Category: Sunset

No other gods?

Monday, June 20, 2022

God, Above All Else, Reflected in Our Lives,

Gets Tangled in Our ‘Reeds & Weeds’

Exodus 20:3

You shall have no other gods before me.

John 6:68-69

Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’

Words of Grace For Today

It’s all too easy to say, ‘Yes, I have God before all other gods!’ And then run off to serve the requirements and demands of life as we have chosen to put together for ourselves of those promoted or sloughed off on or left for the dregs by this society. Still we choose a life, and it’s demands are ‘other gods’ to us, taking our lives and life energies and time, so that we barely have anything left for God.

But we still say, ‘I have no other gods before God!’

Everyone agrees with us, because they do the same deceptive dance.

This civilization, it can be argued, requires this of us. God will have to make do. So we choose this civilization that is more barbaric behind the scenes, behind closed doors, in dark alleys, and all too often in the open bright of the day for all to see. Then we are aghast at the barbarism displayed. We demand better gun control. We demand better care in senior’s homes. We demand more housing for the homeless. We demand fairer taxes. We demand sanctions against the unwarranted aggressors.

There is nothing we are able to do, because we are not willing to pay the price of eliminating all barbarism, for it would take too much from us.

Which, if the cost would be nuclear bombs going off in North America near cities and military bases, I guess I’m not quite willing to pay that price either (since I live near the biggest air base in Canada).

So how can we honestly, wholeheartedly, say with Peter, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’

How can we honestly and wholeheartedly follow the first commandment, putting God before all else, and not allowing anything else to gain the stature of a god in our lives?

We cannot.

Thank God, God knows this long before we figure it out.

God planned before time for this, too.

God forgives, cleanses, and renews us, and sends us out to tell of God’s great mercy and bountiful grace that saves us again and again from ourselves and all evil … and God gives us the Holy Spirit to guide us so that we can at least strive and somewhat have no other gods before God, and know that only Jesus has the words of eternal life. So we turn again, to Jesus, in prayer begging for forgiveness and life, and in thanks for the promise of life abundant.

Just another day, God watching our every thought, cheering us on to blessed living sharing God’s wonders with all people.

Are we up for it?

The Gift

Sunday, June 19, 2022

It’s not a painting on a dik dik skin.

It is what I have to offer

on my (forced) adventure of a lifetime.

Proverbs 11:24

Some give freely, yet grow all the richer; others withhold what is due, and only suffer want.

Acts 20:35

In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

Words of Grace For Today

Give to the poor?

Keep for one’s own future, security, and dependants or descendants?

Give to get rich?

Hoard to avoid starvation?

Help others a little?

Make it look like one is generous while really being careful to keep enough for oneself and one’s future?

There are all sorts of attitudes to have concerning the poor.

The greatest difference is whether one considers oneself poor. The richest people worry that they are not rich enough, do not have enough, are barely making it, can be wiped out in a day or year. The poorest people can live generously sharing what little they have.

In three small villages in Africa, a place close to my heart, the people were not rich by any standards. Many years ago a wise elder saw how the wet seasons were sometimes sufficient to provide water and growth and food to carry them through the dry season, and sometimes not. That elder had brought his village together and convinced them that they would better survive and even all thrive if through the times of plenty and hard times they would share among all members of the village. For decades the village survived and often had enough to share or trade with neighbouring villages.

A descendent of that wise man grew up not knowing hunger and was able to paint on dik dik skins scenes from their life high on the plateau. She also dreamed. One day she set out to realize her dream. She travelled away from her village for days to ‘see the world.’ She arrived at the ocean, where fishers plied the sea in small outriggers bringing in their catch to feed their families. She befriended one family and offered the small gifts, her paintings, she had brought along on her ‘adventure of a lifetime’.

When she returned she had a greater gift to offer her village. It was such a great gift that she shared it with a neighbouring village, and they shared it with yet one more. The fisher’s family also received this gift and shared it with their village and they shared it with two more villages. The gift was simple: they would come together, all six villages, as one village. Their children would travel to the other villages high on the plateau or down to the sea. Perhaps they would find mates there. The bonds would grow. They would share what gave them joy where they lived and in the other villages. And they would share what they could to feed, clothe and sustain each other in a bond of cooperation.

Now centuries later there are twenty villages, for the people have had more than a few children. These villages are known for miles and miles around. The people are generally happier than others around them. When difficulties arise, they respond more graciously with each other and with the real unsolvable problems of life. And, above all, the children grow up knowing that they will always have enough because they and all the villages together will share among themselves, and even with outsiders, all they have.

The attitude that sets these people apart from their good neighbours is one of gratitude.

This is the gift that the wise elder gave and shared with that one family by the sea, which they shared with their villages and with two more villages.

Today, have we the possibility of sharing this attitude with everyone we encounter?

Why not! Give it a try!

Great Scotch or Wine?

Saturday, June 18, 2022

Like Shadow to the Sun,

Our Needs Point to God’s Generosity

Psalm 107:9

He satisfies the thirsty, and the hungry he fills with good things.

Philippians 4:19

My God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

Words of Grace For Today

To be satisfied.

When one has so much, that may seem to be a cart blanche that will fill one’s every wish, a great fulfillment of whatever one can dream of.

When one has not much, and really not enough, to survive even one day at a time, God’s promise that the thirsty will be satisfied and the hungry will be filled, and not just filled but filled with good things and the promise that God will satisfy our every need … well there just is not better news that anyone could give us. No more going hungry. No more enduring thirst with nothing good to drink. (That’s not a reference to finding a good Scotch, or a good wine. It means good, clean, cool water!)

To be satisfied.

For most of the people in the world, it’s great news!

If you really though that ‘satisfying the thirsty’ meant Jesus provides a good wine or scotch, then this probably is not good news for you at all. Someone is going to help God provide the food and drink, and all that satisfies people’s every need. That probably means those that have more than they need.

So today, for those already with all their needs met, is probably going to be another bad day. But for those of us who need to work just to stay alive another day, God’s promises give us a boost.

Food, Drink, and all our needs. Yes, thank you God!

It’s going to be a rainy, thunderstorm kind of day, so sit safe and work when you can. Just because God promises, doesn’t mean that we are not going to be the ones doing the work to make it happen! Rest for bed at night. Joyful, thankfully onward. There’s lots to be done.

Yeah, Sure!

Thursday, June 16, 2022

You Can Say Whatever You Like,

But That’s a Lake,

As Sure As Covid is

a Serious and Deadly Pandemic.

Exodus 23:25

You shall worship the Lord your God, and I will bless your bread and your water; and I will take sickness away from among you.

Matthew 6:31-32

Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

Words of Grace For Today

Quite sure sickness is rampant among us. Coming out the back end of the Covid pandemic, and it’s not done with us yet by any means, is anyone ready to say that as we worship God our food and bread is blessed and we have all sickness taken away from among us? Covid is simply so contagious that measures to stop it are useless (well not really but people are no longer willing to pay the small price of wearing masks and keeping physical distance and restricting their social interactions to a small group of people so … well so measures are not kept and therefore governments are giving up on keeping them). The greatest sickness is exemplified by the guy who says Covid was a big hoax. Tell that to the families of all the people who died!

I’m sure that if I do not work hard for wood to heat with in the winter, and persist to find money to buy groceries with and show up at the food bank to supplement the ever smaller amount of groceries I can afford, and, and, and … I am sure if I do not strive heftily, I will meet my physical death.

So these passages are difficult to hear.

The truth of the matter is, when we worry about food and water, rather than actually working to ensure we have them, our worry sucks the life right out of us.

The truth of the matter is, sickness will never be wiped out from among us, not completely, and when we either think that it can be and behave like it has been or we ignore that sickness is part of life, we endanger ourselves and so many people around us.

The truth of the matter is that God created the world and said it was good! Hunger, poverty, drought, thirst, illness and death are part and parcel of our being able to choose to either love God or not.

Today is another day of opportunity: to ruin our days with worry and denials of sicknesses and death OR to enjoy our days with thanks for everything God gives us, and appropriate work to secure our daily needs and have enough to share with those without enough, and to live sensibly and cautiously so as to foster our own health and the health of those around us.

What’ll it be today for you?

Majorities and Truth, Not The Same!

Sunday, June 12, 2022

Stand With the Crowd of Liars

or

Stand Small Alone?

Is It Really So Hard a Choice?

…

Is It Really a Choice at All?

Exodus 23:2

You shall not follow a majority in wrongdoing; when you bear witness in a lawsuit, you shall not side with the majority so as to pervert justice.

Ephesians 4:15

But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,

Words of Grace For Today

It is self explanatory that we would only speak the truth.

Life is not that way for so many people.

I cannot say I understand that, for I’ve stood for the truth often against a crowd who all together speak lies and commit crimes, theft, and fraud, and worse in court where all the other witnesses perjured themselves including RCMP members, and worse, the judges themselves lied about what was given in testimony, one even deleting a section in order to make a false conviction.

These things I do not understand. Speaking the truth always seems to me to be a basic, like eating healthy food.

You may get away with lies temporarily but they still hurt you, and eventually they will be exposed to be lies … and then there is nothing left of the liars. So little gained, and eventually everything lost.

So how is it then, that speaking the truth in love we grow up into Christ?

However that is, today is another day, of paying the costs for others lies, and receiving blessing up on blessing from God.

These blessing pour down on us as rain showers coming and going through our days, sometimes overwhelming us, but always sufficient (for we are not in a drought here, nor in a flood, thank God!)

Today, another day of living blessed and grateful for everything, and praying that God will keep people that so easily lie far from us.

24 Hours, Ours Again

Saturday, June 11, 2022

Before the Sun Sets,

What Will We

Be and Do

These Hours of Ours?

Isaiah 2:4

He shall judge between the nations,
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.

Luke 3:14

Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.’

Words of Grace For Today

God chose to make a life for us, a life filled with peace, grace and love for all people.

We’ve turned it into an entirely different thing; it’s cruel, short, and disappointing. Instead of loving all people, we’ve learned to exert our will over others. Conflicts dominate couples, families, churches, cities, countries and the world.

Isaiah has seen it all. Actually Isaiah is more than one person of more than one generation, so ‘he’ has seen it all through multiple generations, from before Israel was conquered and exiled to Bablylon, during the exile when most of the leaders were in Babylon, and when the exiles return to rebuild Israel. Isaiah starts early on with the vision of God’s justice prevailing, so that, even as Israel is under attack by it’s more powerful neighbours, war will not exist any more.

It’s quite the hope-filled vision, one that we can easily claim as our own still today. We are still caught in the turmoil, suffering, and destruction of conflicts. Evil seems to win at every turn, and the best people suffer injustices they do not deserve. Canada, so proud, polite, and reserved as it may have a reputation of being, is no exception. Evil abounds, corruption prevails, the unjust accumulate more and more … and more and more people suffer trying to live on less, many without enough to subsist on.

Jesus comes promising God’s future is now. People want to see that play out in their daily lives. First they want the Roman rulers to give them independence. Then they want the religious leaders to be replaced with truly faithful priests. And they want prosperity for all people.

So we today would still wish for ourselves. The names of rulers and corrupt religious leaders and evil-doers have changed but the ‘game’ of this cruel, short, and disappointing life are pretty much still the same.

Jesus’ promise, though, is not to bring all that to be. Instead, Jesus leads people to a reform that starts within.

For example, there will still be soldiers. The will be just, not corrupted, and be true peace-keepers.

All our roles in life will be similarly reformed from within. Instead of holding our own interests first, we will celebrate God’s blessings by sharing the basics of life with everyone, ensuring that all people more than subsist. All people will live abundant lives, able to share God’s blessings with their neighbours.

Today, how is the Holy Spirit reaching into our lives to reform our hearts to see not the cruel, short, and disappointments of life, but God’s abundant blessings freely showered on us all?

Will we spend today again chasing after ‘our fair share’ of the limited resources of earth and life? OR

Will we remember all we have is free gift from God and be ready and eager to share these blessings with everyone in need?

Today. It’s just 24 hours. Everything happens within 24 hours. Today is ours to do with as we choose. What will we choose to be and do in these hours?

So Many Stages of Anger

Friday, June 10, 2022

Many Things Are Best Left With the Setting Sun

Proverbs 15:1

A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

Ephesians 4:26-27

Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.

Words of Grace For Today

Anger is many things. Actually we use the word anger to mean many different things often not realizing that we are talking about different things. It makes conversations about anger difficult.

Anger can mean 1) the emotion we have when we are hurt by another person. It is not properly anger, but the precursor to anger. We may or may not know by whom, or what it is that hurts. It’s just the hurt is known (or thought to be known) to be caused by another person. Our emotion is the hurt of being done poorly to by another person. This is purely an emotion. It cannot be avoided. If we deny the emotion it will grow on it’s own. We can (sometimes) pause our further response, let the emotion settle (sometimes counting to 90 works, by which time the emotion will subside – if it does not re-fire from a repeat of a hurt, or some replaying of the hurt as if it were real again). When the emotion has settle we are able to rationally choose how to respond to the hurtful event.

If course we can feed the hurt and it will grow into anger proper:

Anger can mean 2) the emotion we allow hurt to develop into when we do not let it settle. This happens in increments. A slight intensification is that we identify who did us the hurt and we focus our hurt back on them as resentment which loops back on us as more hurt, until the hurt is so great it is anger. We are mad or angry at another person.

Anger can mean 3) the emotion of being angry at a person to being obsessed or overwhelmed with the hurt that this particular person has done us. We want to strike back, not that we will or have, but that we want to ‘get even’ as if that would sooth our own hurt. It will not. But that is the illogic of being hurt and letting it grow to overwhelm us so that it ‘needs’ resolution.

Finally anger can mean 4) an emotion that is past anger, more correctly referred to as rage. We become consumed by the irrational need to ‘get even.’ This feeds on itself until we somehow find a release. Out of rage come acts of revenge. Rage is beyond thinking about ‘getting even’ or even thinking. It is the motivation for irrational acts that will damage the other. The problem is all too often we misidentify the person who hurt us in the first place, and secondly no act of revenge can ever relieve our pain. It can only lead to a false sense of self-righteousness about planning and maybe carrying out an unjustifiable act of hurting another person.

This act of revenge can be limited to words, spoken or written, or it can involve physical acts of violence against the other person.

If we allow hurt to grow into anger and anger to intensify, and then to overwhelm us as rage there is little that can be done to stop it. Best is to stop it while we can. It’s not likely we can stop it later on from growing into acts of revenge. We ought not let the sun set on our hurt-anger. It only takes 90 seconds to let that emotion to dissipate.

Out anger, when acted out in acts of revenge start the hurt-angry cycle for others, often not even the person(s) who hurt us in the first place.

Being hurt is not avoidable, but the rest really is.

Words to the wise: Learn to speak soft words to oneself when one is hurt, so that the hurt is taken in stride. Learn to speak soft words to others so that their hurt (whether it really is caused by us or not) does not grow into anger towards us.

Life is full of hurt.

Life has more than it’s fair share of anger coming and going for all of us.

Life can be miserable if we seek revenge as a way to resolve our hurt that has festered into rage.

Rage never brings peace. It creates more hurt in us and in others.

We can choose to wait 90 seconds and then rationally respond to hurt. Best to stop hurt before it grows into anger.

Simple wisdom.

Hard to live.

Every day is an opportunity to practice choosing how we respond until it becomes second nature to let hurt dissipate. That’s the beginning of finding peace with a world that does not seem to want us to know peace

Oh, Were It So Simple …

Thursday, June 9, 2022

By Grace We See Wonders Upon Wonders

Each Day.

By Grace Each Day God Has Mercy on Us.

Genesis 4:7

If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.

Galatians 5:1

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Words of Grace For Today

Ah, were it so simple, that we could just stand firm and not submit to the yoke of slavery (to sin) or that we could do well and be accepted by God!

It is not so. Simple it would be, but if it were so simple we would all be lost forever, so good thing it is not simple that way!

All depends on grace.

God’s freely giving us everything we need for life, and not just subsistence or wealth distracted life, but rather life abundant.

We can only beg.

So we pray each day, God save us, God forgive us, God renew us and restore us, God make us instruments of your love for all creation.

Then we get to work doing all we can, knowing

1. we will fail to always choose to love

2. the Holy Spirit inspire us, and motivate us, and move us to do what God needs us to do

and

3. all will be well.

It’s just another 24 hours of God giving us the free gift of life, love, and hope.

Breathe deeply

and get moving into the day!

Tape Measures and Sewer Content

Monday, June 6, 2022

There is No Tape Measure

for the Truly Marvellous Things in Life.

(or the least marvellous.)

1 Chronicles 28:9

My son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve him with single mind and willing heart; for the Lord searches every mind, and understands every plan and thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will abandon you for ever.

1 John 4:13

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

Words of Grace For Today

Were we to measure our lives by any means dependent upon our own abilities, actions, thoughts, beliefs, intentions, or anything that is of us, we would come up with a fools result.

It’s like using a tape measure to figure out how much sewer the whole city of 2 million produces in a day. The tool is not up to the task of the things measured.

One thing we know is our own records are not far off from the sewer contents when it comes to being something we can boast of before God.

To measure our ‘success’ in life (as God might measure us) we simply need to admit we cannot. The only things we know about God and God’s measure of us is what the Holy Spirit gives us as gift. We cannot measure those gifts either. So we come up empty handed trying to measure our success before God.

We can only trust God (trust made possible by the gift given to us by the Spirit) that God does not forsake us, abandon us, or leave us to stand on our own, now in this life, or ever in eternity. God stands by us, walks with us, suffers with us, and does everything to convince us that all is well, all is well, and all manner of things are well, because (and only because) God is gracious with us.

Of course we would prefer to know that we can serve God with a single mind and a willing heart, and that we can seek and find God. That way we are in control of what happens to us and to the world around us. But that’s not how God created us to live. God designed us to live guided by love, grace, faith and hope; and none of that gives us the ability to judge our own ‘success’ in serving God with a single mind and a single heart. It certainly does not give us the ability to accurately judge others.

We try to judge ourselves and we love to judge others. It gives us a sense of control over our lives, control that is not ours to have.

We are only by grace able to live fully when we are guided by God’s love, faith, and hope. That will fill up any day we wish to give over to them, and then some.

Ready or not: Hang on to your hat, it’s another of God’s days for us.

The Measure

Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Each Day Begins

With God

Having Filled Us

According to

The Measure of Christ.

Psalm 106:4

Remember me, O Lord, when you show favour to your people; help me when you deliver them.

Ephesians 4:7

Each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

Words of Grace For Today

Our hope is always that today, yes finally today, we will be saved, at least me and mine. God teaches us patience through life as we suffer, pray for deliverance, and the suffering continues and increases, until in old age we are more than ready to give up the mortal frame and the suffering that goes with it, to go home where there is no more crying, weeping, death, and suffering.

Until we reach that point we learn to endure.

We learn to pray, if Lord you do not save me today, at least Remember me, O Lord, when you show favour to your people; help me when you deliver them.

We learn to trust that we are given what we need to make it through this day. The suffering may go on, and there is nothing we can do about it. We can learn to live the days we have, grateful for all God gives us. The measure we receive is not exactly what we want (thank God, or it would sink us from all consideration that we might need God, yet alone need to be thankful for life and all that is in it!) The measure we receive is given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

That measure is simple: what does God need to give us so that we will share all we have and are with those who are truly poor and needy.

Ah, that measure.

The measure of self-sacrificial love, not just for the people we think are good, but for the people that are truly evil.

Yes, that measure.

Simple. And so difficult to embrace. Impossible to embrace if we do not first know to be grateful in all things for everything God gives us.

So we pray, teach us, God, to be thankful, and prodigiously generous and gracious with all people.

That’s a full day for any of us.

For that God gives us the full measure, 24 hours, until our last day. For now, we give thanks, and move into the day.