Sunday, August 30, 2020
Cold Winter Winds Will Blow
Cold Hearts Will Set
The Holy Spirit Will Keep Our Hearts Thawing
Trust God’s Promises
Isaiah 32:17
The effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust for ever.
Romans 14:17
For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Words of Grace For Today
Of what is life?
Food and drink?
OR
Peace, quietness and trust, righteousness and joy?
The basic requirements for minimum and full human life are:
- clean air to breath
- clean water to drink
- nourishing food to eat
- adequate clothing to wear
- adequate shelter to protect one from the elements
- meaningful labour so that one contributes and receives sufficient reward for one’s labour
- love: most significantly that one is loved unconditionally, and that one can love others unconditionally.
Food and Drink are requirements, as we all know. One can last 3 or so days without water, and up to a few weeks without food. Not well, and not many times over. One should have water and food multiple times each day to stay healthy.
Yet we can too easily get our priorities all wrong.
We can loose balance, perspective, focus, and gratitude. There are many ways to say this, and it happens to us in as many ways. When we live with food and drink as the focus of our lives, to the detriment of labour and love, then we live off balance, out of kilter, or, as it’s said in so many ways, ‘messed up.’
It is exceedingly difficult to achieve peace, quietness and trust, righteousness or joy. Truthfully one cannot achieve them at all. We receive them as gifts from God.
It is hard to imagine that we would over focus, live out of kilter, living for peace, quietness and trust, righteousness and/or joy. Yet this also is possible. We humans have great ingenuity when it comes to ‘messing up’ life.
These gifts from God are not for us to achieve. Rather they are for us to share, and in sharing God fills us to overflowing with them.
While Covid-19 restrictions, and even the lifting of restrictions and a return to more ‘normal’ can tax us, at times beyond our limits, the stress of these times do not change who we are. The stress just makes very clear to ourselves and to others what kind of people we really are.
We are children of God and wretched sinners, simultaneously. We need to be loved, unconditionally. And to love unconditionally. Yet we ‘mess it all up’ terribly.
Thank God, we are forgiven, and given re-newed life each day, each hour, as the Holy Spirit works in and through us, despite our wretchedness.
It is beginning to feel much like fall as I write this. Cool air blows, tree tops sway, leaves rustle and fly, rain spits and drips. Everything inside is set to retain warmth and let in what light there is. In this day whatever it is like where you are may God’s blessings be obvious and not forgotten by our living off balance.
May we be caught tipped by the weight of blessing raining down on us, refreshing us, giving us the most precious things to experience and share.