The first day the sun can shine longer than yesterday
…
by a few seconds.
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
Life is Filled with Wonderful
Mundane Things
Like Cold, Snow, Trees, Light
From Generation to Generation
All in God’s Hands
Psalm 102:28
The children of your servants shall live secure; their offspring shall be established in your presence.
Revelation 1:8
‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
Words of Grace For Today
Security is a fleeting illusion, unless one by grace places one’s full trust in God. The security one has then is not in having a comfortable or successful life. Then security is in God’s hands, God who is the Alpha and the Omega (the ‘A’ and ‘Z’ of all.)
When we practice placing our trust in God, which we usually skew into something else, then the ‘habit level’ of our lives moves to a different ‘place’. If we are fortunate (the self made skew not being too extreme) we start each day conscious that God is our all in all, and that all we have and are is God’s anyway, so we ‘give it’ all we’ve ‘got’ by ‘giving it our all’ so that all other people can have life abundant. Then through the day as we make choices each moment, they are at least somewhat informed by this awareness.
The truth is most ‘religious’ people skew the love of God into something that supports their own privilege or position in the world. Rich people interpret God’s blessings as evident in their wealth. Poor people see God’s blessings poured out on the poor. Powerful people interpret God’s blessing as evident in their having power, powerless see God’s blessings in the meek, the lowly, the outcasts, the pure of heart.
And we all desire to have a place in the history of humanity, by not dying and being forgotten, but by making our mark and being remembered for generations. While few can hope to be remembered, most all of us strive to pass on to the next generations some of who we are and what we value.
All this is rather foolish of us, though pretty standard. God keeps calling us to see the world anew, through the eyes of others, through the eyes of Jesus.
We cannot secure our own lives, we all die. We cannot secure our place in history, we all vanish like grass in winter under the snow.
We need not secure our own lives. God already secures us as God’s own children.
The children of God’s children shall live secure; their offspring shall be established in God’s presence.
More we cannot attain. Even this is given to us as a free gift. More we do not need.
So what are we doing this extraordinary Advent to prepare for an extraordinary Christmas?
Whatever we have done this Advent to prepare, whatever we do this Christmas, more than what God has done for us by being born as one of us, is all our own odd skewing of what Christmas is about.
So celebrate, and maybe remember, that what we do is at best a misty, foggy, reflection (in our own warped mirrors) of what God has done, does today, and will do for us, each and every one of us humans, each day.
God takes care of that mushroom cloud of sin and hypocrisy (ours and everyone else’s, too) and sets us re-newed into each moment of each day.
What a life!