Swords, Pens, and Tongues

Thursday, September 15, 2022

Words Can Sooth

Troubled Waters

With The Golden Presence

of God’s Mercy and Love

Proverbs 12:18

Rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

Romans 14:19

Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual edification.

Words of Grace For Today

The power of the tongue is famous.

More powerful than the sword. As is the pen. Though the mouth can out do the pen when wielded effectively.

The power is not necessarily damaging and evil. It can be more destructive than the sword. The power of the pen and of the mouth can be exactly opposite that of a destructive sword.

The words of the mouth and of the pen can be words that reflect God’s grace, and in that address the greatest evil that can ever come at us, and turn it from destruction to healing.

Smooth words of deception are not healing words, though. They are, despite all appearances and sounds, more destructive than the sword. Only truth can heal. Only truth which names evil as it is, and offers God’s merciful response to it, can heal.

So we go into each day, confessing our sins, acknowledging the great destructive power of deceptions and evils of all kinds, and trusting that God has a response to it all which brings us to live life as God created us to live it, in peace.

Hear the Lion! Mercy Me!

Wednesday, September 14, 2022

We Fear the Waters That Will Flood and Drown Us,

And God Sends

the Mist Covered Waters of Life

to Revive Us!

Psalms 81:8

Hear, O my people, while I admonish you; O Israel, if you would but listen to me!

2 Timothy 4:17

But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth.

Words of Grace For Today

God does not give up on us.

While we wander away and ignore all God would give to us as wisdom, putting ourselves first and leaving others to fend for themselves against hopeless odds, God still cries for us: Hear, O my people while I admonish you! If you would be listen to me!

When we tune our ears to hear God’s Word to us each morning, noon and night, it is full of surprises what we will hear. We thought we’d hear God condemning us and or others for all the dregs of sin we toss around, at each other and at the planet.

We thought we’d hear God demanding reparations.

We thought or rather fully hoped we’d hear God giving it to our enemies with lots of ‘smote keys’.

Doch, God is prodigious with love, forgiveness, and mercy, especially for the likes of us, great sinners that we are. Ready to deny it at moment’s notice.

And God is prodigious with love, forgiveness, and mercy for our enemies that we think are so much worse than we are.

Well, they may well be by some scale of measurement of terribleness, though that scale is useless or even hugely damaging in God’s world.

So God is merciful to us all, each as we require to hear that we are invited back to the table at the banquet. All of us ‘saved from the lion’s mouth’ as it were.

In All the Moments After …

Tuesday, September 13, 2022

In the Dark, We Learn to See the Light.

Psalms 118:14

The Lord is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation.

Romans 15:13

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Words of Grace For Today

On this side of disaster, destruction, and demise (unearned but foisted on us by our enemies that claimed to be our family) we breathe and know it is a miracle.

We see the sun rise, and know it is a miracle.

We see the grass grow, the pine trees fill with acorns, the chicks grow to mature ducks and geese, and we know it is a miracle.

We work hard to prepare for the hard winter predicted ahead, and see the resulting piles of wood, completed repairs and improvements, and we know it is all wonder-filled miracles.

For God has become again and again our salvation, our breathe, and our hope.

So we would hope for you, that you would know the miracles that God works wondrously in your days, and thus find peace in the Holy Spirit’s power to transform the worst of the worst into blessings unending.

16 Tons?

Monday, September 12, 2022

Pilot or Passenger

Every Flight,

Every Life,

Has A Beginning

That many others have made possible.

Psalms 78:3-4

[Remember the glorious acts of God,]
things that we have heard and known,
that our ancestors have told us.
We will not hide them from their children;
we will tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might,
and the wonders that he has done.

Matthew 10:8

Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.

Words of Grace For Today

While living a life, self-sustained and self-determined, no great mishaps interrupting one’s plans and trajectory, it is all too easy to forget so much.

How one’s ancestors worked so hard to bring us to the beginning we were given as a gift.

How God provided for their survival in wondrous ways.

And how at each turn in our own lives, God is there, walking with us, calling us, blessing us, begging us to return to God.

Then disaster strikes. Small or huge, particular or general. And our self-sustained life is no longer possible, as if it ever were that.

Then we will only survive if we remember what our ancestors have taught us about God’s great blessings, and we return to God.

What then?

Simple: Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.

One day awaits us each morning, filled with opportunities to remember, to return, to serve others with the love that cures, raises, cleanses, and casts out.

It’s not 16 tons and deeper in debt to the company store, but it is that each day we receive more than we can possible give back, and we live blessed to be deeper and deeper in debt to God for all the blessings poured over us. It is impossible to repay that debt, and it will never be called. Miracles and wonders.

Repay

Sunday, September 11, 2022

Painted Sky,

by God’s Hand.

First Samuel 24:20

Now I know that you shall surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in your hand.

Romans 12:17

Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.

Words of Grace For Today

While the world is going to hell in a hand basket …

While the world is filled with wonders and profound goodnesses …

While the world is filled with the results of so much hate …

While the world is permeated with the effects of unselfish love …

Whether we be made king, or remain paupers forgotten by all …

How will we respond to all that comes our way?

With all that would we consider everything good our right, our due, and justified in the presence of so much evil?

With all that would we consider ourselves noble, and kingly?

Or shall we remember the humble, corruptions buried or not in our closets, and the amazing gracious response of God’s forgiveness and renewal to our shtako and uncreating messes, and with gratitude offer that same grace back to a world so hungry for evidence that our accumulated evil will not have the upper hand, that our futures will be bleak on the slide to extinction or worse (survival in unlivable conditions)!

Let us this day choose as if God has made us ‘king’ of our little part of the universe, so unforgotten by most everyone. Let us reflect God’s amazing grace no matter what comes our way.

How about that for a day’s plan, that only God can carry out, and we get to bask in!

Chips Down? (or up?)

Saturday, September 10, 2022

When All Is Burned Up And Goners,

To Whom Shall We Turn?

Daniel 6:11

The conspirators came and found Daniel praying and seeking mercy before his God.

Romans 12:12

Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.

Words of Grace For Today

Lots of things to do when the chips are down, or up for that matter.

Like pray and seek God’s mercy, though like Daniel it may cost more than you can imagine!

Like rejoice in hope, which if the chips are up I would guess that’s a lot easier. I won’t really know. Not much time spent in my life with the chips up.

Like be patient, even if you are suffering. Of course to panic while one suffers is to let the suffering consume one, which has a whole other depth of pain to it, so being patient, calm, and looking for a reasonable way out of the hell-hole one’s been tossed into … well that is really the only thing to do.

So the lions are hungry, the gates are closed, you are their only prey. Best be calm because lions will attack sooner if you trigger their hunting instincts by showing fear. Being calm has a slim chance of communicating to the lions that they’d be better off not attacking at all. It can be done, or at least it is reported to have been done, if by no one else, then by Daniel.

Of course there are many different kinds of real life, metaphorical lions. They’ll kill one as viciously, slowly, and painfully as the African kind.

Which brings us back to prayer. That really is the attitude to take in all matters, chips up or down. Giving thanks for all God’s blessings, chips up or down. Begging for mercy, chips up or down. And asking for guidance to the next day, chips up or down.

There’s always a ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ or two out there. Always a emperor or two (wanna be’s are worse) out there.

That means there is always plenty of opportunity to hope, endure, and pray.

There’s always plenty of reason to give thanks. If for little else, then that every hell-hole comes to an end when it’s filled in. One hopes one is not part of the fill.

Today it’s another 24 hours chocked full of opportunities, challenges, suffering, and blight. Pray for a portion of joy to endure it with gratitude. Then work like the dickens to make things better for everyone.

Heal Us!

Friday, September 9, 2022

What Washes Over Us?

Our Selfish Whims and Desires?

Or

God’s Healing Balm?

Jeremiah 17:14

Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved; for you are my praise.

Mark 2:17

When Jesus heard this, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’

Words of Grace For Today

It’s a good thing Jesus came to call the sinners, or there would be no one to call.

Our sins are so destructive, and so many, and so varied, and many are so hidden (as if there were a secret kept from God!), and so obvious that it is a wonder the world still works at all.

That’s just how it is.

Good thing Jesus came to call sinners, because we’ve got ‘em in spades, right here at home.

Of course it is easier, more comfortable, and seemingly so much more effective to point to others as the real sinners. They of course get our condemnations and shaming and shunning and …

And they get God’s forgiveness, while we spin our self-righteous tales and wheels unable to make any real progress in life.

What is progress in life forgiven by God?

It is to turn from focusing on oneself and one’s life and difficulties, to working to help others live better, but making the world a fairer place. Fairer is that everyone gets to confess, and be healed and renewed, and to be sent out to do the same for others.

So this is today’s task: to receive healing and to offer healing. Simply said, and it’ll take all our lives to work at it. Today is just a small step, hopefully forward in God’s world.

Messengers in the Fray

Thursday September 8, 2022

There is Little to No Order

To How Humans Live;

For That God Sends Angels

to Heal Our Destructive Chaos

and …

Malachi 3:1

See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.

Mark 1:12-13

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Words of Grace For Today

The messenger comes.

But what news does the messenger bring.

Is it a bicycle messenger, quickly able to navigate the congested city streets where cars have clogged the life out of the city centre, bringing a small piece of news that greases the cogs of the economy as some win and most lose?

Is it a military dressed soldier bringing news of a comrade’s falling in service to his family of their loss, always covering up any disgrace or uselessness of such a life lost?

Is it a policeman bringing news of a car accident or other disaster that has claimed the life of a loved one?

No. While these are messengers that make up a real part of life for all too many of us, the messenger that God sends is the prepatory party for God’s own arrival on earth to live as one among us.

This is good news, the best news, better than great economic news, better than an engagement announcement between friends long over due (for us watching from outside their precious relationship.) This is God’s news that God has come to deal with our mess, fix it, heal it, and bring good order to the world once again.

Except that is not the news!

God gives us the freedom to love, and thus the freedom not to love, and that brings all sorts of chaos as we continually choose other than to love creation and all God’s creatures in it.

Jesus comes to demonstrate God’s steadfast attitude towards our chaos and sin: God forgives, heals, and sends us back into the fray, equipped to likewise forgive, heal, and assist people to return to the fray of this chaotic life that we humans are.

That is the best new possible, because our chaos is not going away any time soon. It is the only news that can enable us to carry on, and not succumb completely to the chaos and serve evil in all we do.

And what does Jesus get when he comes: nothing but grief from our chaos in this worlds and the Devil’s great power to seduce us to live other than as God’s own children.

God does not desert him to the Devil’s wiles, anymore than God abandons us to our chaos and sin. God sends angels, messengers again, to tend to Jesus in the wilderness among the wild beasts.

I’m quite sure that the wild beasts and the wilderness and even the Devil himself are no match for the chaos and destructive power of humans that Jesus will face, that we face each day. And eventually it kills Jesus, as we too all one day will die. Then we get to go home to Jesus, where a room is prepared for us, again by angels and messengers.

Until that day, we have the messengers and angels who tend to us in our wildernesses.

As it is today all around.

Thus with God’s own providing for us and protecting us we return to the fray, come what may, unafraid and at peace with God and the world around us.

Singing Amidst the Going to ‘Hell in a Hand Basket’

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Life Throws Lots of

Curve Balls.

God’s Light Still Shines

On Us.

Psalms 84:2

My soul longs, indeed it faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh sing for joy
to the living God.

Matthew 18:20

For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.

Words of Grace For Today

Devastation.

Unjust wars taking foreign lands, causing millions exile and thousands death.

Extreme heat, storms, rains and floods, droughts, earthquakes, and you name the new extremes of climate change.

Illnesses old returning in force, new ones racing through the 7 billion people plus on earth.

Corruption in courts, cops, and councils.

Violence next door and at home.

Lack of housing, clean water, food security, adequate clothing, employment opportunities.

Selfish and destructive strivings, yearnings, and desires.

The world is going to ‘hell in a hand basket’ quickly enough. Why do we have to help it along it’s way so effectively?

How are we to deal with all this?

We need to understand the root causes and work to end or at least mitigate them!

We need to work to mitigate the ‘downstream’ effects on so many lives as much as we can.

We need to get our own ‘houses’ in order, our own hearts, minds, and souls in order, except that is impossible without God cleaning, organizing, and renewing us from the inside out.

This God does through Jesus, the Christ, moving us from thinking we can earn our way forward, to relying wholly on God’s grace each day anew. God heals our weary, embattled souls.

For this we give God thanks, as we gather, knowing God is present with us always, also where we gather. God listens, so we beg and pray for help and healing and resolution and mitigations, and freedom from destruction from without and from within.

Because God not only promises us exactly that healing, but also pours it over us prodigiously each day, we return God thanks in our songs of joy.

The world may be going to hell in a hand basket quickly enough. We do our part to impede this progress as we are able and we trust God that Evil and Hell will not triumph in the end; not in our lifetimes, and not in the time of humans in the universe.

On with the day’s work that promises to be enough or more for the precious time given to us.

Mercy Me, Now Ain’t We All One of Them?!

Tuesday, September 6, 2022

Stumped, Cut Off, Dead:

That’s Us and All Creation,

Until/Unless

God Has Mercy On Us.

Daniel 9:9

To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him,

Luke 15:1

Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.

Words of Grace For Today

We would like to believe that we are good people.

Honesty escapes us when we fall into the trap of not just liking to believe, but actually lying to ourselves and convincing ourselves that we are good people.

God looks down on the devastation that we have collectively brought down on the earth and, seeing into the future, sees a void as bleak as it was before creation. God is angry and sends a dry, life-sucking wind across all we have done, drying it of all water and life and hope, until it is returned to the dust of what it was before we were created.

So it is with all we humans do. We undo the creating that God does. God sees it, and burns it away, back to as it was before we existed.

Thankfully that is not the end of the story of our lives on earth.

God sees us with mercy.

God sees us with mercy, forgives us, and welcomes us in to God’s Kingdom, not because we deserve it, but because God ‘don’t create no junk’ and we are precious to God, every last one of us!

God sees us with mercy and sets the table for us in celebration that we are found, and carried back home.

God sees us with mercy and Jesus sits with us ‘tax collectors and sinners’ at the table.

So it is we get to eat each day, and celebrate with thanks all that is, all that we can do, and all God does through us to welcome in every last lost soul.

Now ain’t we all one of them!

Amazing this Mercy God has for us. It’s not at all what we expect of each other. It is what makes life so precious and wondrous.

Another day, another miracle or a million.