September 2020 – Page 3

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Sept 10

Thursday, September 10, 2020

Wondrously, Creation Dances

Genesis 9:13

I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

Hebrews 13:9

Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings; for it is well for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by regulations about food, which have not benefited those who observe them.

Words of Grace For Today

Regulations about food. Abstinence from tobacco, or from alcohol, or from dancing, or from Jazz, or from [fill in the piety thing to forego].

These are all ways to try to gain God’s approval.

Foregoing these or anything else, or obligatorily keeping some ritual or habit, are all futile efforts. Nothing we do or do not do can gain us God’s favour. Our place in God’s creation is far lower than that we have such capacity.

More significantly it is superfluous. God already has given us God’s favour. Still we get carried away by all kinds of strange (and yet devilishly familiar) false teachings about our place in God’s creation, as if we were as powerful as God, or more so, even able to be godlets ourselves.

It is the truth that many regulated behaviours have been scientifically good for us at the time and therefore healthy for us to observe. Not all are beneficial. Dancing is actually an activity that if one continues to practice into one’s old age it can help keep one’s mind clear, and one’s body able longer than if one had not. Still many call for avoiding dancing, because it leads to sex, which leads to children. The greater truth is that sex leads to children, which leads to dancing joyously. Whether sex is healthy depends not on dancing, but on one’s choice of partner and how one relates to him/her; which dancing has little to do with.

To remind us how we were and are so sinful and evil that God chose to flood out all life except a sample of each kind along with Noah and his family, and how gracious God is in re-establishing a covenant (an unusual unilateral covenant) with us, beginning with a promise not to flood all life away again.

So that we not forget, which we do so easily as we try to re-invent our relationship with God and creation … So that we do not forget God places a rainbow in the sky.

Light intersects the moisture of rain in the sky, and the prism effect of the moisture paints a bow of all colours across the sky. God continually works to show us how gracious God is.

Instead of abstaining or partaking or striving to achieve God’s favour, God invites us to immerse ourselves in God’s Grace which fills us and overflows all around us.

Grace! Grace is God’s free gift of liking us, of loving us unconditionally (despite the truth that we deserve condemnation), of forgiving us and giving us new chances. Second chances are far too few for God’s attitude towards us. God gives us new chances at life each minute, in each decision.

Grace!

Bask in Grace. It’s like dancing only wondrously better for strengthening one’s heart, soul and mind at all ages.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Sept 09

Wednesday, September 9, 2020

In the Dark

The Light,

God’s Promise Guides Us

Isaiah 47:13-14

You are wearied with your many consultations; let those who study the heavens stand up and save you, those who gaze at the stars and at each new moon predict what shall befall you. See, they are like stubble, the fire consumes them; they cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame. No coal for warming oneself is this, no fire to sit before!

Hebrews 6:18

Through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible that God would prove false, we who have taken refuge might be strongly encouraged to seize the hope set before us.

Words of Grace For Today

The cool of fall has arrived, so that sitting in front of a fire is not merely an evening pleasure for campers, but a necessity for keeping oneself warm.

The fire that God sends the condemned to is no such fire. It is like a raging wildfire that consumes everything in its path. Our human efforts to know the future, in order that we can have the advantage over others are legendary … and futile. Our efforts to destroy others in order to get ahead are also legendary. Destruction we succeed at quite well. Getting ahead is a real failure as well, not that we have not often thought we’ve won and made great headway forward. It is that we make headway toward the Devil and our own condemnation, not that we make headway toward God’s will and design for us, namely that we live sacrificial lives in order that others may live abundantly.

The challenges that the Devil places in our paths seem without end. They obscure our vision of God’s will, our ability to thrive as we give life to others, and our discerning the value of truth in the face of lies that seem to flourish better than Canadian thistle or leafy spurge.

Into a world filled with these challenges we awake each day. God knows this well, for God is with us, Jesus’ name is Emmanuel (God with us). God created us with a spirit to discern Good from Evil, and God knows we so often choose Evil, for others and for ourselves.

So God makes promises for us to know and trust. Land flowing with milk and honey. Descendents greater than the stars in the skies. A Saviour for all people of every age that we can live freed from our bondage to sin, so that we can imitate the Christ in our daily lives, forgiving others their sins.

God guarantees these promises by the greatest authority of all, God’s own.

In this we can live, trusting our very lives to God’s promises and God’s living Word.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Sept 8

Tuesday, September 8, 2020

Tilted Log,

Tilted Water,

Tilted World.

Not the end, like an arcade game, tilted, cheated.

God gives us all another chance to make it right, now.

Ezekiel 20:44

You shall know that I am the Lord, when I deal with you for my name’s sake, not according to your evil ways or corrupt deeds, O house of Israel, says the Lord God.

Luke 6:35

Love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.

Words of Grace For Today

In a country, powerful and wealthy, rich in precious resources, a country known for it’s open spaces and opportunities … for those who had the power and wealth (at the expense of everyone else) … In this marvellous country those with power and wealth constructed history from fiction, leaving truth behind, leaving all human rights aside, as they dealt with those not of their kind.

Inexplicable deaths, inexplicable disappearances, people suddenly relocating far afield, and never anyone of the wealthy and powerful were held to account for how they killed, forced disappearances, and terrorized people until they, if they were quick enough, moved as far away as possible.

Police and Courts enabled this with arrests and convictions of innocent people for things that never happened. More often though it was the blind eye they turned to the deaths, disappearances and carloads of people moving away under cover of night, leaving their property and wealth to be assumed by the already powerful and wealthy.

With cries for justice for their own kind, raped, murdered, disappeared (horrendous as these atrocities are) the powerful and wealthy ignore that more than four times as many people not of their kind die of violence, physical and psychological leading to suicides unspeakable in number. Even more are maimed, disappeared, or forced to flea for their lives.

Leaders, from among those who used to rule, not so justly either, rise up. With protests for justice, peaceful in organization and perverted by agents of the wealthy and powerful into riots, these new leaders manage (despite the violence wrought amongst them by their enemies) peacefully gain the power, though they do not have the wealth. Two leaders among the new take primary positions.

Unlike the leaders of previous times, recent and far past, they follow Madiba and Tutu’s lead. Instead of assuming the same injustices against others and for themselves, they offer something new, forgiveness. Forgiveness for all the previous leaders of the once powerful and wealthy. To receive forgiveness and amnesty a person only needs to appear in public and tell the truth of what they have done, the whole truth.

In the new powerful previous leaders from among the women are welcome, even encouraged to work to build a just and fair country, so that regardless of gender or previous position, one is valued for what one can offer for the new country.

The new leaders have taken to heart, head and hands Jesus’ command to love even one’s enemies. They have understood well that we shall know that ‘I am’ is the Lord, when God deal with all people for God’s name’s sake, not according to our evil ways or corrupt deeds.

This country is our country, your country, the country of the present as it moves into some time of the future. This country is God’s Kingdom, here on earth.

Let all with ears, hear; with minds, listen; with hearts, wisely understand; with blessings, forgive. For God will come to judge … and shock us all with Grace … even today.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Sept 7

Monday, September 7, 2020

Tire and Robin

I’m tire-d

But by Grace Alone I see God all around.

Sing for Joy, even if you are tired!

Jeremiah 32:19

Great in counsel and mighty in deed; whose eyes are open to all the ways of mortals, rewarding all according to their ways and according to the fruit of their doings.

1 Timothy 4:10

To this end we toil and struggle, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all people, especially of those who believe.

Words of Grace For Today

I’m tired. Tired of being Gaslit, by people I do not know, people I’ve known intimately, people who claimed to have loved me, people who I’ve loved, people who’ve corrupted their authority to protect and serve, people who are supposed to be religious leaders, people entrusted to exercise the law to provide justice based on truth.

I’m tired. I’m tired because it’s a whole lot of work to stay alive each day, and I’m getting old, worn and weary.

I’m tired.

I’m tired of people (without masks or shields or any protection for them or me, or without any brains about how Covid 19 kills old people and young people as well) trying to push me (yes literally push me) aside to walk past me while I’m shopping. Or people breathing at me from a foot or two telling me it’s ok that ‘I’m so close’ to them when they walked right up behind me and I have to turn around because a lift blocks the aisle ahead.

I’m tired of people lying, begin stupid, and trying to kill me, intentionally or stupidly out of ignorance.

I’m tired of people lying to steal everything I have and then trying to steal even more than the courts have lied to give to them from money that is really not mine to access, or that they really should not have access to either.

I’m tired.

Perhaps you are tired, too, of things similar, or of different Evil worked against you and people you know and care about.

Or perhaps you are not tired at all, since you have everything that you need for life, and your energetic work is about accumulating more wealth and privilege at others’ expense, so that you can get ahead in life.

For us all we read today: [God knows all and rules everywhere, and judges everyone,] rewarding all according to their ways and according to the fruit of their doings.

Yes, we can say. May it be so.

Finally Justice based on real truth for everyone! Especially those who’ve dealt with me as if I were a completely different person than I am. Justice. Let it be done, and soon!!

So we can wish. Unless we look at the sins we’ve committed to separate us from God – which are NOT what people Gaslight me or you perhaps, saying I have done. Sins that allow words that are unkind to be spoken, selfish acts to be done, and selfless acts to be undone.

Then we may be more humble, resting in God’s Grace given to us, trusting God’s wisdom not to be so simplistically applied to all, but with Grace first.

Still for those who corrupt justice, who seek to destroy others for no good reason other than the joy of the destruction, can we not hope that God’s Justice may reflect what they have done already?

So we pray: God save us, save us all from Evil. Help us each day to toil and struggle, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all people.

I’m tired of it all, Doch God help me rest in you, in your justice and grace.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Sept 6

Sunday, September 6, 2020

Bark attack.

Attacked by Humans.

Evil’s Bite is worse than it’s Bite.

Psalm 121:7

The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.

Revelation 2:8-9

[To the corrupt leaders:]I know your affliction and your poverty, even though you are rich. I know the slander on the part of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.

Words of Grace For Today

Real people are vessels of real evil.

Of that there is no doubt.

People who are rich, are afflicted and actually poor in truth, poor in spirit, poor in life. They claim to be God’s people, and serve only Satan.

From these people, the Evil they work with lies (pretending to be good), and the Evil One they serve … from all these God promises to protect us, to protect our lives.

This protection is not that we are separated so far from Evil and people that work it that we never suffer Evil’s destruction. God’s promise is to always be with us, not to abandon us, and not to allow Evil to extract from us life itself.

Baptized we enter eternal life already during our time on earth.

Wonders of wonders, that nothing can take from us. We can surrender it, though God protects us from even that.

Wonders of wonders, we live, even in the face of corrupt, destructive, and unresting Evil worked against us.

There is much to celebrate each and every day.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Sept 5

Saturday, September 5, 2020

Ice and Floods

Heat and Drought

Nothing compares to the Evil humans inflict on others.

Isaiah 25:4

You have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat, when the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm.

Revelation 2:8-9

May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Words of Grace For Today

Since Jesus’ record replaces ours, since our baptisms we have known and been able to trust even in the most horrific and trying times that our record before God will be sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Not even the miracles of God (or so we say) can (other than by replacing ours with Jesus’ record) keep our spirit and soul and body sound and blameless at all. We have and keep free choice, which in exercising we continually sin, i.e. we are hardly sound and blameless.

The question is not if we can be sinless. If it were no one would be acceptable to God, and the Kingdom of God would be empty forever.

The question, after God favours us and blesses us, what are we going to do with this ultimate favour and blessing?

Then we may pray earnestly that it can be said of us that when the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm, then we have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat.

There is no shortage today of the blast of the ruthless. Now is the time to act. It is the time to be the refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needing in their distress, and a shelter from all that comes, whether it is the vicious rain, hail, snow and windstorms of climate change (the ‘new normal this year is last year’s extreme weather‘), or the blistering heat, wind and locust of drought, or the flooding of rain that will not let up.

The real blast, as in every generation, comes not from nature, not even pandemics like Covid 19. The real blast comes from ruthless and evil people, possessed by the empty promises of the Devil. The two legged wild animals bring more disaster to more people, more quickly than any new weather storm.

The dangerous ones are those who say there is no danger. They claim with words and/or actions: There is no more Covid19. It’s back to normal. We’re done with Covid 19. There is none here. They likely will not die or be maimed by Covid 19 or any other real danger. They will be oblivious to the loss of life around them, unless it invades their own home, and some even then pay it no heed.

May God protect us. We may wish that we can be sound and blameless, but that is the first step to ignoring our place, station, calling and weaknesses as the two legged children of God that Jesus calls us to be.

We still wish for what is not possible, and then we pray: May God protect us. May God protect you.

Before it is too late.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Sept 3

Thursday, September 3, 2020

Red Sunset

Beauty

Like Joy, Kindness, and Forgiveness,

It’s always there for us.

Proverbs 12:25

Anxiety weighs down the human heart, but a good word cheers it up.

Ephesians 4:32

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

Words of Grace For Today

The obvious is obvious. Anxiety is a weight on the human heart. Good words cheer the heart and lighten it.

Life is easier and more wonderful for those who are kind to one another, tender-hearted, and forgiving of one another.

We can only be kind, tender-hearted and forgiving because God has first forgiven us.

The question is, can we simply choose to be cheery with good words, instead of anxious? Can we be kind, tender-hearted, and forgiving by simply choosing to so be?

Were it so simple.

Like wishing that the rain would come in time of drought, or cease in time of flood, our wishing can hardly change reality.

Except, forgiving others and accepting forgiveness from them, certainly does change our lives, and for the better. Forgiving is something we can choose to do. It is not a mysterious thing to do. We simply give the person we are forgiving all treatment and response just as before the offence. Then we simply give that person a gift, something the person actually desires. Giving changes our heart, and our minds, and we become the one who has forgiven.

Not a mystery at all.

It is a thing we can do: to choose to do the things of forgiveness.

There is so much that we allow to get in the way.

Of course when we do not forgive, then our hearts harden and hate festers and we destroy more than the sin that we are offended by.

The devil does easily run amok in us, if we do not actively choose to be forgivers.

That choice though is still impossible for us, unless we confess our own sins and accept God’s precious and expensive forgiveness for our sins.

When we have confessed our desperate need to be forgiven and God’s generosity in forgiving us, then forgiving others flows with ease from us.

It is then rather simple, if one is humble, and impossible if one is proud.

Which shall we be found to be this day?

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Sept 2

Wednesday, September 2, 2020

Small part of creation?

Are we like the bark, the reed, or one of the shells?

We are like a grain of sand

Psalm 148:3.5

Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars! Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens! Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created.

Revelation 4:11

You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.

Words of Grace For Today

I heard a repeat sermon, one of the joy of a city boy climbing a mountain with friends, and experiencing for the first time the wonders of creation.

Those of us who have lived outdoors more of our lives than in, who have engaged with creation for generation upon generation*, who have climbed mountains since we were able, having grown up with the likes of Mount Kilimanjaro and the Great Rift Valley as a common enough background for family vacations (actually they were visits to other missionary families in Tanganyika, before it’s independence and merger with Zanzibar to become Tanzania) have known in our bones that God’s creation is marvellous.

*It turns out that at my father’s 90th birthday celebration now a few years ago, a cousin included in her presentation that the men in our family have sought out the wilds of creation, mountains, forests, and lakes for as many generations as we can trace back our family roots in Sweden and Norway, across Minnesota, and into western Canada. We’ve got good Viking blood that draws us to engage with creation as part of our daily living. Grampa Sam moved to live on a lake in the woods in Northern Minnesota (actually central, but like Alberta it’s the perspective that is used as a reference, not the geographical reality.) My father bought a farm 10 miles out of town back when that was a 9 miles from any acreage, loved to farm when he came home from his medical practice, and took us into the woods for vacations most every year. One of my brothers and his son live in the wilds of Alaska, loving every minute of it. Uncle Sam worked for the telephone company, spending work and vacation time outdoors. He loved to hunt, fish, and camp. Retirement was a pickup truck with a camper on it, a fishing rod and rifle, Aunt June (who was also at home in the wilds), and a prayer of thanks. His sons, my cousins, have continued that tradition.

First time or a very familiar experience, one stands bolderdashed in wonder, when one stops to think about how God, with a Word, created such a wondrous creation. First time or a very familiar experience, one stands tiny and humbled by one’s place in that creation, as if an ant before a cedar tree 12 feet in diameter and more than 200 feet tall.

(If you, like that preacher, honestly have never encountered the wonders of creation in the wilds, take that opportunity if it comes your way; you will not be sorry, hopefully.)

To think that God even knows of us, or bothers with us in all that splendour. More that

How can we respond other than to thank God with praise and honour … and to honour creation with the best care we can manage … before we kill it.

Creator of heaven and earth + tiny creatures = awe, praise, and honour.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Sept 1

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Bush, Weeds and Wonder,

What Do We See?

Isaiah 11:10

On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.

Mark 1:10-11

Just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

Words of Grace For Today

With the restrictions of Covid 19, sufficient to ‘flatten the curve’ but not stop it in it’s tracks, we have seen again and again that so much is dependent upon trust, reputation, and people’s reputations. So much of what seems to be significant is determined by what people think of you, or of someone else.

If we trust the chief medical officers, and/or the scientists, and/or the polititians, and/or the news reporters and internet writers … IF we TRUST then we listen and follow the ‘sensible’ recommendations/demands they make on us. The minute we hear that the any of these people are not trustworthy (and we hear it so often, sometimes with great justification!) then we stop listening, stop understanding, and stop complying … and fools that we can be, we often then stop doing what we ourselves know is best. We stop keeping physical distance and wearing masks and shields and washing/sanitizing our hands. The whole effort to flatten the curve collapses and the bodies start piling up. Real consequences for not listening and complying!

God wants us to listen … so to whom do we listen?

The root of Jesse will become, on that day (so it is not now), a signal for the people and people will seek him out.

Jesus is not just baptized. God’s voice comes from the heavens, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

These are written for us to read so that we might know to whom God would have us listen.

God would have us listen to the root of Jesse, Jesus, God’s own Son.

Listening to Jesus, gives us plenty of direction: love one another. With that we know we ought to help protect everyone from Covid 19. That’s a small part of loving others.

Wearing masks, shields, keeping physical distance, hand washing and sanitizing … and whatever else the scientists and chief medical officers recommend to us IS what we will DO, out of love.

Then for every in person visit we cannot make, we make a gracious, caring phone call. For every handshake we deny, we extend a warm, empathetic word. For every hug we cannot give, we extend words of clear, simple, unconditional love.

We can become more empathetic as a people, more caring, and more loving. Covid 19 is an opportunity for us to learn how … to listen to God and to those God sends to guide us forward.