faith along with Julian of Norwich who wrote and said (as the devastation of the Black Plague raged on the other side of her hermit-cell’s window – 30% to 60% of Europe died within 4 years):
I passed by you again and looked on you; you were at the age for love. I spread the edge of my cloak over you, and covered your nakedness: I pledged myself to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord God, and you became mine.
Galatians 3:26
For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.
Words of Grace For Today
Everywhere one hears the words of love, of romantic love that turns one’s world right-side-up, that sets the fears of the night to rest, that provides balm to one’s ills, and brightens the future with brilliant light.
God uses these experiences and images to speak through the prophet to describe how God claims us. When we were at the age of love! When we were but infants we were already at the age of love poured out on us by God, so God claims us. We were robed in white, marked with the cross, and blessed for each day and each challenge …
including the many challenges we face these days!
By faith God claims us through Jesus Christ. The faith that brings an infant to the baptismal font is not the infant’s faith. The faith that brings us as infants to be claimed by God is our parents’ faith … and our godparent’s faith … and the person ordained to baptize us’ faith … and the people who gather’s faith. All this faith is in each instance not earned or acquired. It is given by God.
There is no challenge that can defeat the faith that God creates in us.
Play the music of your faith, the music that rings through all of creation, the music that inspires the soul and heals the body and mind.
In this music experience the love that captures us and sets us free in a world made right with us in it!
Be courageous, calm and kind. We are in this together. Share the love that makes life precious!
God is with us, even when we think we are alone, and if God is with us, then the saints of all the generations walk with us as well. Their love surrounds us no matter what we face.
