Category: Choose

God Creates, We Make It Up, Doch Truth is Still Truth

Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Seeing the Whole World

In the Tiniest Drop

Of Creation

Ecclesiastes 3:14

I know that whatever God does endures for ever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him.

Romans 11:29

The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

Words of Grace For Today

There are plenty of awesome things that exist and events that happen in the universe that give us more than enough cause to pause and stand awestruck, observing what God has done. The moon eclipse this morning is just one small such event. That the planets and moons, sun and stars continue in movement around each other, in galaxies, and more: that super novas bring some of those stars and planets to their end, that black holes absorb even light, that tadpoles in such great swarms survive and grow to become frogs, minnows fish, and puppies full size dogs. The world is full of things marvellous and wonderful, standing for generations as the mountains, canyons, and lakes do, or living a generation as short as a day, or as long as ‘4 score and 20’ or hundreds of years as turtles do.

Our eyes and ears are given to us, made in such a manner, that we can experience the wonder.

Our brains are given to us, made in such a manner, that we can choose … well we can choose so many things, including whether or not to notice and protect as sustainable the things that have stood for generations and the living things that have but a generation on earth, however long that is for each.

The real miracle of God’s creating comes directly at us, us humans who have bodies and minds, and live with more, a spirit. This is something we can only tangentially observe. Though poets, artists, philosophers, theologians, mystics, and scientists of the ‘soft’ sciences make great efforts to give us evidence of what our spirit is, what our spirits are, we are at a loss to fully comprehend and be able to describe what a ‘spirit’ is, what our ‘spirits’ are, or even to definitively establish that ‘spirits’ exist.

Yet by faith we live, adopting well established patterns of thoughts about one person’s spirit, our collective spirits, so that we can proceed through our days with some kind of claimed purpose, order and meaning.

Faith as a living out one’s life as a member of a religion is also such claimed purpose, order and meaning. It is foolish hubris of so many ‘faithful’ people to claim that their religion, their brand of their religion, their particular expression of their religion or their individually tailored, customized, made up faith or spirituality is somehow THE ONE God gave to humans to live by. That foolishness and hubris has fuelled much religious fervour, many wars, and countless lives – and long before death it has cost people their spirit.

The healthy, faithful people know full well their religion is a human construct in response to God’s work and will, that it is fallible, sometimes seriously unhealthy, and always in need of reform yet as a religion that has stood the challenges of time it contains many kernels of life-giving beliefs, beliefs that encourage practices, which in the doing they bring holistic health to the doer and those around, that respect the Creation and Creator, and the many people of the same and of different faiths, whether healthy in their faith or not, yet they are still creatures of God.

In our faith we recognize that God calls every person to their own vocation, their way and manner of participating in the precious life that is given to us all. God does not set us out on into the ‘wilderness’ of the unknown without first well equipping us for the sojourn; God provides us each many of a variety of ‘gifts’, insights, abilities, skills and compassions so that we will find also in the ‘wildernesses’ of our journey’s the great variety of God’s Work, everywhere in the universe from the grandest scale to the tiniest of scale, and more so than in any other way, in the ‘spirit’ of each person.

God’s greatest miracles are always those that transform a human spirit from unhealthy, foolish, hubristic, to life-giving and sharing, wise, and humble … and faithful.

The order that we live with recognizes not all fiction is based on reality, that reality is a definite thing, and lies are lies as truths are truths; we are not lost or snaffle-baffled by corruption’s claims that reality is other than it is. Gone are the Trumpite fantasies, the Covidiocies, false testimony and convictions, and the denials of real science, like the denials of climate change and Covid19’s existence, deadly existence.

Always present are gratitude, generosity, truth, grace and real hope, from the tiniest view of the universe to the grandest view of God’s marvellous creation.

Thanks be to God.

Lord, Teach Us

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Even in the Wilderness

God’s Spirit Moves

Moving Us to Love and Trust God

and

to Love God’s People,

Even the Idiots.

Psalm 86:5

For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you.

Luke 11:1

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’

Words of Grace For Today

Lord, teach us to pray.

Our enemies continue to deny their evil deeds, blaming us for the destruction they have wrought, using their corrupted power to assert lies as if they ever could be reality.

Covidiots continue to threaten so many lives as once again they crowd the various campsites with multiple vehicles and units. On site within ten feet of the water draws 1 camper, 7 tents and 9 vehicles, normally this site holds at most two campers. There is no visible sewage facilities, other than perhaps one shared toilet in the one camper. Young adults, most vulnerable now to dying of Covid, play a mere foot from each other around something.

Another site hosts 3 tents and 3 units, normally it hold 1 or 2 units. Another site hosts 3 large units, normally it holds 1 unit. Another has 6 units fit in where 2 units usually occupy the space. Yet another that usually holds 1 unit, has three tents and a biffy tent, the only one among all the sites.

At each site a small to large crowd gathers around a fire, a buffet is set out on a table for all to visit as often as they wish. There are no masks or observances that Covid will kill them with a bare day’s notice, and/or us, and/or many, many other people.

The seasons change, and this year’s normals are last year’s extremes, and we wonder if living in the woods will be survivable for the few years we have left!

So we ask again this morning, this noon, and this night, Lord, teach us to pray, again.

Teach us so that we know our real concerns may be left in your hands, so that evil doers with power, idiots of all kinds who threaten many lives, and the climate changes that will come our way may all be left in your hands as our twilight years approach and we wonder how many years or months or days we have left in this life of wonder.

Teach us to pray.

Lord, teach us.

‘Abba in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come! Your will be done! (soon please!) on earth as in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from all evil! For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen’

Lord, teach us to pray so that we can live trusting your Grace and Love for us and for all people.

Give Us Kindness

Monday, May 24, 2021

Sometimes

Breaking Apart Is Going To Happen

Given Our Choices to Remain

Unbending

and Unkind

Psalm 34:15

The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry.

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

Jesus had it right: Moses allowed for divorce, not because it is good, or willed by God, or right in anyway. Rather Moses allowed for divorce because God knows that in our sin we will marry and promise to love one another until death do us part, and then we will live such sinful lives as to break that promise and every other promise until we married couples will drive each other into despair with our broken hearts, minds and bodies, unable to love, trust, or hope for each other any more.

Paul had his convoluted hang ups about sex, marriage, and celibacy. His words on those matters rarely provide much wisdom or health to those who try to follow his advice. Yet here Paul has it sort of right: those who are not faithful to God and each other are most often better allowed to divorce and start life in peace from the hell that unfaithfulness brings to all.

Like most of Paul’s advice on these matters their are limits to his wisdom. As best we ‘know’ today it is not necessary that a couple have the same ‘faith’ or ‘religion’ in making a marriage reflect the goodness of life that God intended couples to experience and give witness to for those around them. Today we ‘know’, sort of anyway, that what makes a marriage work is often not that each in a couple have the same faith, but more importantly that they each have the same ‘intensity’ of faith.

Thus couples who share a complete disinterest in faith, religion, or spirituality (it is given many different names to try to establish that one’s ‘made up, personally customized faith’ is valid) can reflect God’s blessings as clearly as those who are most devote and share the same faith, worshipping together in their daily lives.

Regardless of what we think we ‘know’ today, regardless of how we ‘customize’ our ‘faith’, God’s promise remains true for all people: The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry.

In this promise all couples, and all those around, can trust that God walks with us, no matter what convoluted hang ups about sex, marriage, and celibacy we may accept as a guide for our lives. The constant truth is there is no easy way to bring two sinners together as a married (or not married) couple and sustain their love, lives, and hopes through their relationship. That relationship will only flourish if God so aides the couple.

God alone can enable us to remain kind to each other. Everything else we can work out, if we remain kind. Without deep and profound kindness on both people’s part all hell will break loose … which nothing can mend except kindness rediscovered as forgiveness for oneself, for one’s partner, and for those around who inevitably ‘mess’ in couple’s lives to no good end!

We can thank God that divorce is available to us, not that it is good, but that it is too often less hell than continuing in a relationship broken by unkindness.

Moreso we thank God that God enables us to generously forgive ourselves, our loved ones, and our many ‘not loved ones’ who mess with our lives, so that kindness can serve as the foundation for our closest relationships.

Kindness is simply a primary manner of living out God’s Grace!

May you find peace, so that you may be kind this day … to all of God’s people, to all God’s creation.

Living by God’s Promise

Sunday, May 23, 2021

We Are Quite Small in All Creation and Time!

God Rules

over All

Daniel 4:31-32

While the words were still in the king’s mouth, a voice came from heaven: ‘O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is declared: The kingdom has departed from you! You shall be driven away from human society, and your dwelling shall be with the animals of the field. You shall be made to eat grass like oxen, and seven times shall pass over you, until you have learned that the Most High has sovereignty over the kingdom of mortals and gives it to whom he will.’

Titus 3:6-7

This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Words of Grace For Today

To those who wish to lord power and destruction over others, to try to build their place in God’s creation and in time, like Nebuchadnezzar, .. to all doers of evil against God, God’s people, and any of God’s creation, God brings judgment and humility. God drives them, like Nebuchadnezzar, away from human society, to dwell with the animals of the field … to eat grass like oxen. All time shall pass over them until they have learned that the Most High has sovereignty over the kingdom of mortals and gives it to whom he will.

The power that God gives to God’s people is not to ‘lord it over’ others.

Rather through Jesus our Saviour we are justified by his grace, so that we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

We live in that hope and promise that life given to us now is abundant, and knowing and trusting this we are freed to live out God’s love for all people, to exercise for all others the same grace that God exercises for us in and through the telling of the old, old story of Jesus and his love.

Living in that promise, no matter what befalls us, no matter what enemies attack us with violence or lies, no matter our health, no matter how we suffer Covid (with illness, threat, or stress of the restrictions placed on our lives, or the lengthening of the pandemic and unnecessary risk Covidiots add to our lives) … no matter our circumstances, we are able to thank God for all we are and have, and to sing each day, Take my life that it may be, consecrated Lord to thee.

Thus we know, trust and live out that all is well, all is well, all manner of things are well with us … for God walks with us and God has sovereignty over the entire universe.

Thanks be to God!

Melodies Disparate and Haunting

Friday, May 21, 2021

Woods, Meadow, Mountains or Plain

We are Always Hungry in the Wilderness

Nehemiah 1:6

Lord, may your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for your servants the people of Israel, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Both I and my family have sinned.

James 5:16

Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.

Words of Grace For Today

The smoke at first curls and twists around and down to the ground as the fire starts to burn. The song birds’ melodies from the woods mix with the loon wails across the water. A distant dog barks always hungry that one. Then as the fire develops coals the hotter smoke, still grey and white, takes a straighter path upwards and away. Seagulls in a flock scream and screech across the meadow. The distant dog barks always hungry that one. Two solo geese fly over honking, their mate on the nest keeping an egg, maybe two or more, warm in the sub-zero pre-sunrise cold. Without notice or care the smoke turns transparent, so hot the smoke particles become invisible, until six feet up from the homemade chimney rain cap it cools to become visible grey again. In the distance the dog still barks, always hungry that one.

Our voices rise to God, sometimes in melodies sweet with praise, sometimes sorrowful wails, sometimes honking, calling attention to ourselves (at our best it is not just hubris but to provide a tiny bit of safety for the vulnerable, as the parent ducks and geese do), sometimes in screams and screeches desperate it seems though it too often is not so, and sometimes like smoke our voices rise to God full of all that our lives have consumed, too cool to rise, hot and clouded, or searing hot and invisible.

Always our voices rise to God because we are hungry, always hungry … for the bread of life, the living water, the light of the universe … for love

…

and we do not understand how to receive all that is already provided to us

…

so we are always hungry.

Then without notice or care God’s Grace permeates our living, we see the awesome wonders of God’s Love and will for us and all creation and

…

we are exposed,

so exposed,

exposed

as the sinners, the unfit creatures in a marvellous creation, that we are.

Our response can only be to lift our voices to God with Nehemiah:

Lord, may your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for your servants the people of [fill in your people], confessing the sins of the people of [fill in your people], which we have sinned against you. Both I and my family have sinned.

We cannot confess other’s sins. We confess the sins in which we have participated with others and benefited from, namely the sins of our people of [fill in your people]. We acknowledge our shared sins, and our family sins … and our own personal sins.

This is the first step of becoming aware of God, yet once again, as we traverse our days on the side of God’s holy mountains, in God’s holy plains, and in God’s holy woods and wildernesses.

Confession brings healing so that we then are ready to do what we are called to do,

God’s work bringing abundant life to all people.

And our voices rise to God once again in melodies disparate and haunting … in profound thanks

for all God has provided for us.

Snow – Sing, Baby, Sing

Thursday, May 20, 2021

Green and Snow

You Never Know What God Has for Us

Next!

Nehemiah 9:5

Then the Levites, Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, ‘Stand up and bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.’

Ephesians 5:19

Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts.

Words of Grace For Today

Singing seems to be in the passages for now, and on our lips. Why not?

Two days ago the green of spring had sprung . The grass was growing wildly, trees were budding fully, and the wild rose and raspberry so abundant in this area had started to throw their leaves outward.

Then the usual of spring in Alberta fell from the sky: snow, heavy, wet and grand covered the ground and green with inches of white on top that grass and all those buds.

The return of snow and cold puts the increase of pollen and the beastly bugs on a hold and/or delay for a few days or, if we are lucky, a week or two. There’s always an up side. Even when things are so terrible they cannot get worse: the only way to go is up!

When we recognize for the million-times-millionth time how gracious God is to us, though we certainly do not deserve any of it, we have all the reasons we need to sing. We can sing almost any song, the old songs, the new songs, and even all the off-the-wall songs we can find or make up, just as long as they help us tell once again the old, old story of Jesus and his love.

The melody of telling Jesus’ story resonates with the harmonies of the universe

…

for God created it so.

So let us sing

…

even as the snow falls on the greening of spring, let us sing

…

for God created us so.

So … sing, baby, sing.

Breathing? Then It’s Not Too Late!

Wednesday, May 19, 2021

Green Growth Even Surrounded by Snow,

If this sapling can, so can we!

Psalm 98:1

O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvellous things. His right hand and his holy arm have gained him victory.

Colossians 3:16

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.

Words of Grace For Today

When we recognize how great God’s deeds are for us and all other people, there is nothing else to do, than to sing songs to God.

When we recognize for the million-times-millionth time how gracious God is to us, though we certainly do not deserve any of it, the old songs simply will not do. God will give us new songs to sing so that we can tell once again the old, old story of Jesus and his love.

We have so many new songs, a million-times-million, … and today we have yet another new reason to sing!

What is your new song today? Is it like the twins studying their dreams, or Maggie’s parent’s enjoying their dream home?

Or is yours, like mine, a simple song of surviving another day: dreaming as I breathe, eat, drink, rest, work and love enough to make a life abundant, as God walks with me, even though I am too old to study and I am homeless and attacked by relentless enemies who are afraid of truth, for they have built their lives on their lies about me?

It is never too late, as long as you are breathing, to sing a new song in thanks for God’s grace and mercy!

Generous Grace and Mercy

Tuesday, May 18, 2021

When We Wander Away

God’s Light Guides Us to the Path

to Do God’s Grace and Mercy for Others

Psalm 111:4

He has gained renown by his wonderful deeds; the Lord is gracious and merciful.

Luke 24:30-31

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.

Words of Grace For Today

There are so many things that people do to others that are so hideous one can hardly believe we humans are capable of such things. There are so many things that people do to others that no one ever finds out about. Some are so evil that every effort is made to conceal them from all time. Others are so marvellous, and yet no one gets to celebrate that at least every once in a while a human being is actually capable of doing something to others that is a gracious and merciful … and generous … as God is with us all.

We can sit to eat with someone and not know what evil things that person has done. They have concealed them well enough from us.

We can sit to eat with someone and not know what great things that person has done. Somehow we do not put two and two together.

Fifty five year old Joe had never married. He was not gay, or mean, or uninteresting, or poor. Nor was he wealthy, addicted to chemicals or work or anything at all. He was just plain, not aggressive, not driven. He was an introvert so life alone did not bother him at all. He was well educated and still he found work as he could doing this and that, never for much more than a simple living. He loved the outdoors, not shooting at it or fishing food from it, just to be in it. He hiked mountains to find solitude. He took photos of some magnificent things in nature, moving and still, large and so small though he rarely shared them with anyone.

When Maggie met him climbing a mountain taking photos of a pair of eagles playing in the sky they hit it off right away. They shared a love of being in nature, enjoying the solitude, finding beauty in unexpected corners. They spent months out in nature together, and it did not matter to either that he was 15 years older than she … they fell in love. Despite her children from her deceased husband and her parents not approving at all, they were married.

Her parents had been looking for a home of their own for decades. Maggie, as the only child, knew exactly their mantra of what they wanted: a three bedroom house, with a garden and shed out back for her mom to grow a garden of vegetables and flowers. A garage large enough for their small car and a boat on a trailer for her father to use fishing. A few months after the wedding, which her parents did not go to, one of their oft-contacted-realtors called them. They’d found the perfect house for them. They thought for sure they could not afford it, but the realtor said that it was listed at a rather unbelievable price for a fast sale, and they could afford it. They bought it and moved in within the week.

Maggie’s twin daughter and son each had their eye on different colleges, but neither could afford it. They applied and were accepted. Both were offered financial packages that made it possible for them. So off they went to their dream studies.

Then Maggie was diagnosed with cancer; she battled it with Joe at her side. Her children and her parents came once early on and then stayed away, showing their judgment against Joe. Within a month she died, the pain only somewhat mitigated by the large morphine doses.

Her children and her parents openly blamed Joe, though there was little reality in it. They were angry, looking for someone to blame. Joe was devastated to have lost his only love in his life.

Three years after her death Joe invited Maggie’s parents and twins over for a coffee at his simple house. When they sat to drink tea and coffee, Joe asked about the garden and the boat, and about the twin’s studies. It was not until they had finished their coffees and teas, along with homemade cake and ginger snaps that they realized the details of Joe’s questions could only be asked by someone who knew so much more than they had told Maggie about even before their marriage. It was minutes later as they said good bye and walked to their cars that it became clear: Joe and Maggie together had made the parent’s house and the twins studies possible.

As the parents and children had condemned the two, they had responded with grace and generosity to give them their dreams … and they had only discovered it years later after Maggie’s death … and after they had blamed Joe for Maggie’s death.

God does not let us go on and on without recognizing the wonder of God’s deeds of grace and mercy for us. So after Jesus has spent the day with the disciples teaching them everything (and they do not recognize him because he has died) when Jesus was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.

By God’s grace and mercy we know all that God needs us to know of his wondrous deeds.

The question of our lives each day is this:

What are we going to do, since God equips us to be the doers of such generous grace and mercy?

Sunday, May 16, 2021

The Light of the Son

Shines Always to Renew

All Life

Through Us

Psalm 90:10

The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.

2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope, comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word.

Words of Grace For Today

Though we strive for to secure our lives as we imagine they should be, these struggles matter very little in the end. We have 70 years or perhaps 80 or more, and only sometimes we are strong. The least desired, least by me, is to remain alive, though not healthy of body, unable to move and provide care for the world around me, or worse to be alive in body but to suffer some disease of the brain, so that my ability to think (a treasure my whole life) is gone.

What far are all these concerns, these fears, and all the struggle to avoid what will come regardless of what I or you or anyone else do. We all die, and dying is seldom comfortable or as we wish it would be. Death comes our way, the time, day and year we cannot know.

All our toils and troubles are for not.

What for then is life given to us?

Re-orient our thinking, our approach to life and death, to our doing. We are not given life to secure a good life for ourselves, though that may well be something that drives us onward day after day. We are given life to provide what has been provided to us, God’s Grace and Love.

That then may well include great and difficult work to ensure we have the basics of life, in order that we are alive to share the basics of life with others … and in that sharing to provide also what we have received, God’s blessing.

As the seasons turn, from frozen to greening, and life in suspension, hibernation, or in new seeds and eggs starts to inhabit the woods, the grasses, the air and the waters, we recognize that (in spite of the restrictions of Covid 19 and the 3rd wave’s illnesses, death and lockdowns – and irresponsibly dangerous protests) we also turn each morning to our God, pleading for mercy, renewal, love, and hope.

So as also God renews this season our hearts, minds and strength we pray: May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope, comfort our and your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word.

We have no time to languish. God has work for us, and for you! There are so many people who need from us to experience God’s mercy, renewal, love, and hope. On this foundation of Grace we live, allowing our hearts, minds, and souls to bask in the renewing light of the Son.

God Rocks! God Rules Everywhere!

Friday, May 14, 2021

God’s Glory Shines Everywhere!

Psalm 103:19

The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.

Revelation 19:6-7

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunder-peals, crying out, ‘Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.’

Words of Grace For Today

When the evil of those who are entrusted to be just and honest and good reaches arbitrarily into so many lives, destroying the old and the young alike, then we have pause to wonder:

Is God at all listening, watching, caring at all?!

Our travails are no greater than many humans have experienced through history. Truth is they are not as great as so many. We read the witness left by those who suffered so much more than we do today.

The witnesses through the generations are clear, wondrous and sure:

God has established God’s throne in the heavens, and God’s kingdom rules over all.

There will be many days that Evil will drive us to doubt God’s love, God’s promises and God’s deliverance. On those days, in those moments, the witnesses that have gone before us bring us back to trust the power of God, the Almighty, the All-Knowing, and the All-Loving.

We can join the chorus crying: ‘Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory!’

We, too, give witness for the generations that follow us, that God has given God’s heart to us in love, with a love that created us, rescues us, and sustains us!

No matter what comes our way with hearts filled with wonder we know that God has given us all lives of great challenge, love, and adventure!