Buffalo – Page 8

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.

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.

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 3^rd 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.

Fear, Love, Wisdom, Trouble

Monday, May 10, 2021

Everything Grows

Until It Dies,

Except Wisdom.

It Is a Gift from God,

Starting with Fear and Love!

Proverbs 1:7

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Colossians 2:2-3

I want their hearts to be encouraged and united in love, so that they may have all the riches of assured understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Words of Grace For Today

Here we find God’s truth. God is all powerful and to be feared more than anyone or anything else!

Without that fear there is no path to find knowledge, wisdom, truth. Without fear of God all our efforts will be bent, perverted, and misguided. Without fear of God our paths begin on a foundation that will shift and disappear out from underneath us.

Fear will not do it alone. The pseudo Paul who wrote Colossians (a disciple of Paul most likely) got this right. We need our hearts and minds encouraged and built up, united in love. With fear of God but without the love of God (bringing us to love God, all people, and all creation) we walk a dismal path where understanding is only partial, and that part is treacherous. Love brings us to understand life as God intends us to live it. Love enables us to move beyond understanding to contributing to God’s work in this world among us here and now.

The fear and love of God brings us to trust God with everything we are and have and can do. We begin to get glimpses of God’s mystery revealed in Jesus, the Christ.

We begin to live a life guided by true wisdom, a gift of the Holy Spirit for us at our baptisms.

That life is not a life of comfort. It is not a life of ease. It is not a life of capitulation to evil, or evil forces, or evil in others directed at us, or even to evil in ourselves.

This life is a difficult, seemingly chaotic (though by the Spirit very ordered), seemingly risky path that winds hither and yon. This is a life that gets us in to trouble, good trouble, trouble for Christ, trouble for the children, for the outcasts, for the poor, and for the condemned.

This is life, wisely lived life, life abundant, life blessed, and the life that God intends for us.

What are you waiting for?

The Son of God to come and give you directions, to die for you, and to be risen back to life thus conquering death and all evil for us?

What ARE you waiting for?

Today the Kingdom of God is here!

A Guide, A Sure Guide

Sunday, April 25, 2021

How Can We Find Our Way

Across Thin Ice

To Where God Wishes Us To Be

Psalm 48:154

This is God, our God for ever and ever. He will be our guide for ever.

Philippians 1:6

I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.

Words of Grace For Today

There is work for us to accomplish each day. We can sometimes easily ignore it, or pretend that life does not demand that we accomplish anything …

… as long as someone else is providing our lunch and lodging.

The real challenge is to keep moving towards getting something good accomplished, and first to know what is the good thing to do.

If we try to calculate that on our own, we will inevitably fail.

Only God can guide us to know what is truly good, and what we can accomplish this day that will be truly good.

God starts with us, and no matter how much we try to run and go it on our own, we need God to guide us toward the good we can accomplish, that God would have us accomplish this day.

Thankfully, God will be our guide for ever.

We are not in this alone.

The one who began a good work among us will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.

Fleeting Sunshine on Smoke or Light of Life

Saturday, April 10, 2021

Much of life is fleeting as sunshine on smoke.

God’s blessings are sure and forever.

Psalm 71:9

Do not cast me off in the time of old age; do not forsake me when my strength is spent.

2 Corinthians 4:16

So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.

Words of Grace For Today

What used to take little effort and next to no time or thought, now takes great effort and forging onward through pain, dealing with lack of clear sight, and being exhausted way too soon each day.

Fear makes it worse.

There is almost no resolution.

‘If you have your health that is everything.’

It’s a nice sentiment, though the truth is more clearly ‘if you do not have your health, then nothing else can compensate for that. Life is a finite experience, and without health (as old age takes if from us piece by piece) that finite experience becomes smaller and shorter and smaller and shorter and then will soon end.

Our real comfort is that God does not ‘unbless’ us as we get old and ill.

Even as our bodies and minds seem to waste away, God renews our faith and trust, and thus we are able to continue on, blessing others with all we have left in life, of life itself.

Anything else is a mirage.

Do You Listen?

Thursday, April 1, 2021

Look and See.

Listen and Understand.

Job 33:13-14

Why do you contend against him, saying, “He will answer none of my words”? For God speaks in one way, and in two, though people do not perceive it.

John 18:20-21

Jesus answered, ‘I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who heard what I said to them; they know what I said.’

Words of Grace For Today

Listen.

God created us able to love. It is what life is about. It is what God is about for us.

Listen.

God created us able to listen. Able to hear God’s Word and Grace and Love for us.

Listen.

God also created us able to refuse to listen, refuse to love, and to refuse to understand what life is all about.

Whether we listen or not, God speaks clearly, loudly, and demonstratively obviously … in many and various ways, and in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus most obviously.

Life abundant is available to those who listen. It is part of listening that we come to know the abundance of life is not in material things, nor the absence of material things, or in having more than others.

There are more ways to get through life than living an abundant life, loving God, self, others and all creation as God created us to live and love. None of the other ways is worth pursuing. The Devil collects payments all along the way until there is no life left.

Living by lies eats at you, until there is nothing left.

Living by injustice eats at you, until there is nothing left.

Living by greed eats at you, until there is nothing left.

Listen.

Living by love feeds you, until you realize life is wonderful, most wonderful when it is spent giving life abundant to others.

That’s the truth.

Listen or not, lies always remain lies, injustice always remains injustice, greed always remains greed: that is the truth.

Listen or not, God loves us unconditionally and wishes us to share that with all people.

Listen.

Out of the Valleys of the Shadows of Death

Thursday, March 25, 2021

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The Obstacles in Our Way

Cannot Stop the Sun from Rising

Nor God’s Grace and Love from Reaching Us

Saving Us

Psalm 27:9

Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help. Do not cast me off, do not forsake me, O God of my salvation!

Luke 23:42-43

Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’

Words of Grace For Today

While the challenges of life and the challenges to life rise up against us, and enemies lay in wait and attack and remain ever ready to destroy us with violence, gaslighting, and/or false witness, there is no shortage of our own sins (having nothing to do with the false convictions made by false witness and dishonest, dishonourable, and lying judges, the gaslighting, or our enemies lies about us) which are the real threat to our very lives.

Others’ attacks can physically harm us and even end our lives on earth. Others’ gaslighting can nearly drive us mad as we grapple with what is actually real and what is not, which is a whole other kind of hell to live through. False witness and false convictions and judges’ dishonest rulings can put our lives in jeopardy in jail, ruin our reputations, and make life very lonely as friends turn their backs on us and even our pastors refuse to communicate with us.

These are all terrible.

Still the worst thing that threatens our lives is not from outside ourselves. It is always from within. It is our own sins which can lead us to doubt God’s grace and to fear that God will turn from us.

Our own sins bring on the valleys of the shadows of death that threaten not only our physical life, not only our sanity, but our very souls … so that there is nothing left of life, and indeed of us. These experiences are when we lose our love of God and fear that God no longer loves us … and we only fear God.

We cry out.

We cry out if we are even still that capable: Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help. Do not cast me off, do not forsake me, O God of my salvation!

The valleys of the shadows of death are no illusion. They are certainly the work of the Devil himself/herself/themselves [in these valleys the gender is irrelevant!]

Our fear of God is no illusion.

Our cries are not illusions.

Always, always, always God answers us as he answered the criminal that hung on a cross with Jesus and cried out to Jesus for help: Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.

Today.

No waiting.

No delay.

Today, though we suffer greatly in these valleys, today we will be in paradise with Jesus.

These are the words that again and again usher us out of the valleys of the shadows of death and back into the Grace which gives us life, light, and hope. These words stymie the wishes and efforts of all our enemies. These words usher us back into abundant life.

Thanks be to God.

Angels vs Upheaval

Monday, March 22, 2021

No Matter the Obstacles in Our Path

God’s Angels Encamp around Us,

Guiding Us

Psalm 34:7

The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.

Luke 11:10

For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

Words of Grace For Today

There are enough challenges to everyday,

even ordinary everyday days.

Through in upheaval like a pandemic, or injustice focused at oneself, or … [fill in the extraordinary upheaval that meets every life] the challenges can seem to be a bit overwhelming.

Then it is good to know that God’s Angels ‘encamp’ around we who fear and love God.

Then it is good to know that when we ask, God provides (what we need, not necessarily what we ask for). When we search, God guides us to find (what we need, not necessarily what we thought we sought). When we knock, God opens (the door that God knows we need to have opened, not necessarily the door we were banging away on).

To fear and love God.

To fear and love God is the beginning of everything good.

To fear and love God is the beginning of every good day, every good hour, every good minute.

To fear and love God is the beginning of every good relationship, project, or yearning.

Help us, we pray, to fear and love God before all else, (more than all the things that threaten to and do upend our lives.)

Help us, we pray, to trust God’s Angels are with us, (no matter what threatens to and does upend our lives.)