Today is Saturday, the 25th of March, 2023, in the fourth week of Lent.
May the peace of Christ overcome all of your struggles today!
Day 23,753
Fifteen days until Resurrection Sunday.
My Wordle score for today:
Wordle 644 3/6*
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Yesterday was a pretty good day. It wasn’t real busy in the computer center, until the last hour or so, when I suddenly encountered a couple of questions that I couldn’t figure out. One patron had some issues with the bullet points in his resume not lining up correctly. I knew there was a trick that I had seen someone do before, but, for the life of me, couldn’t remember how to get there (we’re talking MS Word, here). I tried several things, and finally gave up and got the tech librarian who sits in the back office of the computer center. She, of course, was able to fix it, and I remembered what it was that she had done the last time this came up.
Then another patron was trying to paste something across a Word document that had Excel-like cells in it. It was some kind of form, and she was trying to paste something across all the cells. I couldn’t figure that one out, either, and went and got the librarian again (feeling somewhat awkward for having to bother her again, but I don’t think she minded). In this case, the solution was to create a “snip” of the thing she wanted to paste, making it an image. But there was more to it. We had to then edit the image so it would appear in front of the text, which allowed us to move it up into the location she wanted.
After work, while we ate our Chicken Ranch Crockpot Soup, we watched the last two episodes of Daisy Jones and the Six. That was such a wonderful show! I think they did a most excellent job of it. Sure, they changed a few things, but who doesn’t, right? And the things that they changed didn’t have an impact on the final product. I will say that all three of us, I think, were crying a the end. So if you’re going to watch it, have tissues nearby.
Today is wide open. I have nothing on my agenda, other than a little trombone playing. And some reading. I’m going to order groceries as soon as I finish this. I learned that the Texas Pinball Festival is this weekend, but it’s all the way up in Frisco, and I don’t want to go that far just to play pinball.
TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL AND PRAYERS
The sum of your word is truth; and every one of your righteous ordinances endures forever. (Psalms 119:160 NRSV)
Lord our God, merciful God and almighty Father in heaven, we beseech you, look upon us as your children. For in spite of everything, all of us are allowed to be your children and to praise you for all the good you are doing and for all you still want to do for us. Hear our prayer as we come to you with particular concerns, asking for your will to be done in us, for everything to be carried out according to your good purpose, that we may be joyful even in hard and serious times and may hold fast to what you have promised. Amen.
As a father has compassion for his children, so the LORD has compassion for those who fear him. For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust. (Psalms 103:13-14 NRSV)
Today I am grateful:
- that the Lord remembers that we are dust, and has compassion on us
- that I have been allowed to be a child of God
- for all the good that God has done for us, and all that He still wants to do
- that God always desires to have mercy
- for the beauty of Creation
- that God is love
"This is rest; give rest to the weary; and this is repose" (Isaiah 28:12 NRSV)
Ah Lord GOD! It is you who made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you. (Jeremiah 32:17 NRSV)
O Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. O Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. O, Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world, grant us Your peace. (Agnus Dei)
[Uzziah] did what was right in the sight of the LORD, just as his father Amaziah had done. He set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God; and as long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper.
(2 Chronicles 26:4-5 NRSV)
By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.
(Hebrews 11:3 NRSV)
We know it so well, we’ve embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God. God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us.
(1 John 4:16 MSG)
“God is love.” That may be the first snippet of a Bible verse that I ever learned or memorized. Oh, sure, John 3:16 is right up there, too, probably the most well-known Bible verse out there (with the possible exception of Psalm 23).
But when children are memorizing Bible verses, the shorter, the better. Three words. “God is love.” Three words that hold more truth than all of the doctoral dissertations ever written.
Not only does love come from God, He is love. And since God is love, John tells us, if we abide in that love, “take up permanent residence in a life of love,” we abide in God, and God (love) abides in us.
The frightening aspect of all of this is that there are an awful lot of people out there, claiming to be Christ-followers, who are most definitely not abiding in love.
But you know what? They are not my problem. They are not my concern. I am my problem; I am my concern. I can only control how I live. And it is up to me to abide in love.
Anyone who has read this blog for a minute knows that this is my intent, my goal in life, in recent years. It is the subject that I inevitably keep coming back to. Or, perhaps, that the Holy Spirit keeps leading me back to.
And, while it may not appear that the conglomeration of Scriptures appearing in today’s entry have anything in common, I might disagree with that. Let’s look at them.
In Isaiah, God tells us that in Him is rest and repose. When we dwell in Him, in His love, as John might tell us, we find rest for our weary souls. Jesus told us this, too. Walk in my “easy yoke,” He told us, and you will find rest. When we abide in love, we abide in God, and we find rest.
We see words like “compassion” and “mercy” in today’s verses. This are closely associated with love. And we take comfort in knowing that, because He loves us, He remembers that we are dust. I love that verse. It is not an excuse for my sin. But it reminds me that God is not surprised or shocked by my sin, and, while it is not excusable, it is not the proverbial end of the world, either.
Nor is He angry at me. I believe I have finally, after all these years, been able to accept that as truth. Does God get angry at sin? Most certainly. Does He get angry at us, His children, who have received the salvation of the Cross of Christ? I don’t believe so.
There’s a fifty dollar word for what Christ did for us on the Cross. “Propitiation.” I once heard someone teach that the simplified definition of that word is that it means “God is not angry with us anymore.”
The wrath of God was poured out on Jesus Christ on the Cross. If Jesus Christ took that wrath in our place, then how on earth would it be redirected at us, later??
I’ve strayed from my original topic. God is love. This is truth. In some ways, it is the only truth we need. Maybe that is why it is the first Bible verse I remember memorizing.
God is love. If I make my permanent residence this life of love, then I am successfully living in God, and God in me. Maybe this is why Jesus said that loving God and loving people are the two basic commands that sum up the entire law and prophets.
"Love is the free act supreme. It directs our best intentions and our best abilities to the other. It marshals our best energies into companionship and friendship with a person whom God has singled out for love. The act is not controlled by feelings or circumstances, by prejudices or customs. We are free to love the person who is presented as an enemy, the person who is designated as insignificant, the person who apparently has nothing of interest or worth to me, the person who insists on making himself unpleasant to me. "It is a great freedom to love. It means the freedom to be myself, uniquely, totally, and affirmatively with this other." (Eugene H. Peterson, Traveling Light, quoted in God's Message for Each Day)
Yes, God, You are love, the very embodiment of love. Help me, Lord, to continue to grow in this love, to be able to love that person who “insists on making himself unpleasant to me.” I’ve said before, that I don’t really have any “enemies,” per se. But that doesn’t excuse me to not love people who annoy me. Forgive me for the times that I have not been bothered to show love to people like that. Lower my annoyance factor; help me to allow the Holy Spirit to have more sway over my life, my feelings, my emotions, and my will.
I pray for all who call themselves after the name of Jesus, Lord. I pray for love to emanate from them. Dispel their anger and hatred, Father. Help them to make their permanent residence in love, in You, that they may abide in You and You in them. Let this be true for all of us who claim to follow Your Son.
Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus!
We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.
(1 John 4:19 MSG)
Grace and peace, friends.
Spaces of Beauty, Grace, Prayer, and Mercy 