My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.
2 Timothy 1:12
… and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.
Words of Grace For Today
Hold on, the turmoil of the ages will descend on us this day,
again, as it does each day and night.
The question is to what are we going to hold on to in order to ensure the storms do not wash us overboard into the uncreation that the ancients knew the waters to be?
Let us hold on to the only thing that is reliable,
not rope or railing,
not life jackets or security nets,
not investments or assets,
not power and status,
not even relationships and reputation.
We hold on to God’s Word which promises that God will not abandon us no matter what comes our way, neither storm nor good fortune.
We hold on to God, but that is not the grip upon which we rely day and night, for we too easily grow weary, so much sooner as old age weakens our bodies and minds.
We rely on God’s grip on us.
That grip is more powerful than any storm the universe can throw at us, or the grief other sinful beings can conjure up, or even the Devil can weasel into our lives unnoticed.
This is our rock, our refuge, and our hope, come what may.
For the Lord loves justice; he will not forsake his faithful ones. The righteous shall be kept safe for ever, but the children of the wicked shall be cut off.
Luke 20:25
He said to them, ‘Then give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’
Words of Grace For Today
Some end the day with giving thanks. Not that I don’t, it’s just by then I’m ready to pack it in.
Morning on the other hand is a time of wonder and gratitude flowing in so many directions as I notice the little things that are wonders. When people have tried and succeeded somewhat to ruin you, kill you, and exile you, the little things are miracles: starting with that I survived and am still surviving.
So this morning as many mornings I saw these wonders and gave thanks:
the comfort of a camper (instead of living under a tarp, in a tent, or ….)
the wonders of bright morning sunshine in the window, fresh air, relative quiet, birds calling (almost always loons very early on), sometimes the distant white noise of the power generators at the oil installation north of here.
the great time of year: now when the grass does not grow so fast that it needs be cut every week, the gone-ness of wasps, flies, mosquitoes (well some remain until freeze up),
the energy at my disposal (propane, gas, solar, batteries and wood.
the supplies I have (kleenex, paper towels, or toilet paper, I have enough clothes, though I get them dirty too fast it seems, I always have enough cleaning liquids of many kinds since they’re cheap at $tree, and…)
the tools that I can borrow making maintenance and repairs possible,
the machines that I can borrow: a truck that sometimes runs, a mower, …
the building supplies I can afford.
the good food and drink I have available, thanks also to the food bank for so much that are staples and ‘treats’ that are so healthy like yams and strawberries, and then coffee and medications that keep me functioning and living longer, maybe.
technology that keeps me able to write, read, and talk; and take and process and share photos (though it’s getting old and I wonder how long it’ll keep going – isn’t that stupid that such stuff ‘wears out’ so fast! a miracle that the computer and phone have lasted seven and six years!)
and More: the lake and a canoe to traverse it in summer, skis for winter outings, Pallets to walk on to keep my shoes clean around the camp, little things I’ve crafted to make life easier, like paper towel dispensers, shelves of all kinds, a writing desk, a ‘vertical’ mouse pads, freeze-protected water lines….
And always, breakfasts that are a delight: filling cereal, topped by sweet and sour (cold/frozen) berries, drenched in creamy Silk, with bitter hot coffee mellowed by Silk.
And plenty of toothpaste and soap and water to keep me clean – or so, with bum wipes, cloths, and towels.
Everything is covered.
The place only needs the drunk and partying druggies to stay away, the thieves and drug dealers to find elsewhere to ply their trades, and the ornery ones to settle down and notice how good they have it, or not.
And I only need a few dollars to get my own place in which I can retire and from which I can travel and camp around the wonderful places and get a set of camera-lenses-etc for photography and maybe….
So there’s that gratitude and dream to start the day.
How can one start one’s day and not notice the little things and give thanks?
I am a companion of all who fear you, of those who keep your precepts.
Acts 8:30-31
So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ He replied, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’ And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him.
Words of Grace For Today
It is pretty well established that we mimic those we live with and among. So losing weight in a city where the BMI is sky high and obesity a huge matter for the health care system is going to be much tougher than say in Vancouver where it seems everyone takes a 5 km hike before work and on the way home, as well as a 25 km hike on the weekend, or a ski, or a swim (though the strait is not really clean water for that!)
So when we want to lose the weight of sin, degradation of life, and worldly concerns (like material security, status, and domination over others) we would do well to live among those who strive for the same, or better, among those whom God has gifted freedom from sin, degradation of life, and worldly concerns. Those who strive for this on their own, though, strive in vain. And God frees us all, and yet we all remain captive to sin. So where can we live to thrive, and live well, as God created us to live?
Among God’s people. Who are God’s people? God created us all.
The best we can do is keep companions who fear and love God. (Keeping God’s precepts is impossible so those who make such a claim are full of it.)
The best we can do is read and listen to God’s Word, asking for guidance from those who can actually help us comprehend and appropriate what we read. That is not an easy thing to do, nor is it simple to tell who can help us, and who is just full of it, wanting to control others with their whims, BS, and lies.
Ah, what are we to make of it anyway.
Take the visualization above. What can we make of it? The larger the piece of the pie, the more power in this world that country exercises. What of the projection that China will overtake the USA by 2030? That’s just 8 years ahead. What of Tuvalu and so many others like it who have so little in the Global Trade Game? Which does God value more? Which do we value more? Which must we be aware of most?
Tevia’s Rabbi’s prayer comes to mind. God bless the Czar and from us keep him very far. Trouble is with globalization distance is not always a measure of safety.
We can pray that such values as world power, do not play in our lives a great part. So that we can still bend low, serving the outcasts and poor, eating with the least valued, sharing with the most needy.
But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children’s children ….
Revelation 3:3
Remember then what you received and heard; obey it, and repent. If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you.
Words of Grace For Today
There are many things to remember. The longer one lives the more things there are to remember. Even when one is born there is a vast expanse of things to remember, wider, deeper, longer, farther than the universe …
and most of it will not be remembered.
What will be remembered will either of itself be impregnated in one’s mind, burned like a cattle brand, scars too deep to be other than seen for the rest of one’s life because the event was so intense it can be no other.
Or
What is remembered will be chosen and then recited day after day, week after week, and with the repetition deeply ingrained in one’s mind of today as if the yesterday recited happened just a moment ago.
Survival has programmed us to receive as ‘brands’ those negative events of our days, so that we can avoid them in the future and avoid such events or at least deal with them with less risk to ourselves. The positive events slip away more easily. Unless they are so much more intense than negative events or we choose to replay them (recite them), positive events pass like the light of day slipping away as the dark of night takes over.
There are many things out of our ancestors’ past, which we would do well to remember and use as the framework and colour scheme for our lives. We do well to remember the dangers survived, the manner in which dangers are averted or dealt with. The many things we do to survive, like growing and storing food, like building shelters to provide protection from the extremes of climate and predators, like making clothing adequate to guard against the cold, the heat, the bugs, the wet, and the burning sunlight. How many of us remember how to do these things for ourselves in this day when we buy everything already made for us, from shelter, to clothing, to food and drink?
There are many more things, much more important for life, that we can easily forget. These are the things that God has done for our ancestors (and for us before we were born), which in remembering them help us live lives worthy of all that God gives us. Our ancestors remembered God delivering them from slavery in Egypt bringing them across the Red Sea into the Wilderness, providing water and food for their survival there, and then bringing them into the Promised Land across the Jordan River. Our ancestors remembered Jesus’ birth, his ministry of healing and teaching, his undeserved torturous death on a cross, his burial, his rising from the dead to live again, his ascending to heaven, and his promises to be with us always (as the Holy Spirit is) and to return again at the end of time.
In the lives of those who lived when we have lived, our grandparents, parents, siblings and others of our faith communities, and even in our own lives, there are also so many wondrous works of God, and we do well to clearly notice them.
Our responses to such events (from the distant past up to our own yesterdays) are simple: to tell the stories of God’s wondrous works among our ancestors, to confess our sins, to repent of our sins, and to obey Jesus’ command to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, minds, and strength; to love our neighbours as ourselves (even our enemies).
When we begin and end each day with these memories recited and replayed in our minds, then our days begin and end with thanks. We can better live our lives filled with gratitude, fearing and loving God with honour in all we do … except when we don’t, and then we know to ask for forgiveness, instead of ignoring or denying that we have sinned.
Remembering God’s wondrous works gives us life like no other. It gives us life as God intended us to live it. We approach each day, with it’s challenges, successes, and disappointing failures, with a peace and joy that helps us see most clearly how our ancestors dealt with these and how God calls us to live through them to the next moment, ready always to serve others in need, as our Master bends to serve us, even when we are still slaves to sin.
Remembering, reciting and replaying God’s wonders makes for a life lived well. And that no one can steal from us.
“Stephan’s Quintet, a visual grouping of five galaxies, is best known for being prominently featured in the holiday classic film, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Today, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals Stephan’s Quintet in a new light.“
Isaiah 60:1
Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
1 Thessalonians 5:5
For you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness.
Words of Grace For Today
It is in the darkness that we face our deepest fears.
It is also in the deepest darkness of our lives that God makes most clear for us God’s awesome power of love and grace.
Imagine you are far up north, on a clear, dark night.
Look up and around, and drink in the view of the sky, full of stars. These stars that have inspired so many humans to turn history to what it is for us today. Yet …
For all we do to ‘turn history’ to our liking, Forest Gump’s mom said it for us all
‘Life is like a box of Chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get!’
While the darkness may drive fear through our hearts more deadly than any spear or bullet, and while the light may show our failings in all too disastrous a view for all to see, in the end, what we get in life is not as important as what we give in life.
Whether we find ourselves in the brilliant, unforgiving light of day, or in the darkest moments of our lives, Christ’s light shines into our lives, our minds, hearts, and souls, and while that may illuminate our failings all too well, that light also shines grace and forgiveness over all our lives … and it brings us peace.
Look up and around, and drink in the view of the sky, this time though with so few stars. For this night the sky dances with waves of green and blue and purple.
How can we be anything but awestruck! And inspired.
God, once again (as whenever we need to be so inspired) dances the universe for us to see and believe, so that we might live in wonder and awe, willing to serve, guided by what we cannot see, but know only by faith.
Northern lights blazing over lake Thingvellir national park in Iceland
But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Deliverance belongs to the Lord!
1 John 2:17
And the world and its desire are passing away, but those who do the will of God live for ever.
Words of Grace For Today
From the belly of the fish Jonah cries to God and promises ‘what I have vowed I will pay.’
Then the rest of the story of Jonah’s previous resistance to God’s call to enter Nineveh with God’s call to repentance or face destruction. God has planned a great calamity for Nineveh’s near future.
Then the people turn from their evil ways and God changed his mind.
Now that’s something one does not experience every day, as a city that takes 3 days to walk across turns from it’s evil ways, the king ordering everyone to fast and don sackcloth and cry mightily to God and turn from their evil ways. And rarer yet is that the people obey their king, not just in appearances but so that God knows they have turned away.
The real wonder is being able to watch God change his mind.
That gives us hope for the world today.
We are not in the belly of a fish, having resisted God’s call to proclaim the coming end for our city. We are in the belly of angry planet whose environment is imploding in on itself because of our arrogant abuse of the planet’s resources, all for greed and luxury.
Jonah had it kind of unpleasant in the slime in the fishes belly, acidic slime at that, slowly eating at him. The clock ticking.
We sit in luxury and comfort, those of us who control the destruction underway, while others (billions) sit in discomfort and despair as their world fails or rebels around them with floods, droughts, destructive storms, wildfires, earthquakes, heat waves and deepening cold snaps … and melting ice that has been ice for millennia.
The desire of this world, to live in comfort no matter the cost to others is passing away, becoming impossible, backlashing on all the people, not just those in control, those having chosen this path for us all.
The only desire that will remain is the desire to serve God, and follow God’s will. May we be quick about it, or at least quick enough, as Jonah eventually was, that we may be saved.
I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
2 Corinthians 12:10
Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.
Words of Grace For Today
Joshua’s words are a great example why military leaders are not great inspirational speakers: he can command all he likes, but deciding to be strong and courageous, not frightened or dismayed is a whole lot short of actually being, doing, speaking, thinking that way.
The gap is what most humans have trouble with. Filling the gap between deciding to be courageous and being courageous with commands does not work, not at all. In fact I’m not sure if I know one thing that does work.
Paul’s approach is confusing and maybe inspiring. It’s just saying when you are weak you are strong doesn’t say a lot. The rest of Paul’s writing fills it in better. When Paul is weak, his witness to Christ’s strength is most obvious, and in what Christ does for him Paul is strong. Borrowed strength as it were.
Joshua may not give great motivational speeches, but his ending or stated cause for our being courageous carries the day, the year, the millennium and really all time for all life: God is with us.
We can be courageous, not because we are strong, but because Christ is strong, and that strength never wavers. Christ is always with us so we can endure many hardships … and still live joyful lives.
This is a day to thank God, and dance on with a good life … good because God dances with us..
I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, in order that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I forgive you all that you have done, says the Lord God.
2 Corinthians 7:10
For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death.
Words of Grace For Today
God establishes a covenant with us, since ages ago.
God does this so that we may remember all our sins, and then be confounded and shamed into silence, awestruck at what God does for us, forgiving us all our sins.
Does God forgive us our attack on the planet which is responding with extreme weather, in a phrase climate change?
There are numerous people caught in worldly grief for all that we now suffer across the angry planet as a result of our huge contributions to climate change. It does no good. It brings us close to, and into death.
What God provides is a reminder of our true sins, true repentance, and all sorts of ways to change what lays ahead of us in the next decade, in the next half century and all time after (if we survive as a species that long!) God’s promises are trustworthy; those baptized will see their salvation, and be welcomed home to new life after leaving this life on this planet. Salvation is not the question. Our species survival as well as the survival of life on earth are very much in question.
So what shall we do this day?
We shall pray for the Holy Spirit to continue to guide us that what we do will be according to God’s will and love for all people and all creation.
We shall get busy listening to the Holy Spirit, doing what we can to reduce if not remove our carbon footprint from our lives on this good earth, and bringing God’s mercy, love and hope to other people … so that more and more people will listen
Psalm 119:114 You are my hiding-place and my shield; I hope in your word.
Matthew 8:8 The centurion answered, ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed.’
Words of Grace For Today Can we hope at all?
This from the CBC MorningBrief Newsletter yesterday:
Europe is living in a disaster movie. Unprecedented temperatures — 47 C in Portugal over the weekend; nearly 40 C in parts of Britain on Monday — have killed 1,000 people. Roads in France are under threat of literally melting. Rail lines are in danger of buckling. Runways at airports are forced to shut down. Wildfires are spreading across several countries as thousands evacuate their homes. ‘In some southwestern areas, it will be a heat apocalypse,’ meteorologist Francois Gourand told the news agency AFP about the heat wave in France. At one time, this may have sounded like hyperbole, but the fact is every year countries around the world break long-standing temperature records — as was seen in B.C. last year — and then thousands die. All of this should come as a shock to no one. Climatologists have been sounding the alarm for decades, warning of the increasing frequency and intensity of heat waves and droughts. When asked if this type of heat wave comes as a surprise to him, climatologist Michael Mann said in an email: ‘Sadly, not. We have seen a recurring pattern of a very wavy jet stream this summer. That pattern is associated with the extreme events we’re seeing right now in the U.S. and Europe.’ When the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was released in 1990, it addressed the potential increase in heat waves, stating: ‘Some scientists believe that in a warmer climate the earth can be expected to experience more variable weather than now, with a likelihood of more floods and drought, more intense hurricanes or typhoons, and more heat waves.’ There have been four more assessment reports since then, with the language growing stronger and stronger about how the world needs to limit warming to 1.5 C above the pre-industrial average or it will face dire consequences. But those reports aren’t just talking about the future — at roughly 1.2 C of warming right now, we’re already seeing the effects of climate change, particularly in the summer months. The worst part, Mann said, is that climatologists may have underestimated the long-term predictions of heat waves.
Lordy, Lordy, what have we done!!?
It is one thing to hope in God’s Word, and hide under the shield of God, and to call on Jesus to but speak a word and we will be healed, but …
but we’re not listening! We have not worked to change. We have barely begun to speak correctly, sort of acknowledging what we’ve done. It’s harder and harder to find reasonable people who deny that climate change is a result of our own actions as humans on earth … and still it is not impossible to find those crooked-thinker (Querdenkers) in one’s own backyard.
Actually it’s real easy to find those people in my ‘backyard’ since they congregate here for relief from the heat and burn their gratuitous campfires all evening and night, and run their generators for hours and hours each day to supply electricity to their air conditioners, TV’s, microwaves, and who knows what else?
We complain mightily when it climbs above 25⁰ or 30⁰ or heaven helps us 35⁰ during the day and stays above 15⁰ at night. We are hard pressed to find our comfort. Oh, man save us we cry if it gets above 40⁰ and stays there for a few days! Here we are next to a cool lake. What are people able to do in the concrete-paved-over-barely-green-anywhere-tall-buildings cities?
Lordy, Lordy, what have we done!!?
So we cry: Oh, God, can you even save us? Save us now if you can!! Listen though! God has for decades sent us word, word about how we are bringing climate change with it’s new extremes and more ferocious storms each year and how we can stop it. God has sent us clear warning in the past five years of obvious, undeniable new extremes and extreme weather to warn us to stop our CO emissions (along with lots of other fossil-fueled-industrial activities.)
How many of us have really listened and then acted to change our lives? Well now it’s changing our lives, and not for the better. Will we start to change in good ways?
History repeats the answer to that question asked of every generation, ‘What? We don’t understand, so no.’
God help us!
God help us this day to do everything we can to learn what we must do to do our part!
For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?
Luke 10:8-9
Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”
Words of Grace For Today
God has a plan.
The world is crazy with falsehoods, driven into so many corners and minds that many believe them to be truth, which is a danger to the survival of our species.
God has a plan for that, though.
The people hurt, God hurts, and other people are responsible, directly and indirectly, for the hurt and worse for the death of so many people.
God has a plan for that, too!
Our health care systems, as we are so privileged to have, are overrun and ground into near uselessness, by a virus, a pandemic, but most of all by the falsehoods that so many propagate, so much so it is difficult to imagine how this is. The effect is that across the globe the virus is levelling the ‘playing’ field, and our expectations of whether we will live another 5 years or not!
God has a plan for exactly that.
God’s plan is that the workers for God’s Kingdom spread across the globe entering every village and remote place where people live, to eat what is locally provided, to cure the sick, and to proclaim simply that ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ And to bring, share, and leave God’s peace everywhere.
So what is your day going to look like?
God has a plan for that,
and it is that you will be one of the workers for God’s Kingdom, ready or not!
