Though the War of 1812 had ended two weeks earlier, news had not yet reach New Orleans and on this day, January 8, 1815, five thousand British soldiers charged in a frontal assault against General Andrew Jackson’s Tennessee and Kentucky sharpshooters. French pirate Jean Lafitte and his men aided the Americans. In just a half-hour, over two thousand British were killed and only 8 Americans. General Jackson wrote: “It appears that the unerring hand of Providence shielded my men from the shower of balls, bombs, and rockets, when every ball and bomb from our guns carried with them a mission of death.”

Federer, B. (2003). American minute. St. Louis, MO.: Amerisearch, Inc.

William J. Federer. American Minute

That the Divine Being should…
be known, not as a distant Providence…
but as God present in the flesh…
amid the deep sorrows…
protracted during centuries…
carried peace into the bosom of humanity.
--- George Bancroft, Secretary of the Navy under President James Polk


Cast all your cares on God;
that anchor holds.
--- Alfred Lord Tennyson

... from here, there and everywhere

16     They will save you from a woman who is a stranger,
from a loose woman with smooth talk,
17     who abandons the ruler she had in her youth
and forgets the covenant of her God.
18     Her house is sinking toward death,
her paths lead to the dead.
19     None who go to her return;
they never regain the path to life.
20     Thus you will walk on the way of good people
and keep to the paths of the righteous.
21     For the upright will live in the land,
the pure-hearted will remain there;
22     but the wicked will be cut off from the land,
the unfaithful rooted out of it.

Stern, D. H. (1998). Complete Jewish Bible-OE
: An English version of the Tanakh (OT) and
B'rit Hadashah (NT) (1st ed.). Clarksville, Md.: Jewish
New Testament Publications.

                Does my sacrifice live?

     And Abraham built an altar … and bound Isaac his son. --- Genesis 22:9.

     This incident is a picture of the blunder we make in thinking that the final thing God wants of us is the sacrifice of death. What God wants is the sacrifice through death which enables us to do what Jesus did, viz., sacrifice our lives. Not ‘I am willing to go to death with Thee,’ but, ‘I am willing to be identified with Thy death so that I may sacrifice my life to God.’ We seem to think that God wants us to give up things! God purified Abraham from this blunder, and the same discipline goes on in our lives. God nowhere tells us to give up things for the sake of giving them up. He tells us to give them up for the sake of the only thing worth having, viz., life with Himself. It is a question of loosening the bands that hinder the life, and immediately those bands are loosened by identification with the death of Jesus, we enter into a relationship with God whereby we can sacrifice our lives to Him.

      It is of no value to God to give Him your life for death. He wants you to be a “living sacrifice,” to let Him have all your powers that have been saved and sanctified through Jesus. This is the thing that is acceptable to God.

Chambers, O. (1993). My Utmost for His Highest

1
  Trees, of course, silent attendants,
  though no more silent than footmen
  at the great table, ministering shadows
  waiting only to be ignored.

  Leaves of glass, full of the year's
  wine, broken repeatedly and
  as repeatedly replaced.
  A garden ventilated by cool

  fountains. Two huge lions
  of stone, rampant at the drive
  gates, intimidating no-one
  but those lately arrived

  and wondering whether they are too early.
  Between hillsides the large house,
  classical and out of place
  in the landscape, as Welsh as

  it is unpronounceable. He
  and she, magnificent both, not least
  in the confidence of their ignorance
  of the insubordination of the future.

2
  Down to two servants now and those
  grown cheeky; unvisited any more

  by the county. The rust of autumn
  outside on the landscape
          and inside in the joints

  of these hangers-on. Time running out
  for them here in the broken hour-glass

  that they live in with its cracked
  windows mirroring a consumptive moon.

  The fish starve in their waters or
  are pilfered from them by
the unpunished trespassers

  from far away. The place leans on itself,
  sags. There is a conspiracy of the ivy

  to bring it down, with no prayers
  going up from the meeting-house
          for its salvation.

3
  The owls' home and the starlings',
  with moss bandaging its deep wounds
  to no purpose, for the wind festers in
  them and the light diagnoses
  impartially the hopelessness
  of its condition. Colonialism
  is a lost cause. Yet the Welsh
  are here, picknicking among the ruins
  on their Corona and potato
  crisps, speaking their language without pride,
  but with no backward look over their shoulder.

The Poems of R.S. Thomas , (Fayettesville: University of Arkansas Press), 1985

     comment

     I am reviewing this again on 1/2/12. On 1/7/11 I wrote I doubt many of us have endured what Job was required to experience, but I wonder if the seeming hopelessness of life doesn’t overtake all of us at one time or another? People and circumstances, events and situations affect us all differently because as much as we are all alike, we are different too. Yours and my historical roots probably connect and disconnect many times through history, but even so we have backgrounds as distinct as our parents, as different as our fingerprints, as unique as our genetic code. For all of our differences I think Job 6:14-21 finds a spot of familiarity in each of us.

     Who cannot remember a time or times when you didn’t feel like Job, even if in fact you were really OK? Right now I am trying to keep those feelings from taking root in me. After all, things can change very quickly. Doesn't God always show up at the last minute? Reading this today I can only smile thinking how faithful, merciful God has been to Lily and me this past year... and ditto today, 1/2/12.

     Some combat these feelings by going shopping, throwing themselves into their work, an unhealthy relationship, something external to themselves. I know from past experience this is a dangerous time. It is a time not to make any life changing decisions. It is a time to be still.

     One of my past spiritual directees told me that in Celebrate Recovery, a program for addicts that more and more churches are getting involed with, they have a word for this kind of time. It is called HALT. It means don't do anything when you are hungry, angry or anxious, lonely or tired.

     Some combat these feelings by going shopping, throwing themselves into their work, an unhealthy relationship, something external to themselves. I know from past experience this is a dangerous time. It is a time not to make any life changing decisions. It is a time to be still.

     I long to be on a long motorcycle ride along the coast right now, with no particular destination, just riding. Just like that bike ride we don’t know what is beyond the next hill or around the next curve because even if we have been this way before, nothing is ever the same as it once was. I know this is a time to be still and trust God. Hasn’t God brought me this far? Isn’t God’s record in my life far better than my own? God is faithful.

     Thank God, as far as I know, I have no friends like Job and my struggles are mostly about processing the uncertainty of 'now', rather than dealing with the horrors Job experienced. I know this is a trust building time for me. I know more than anything … more than anything the desire of God’s heart is that I, you, all of us trust God. ... and today God continues to be faithful still, but in my learning to wait, I am gradually letting go of the anxiety I clutched so tightly last year and the year before. I am slowly, much too slowly for my impatient spirit, moving into a quiet time, a restful time with the Lord ... as my trust grows.

RSAofYAP

     In speaking again after all his friends have addressed him, Job is directing himself to them all collectively, not to Zophar in particular. This speech begins with his comment on their collective wisdom. They have put themselves forward as purveyors of wisdom, but they have had nothing to teach Job.

     For the first time in the book, Job is contemptuous of his friends. Earlier he had expressed his disappointment in them (6:15–21), had even pronounced them disloyal (6:14), and had angrily inveighed against their callousness (6:26–27). But he had not previously accused them of laying exclusive claim to wisdom. That they have not of course done. They have only spoken the conventionalities of wisdom teaching, and though they have occasionally appealed to personal experience (cf. 4:12–19; 5:3, 8, 27), their stance has been typified by Bildad’s encouragement to “question the former generation, apply your mind to the discovery of their fathers, for we ourselves are but of yesterday and know nothing” (8:8–9). They have never represented themselves as the people at whose death wisdom will pass away, the last of their race (a similar charge is made by Aeschylus against Euripides in Aristophanes’ Frogs). But it feels like that to Job, who, with mock seriousness, allows for the moment the truth of this claim: unquestionably ... they must be wholly in the right and he wholly in the wrong.

Clines, D. J. A. (2002). Word Biblical Commentary Vol. 17, Job 1-20 (clines), 617pp : Job 1-20. Word Biblical Commentary (288–298). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.

     The Job who thus suffers is the man who proves in his own person the inadequacy of the doctrine of exact retribution ... He is morally blameless, but also religiously faultless, enjoying reciprocal communion with God, a man who would call upon God and invariably be answered. We have had a glimpse of such a person, from the outside, in 1:5, where Job is pictured in constant petition to God on behalf of his children—petition that evidently met with favor on every day except that fateful day of the divine assembly. Here we are invited into that man’s experience of “calling” and “being answered” as a natural, unfretful, satisfying relation with the divine. But of course that was a former experience; now he is the man whom God has not answered and will not answer. Now Job is a caller without an answerer: “I cry to thee and thou dost not answer me … thou hast turned cruel to me” (30:20–21). Should he “call” to heaven, Eliphaz has warned him, there would be no one to “answer” him with escape from the web of retributive fate (5:1). What he longs for is that he could again approach God and learn what he would answer him (23:5); every speech of his is implicitly a cry to God, an attempt to restitute that dialogue he had enjoyed, and his last speech will be climaxed by the cry, “Let the Almighty answer me” (31:35). If God were to call upon him, he, mere mortal that he is, could not answer God (9:3, 14–16, 32); yet such an ill-matched dialogue would be better than nothing, if only there could be dialogue of some sort again (13:22). Even to wait a whole life long for a “call” from God would be worth it: “all the days of my hard service I would wait … then thou wouldest call, and I would answer thee” (14:15). But as it is, he is in the position of the godless man whose “cry” God does not “hear” (27:9); and even ordinary human and domestic dialogue with Job has been stifled: “I call to my servant but he gives me no answer” (19:16). Heaven and earth alike have become deaf, and Job hears nothing but the echo of his own cries.

Clines, D. J. A. (2002). Word Biblical Commentary Vol. 17, Job 1-20 (clines), 617pp : Job 1-20. Word Biblical Commentary (288–298). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.

     I have talked with many Christ followers  (In recent times the word Christian implies one who says one thing, but lives differently, so I prefer Christ follower)  who say their conversation and their relationship with God was much more tangible then now.

     As we grow older in our faith does God require faith to replace the tangible presence of God? Is life about learning how we will conduct ourselves in God's seeming absence? I wonder.

     Give thanks in all circumstances. --- 1 Thessalonians 5:18.

     Consider the value of thankfulness. (Sermons and Addresses )

     It quells brooding. We are all prone, in certain moods, to complain of our lot. Everyone has at some time or other imagined that he or she has a particularly hard time in this world. It is to be hoped that in other moods we are ashamed of ourselves for such brooding. But how to prevent its recurrence? A valuable help will be the habit of thankfulness to God. Then if a brooding spirit arises, in the middle of some complaining sentence we will suddenly express thankfulness and perhaps laugh at ourselves for the folly of such brooding.

     Thankfulness soothes distress. Those who are greatly afflicted—and not accustomed to be thankful—sometimes find the memory of past joys only an aggravation of present sorrow. It is otherwise with those who have learned to be habitually thankful. For these, the recollection of happier hours is still a comfort.

     Thankfulness helps to allay anxiety. Notice what the apostle says to the Philippians: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God… will guard your hearts and your minds” (Phil. 4:6–7). Notice that we are to prevent anxiety by prayer as to the future with thanksgiving for the past.

     Thankfulness cannot fail to deepen penitence. “God’s kindness leads you toward repentance” (Rom. 2:4). When we are in the habit of thankfully recalling the kindnesses and mercies of our heavenly Father, we perceive more clearly and lament more earnestly the evil of sin against him, and what is more, this will strengthen us to turn from our sins to his blessed service.

     Thankfulness brightens hope. “I love to think on mercies past, And future good implore.” If we have been accustomed to set up milestones of God’s mercy on the path of life, then every glance backward will help us to look forward with more of humble hope.

     Thankfulness strengthens for endurance and exertion. We all know how much more easily and effectively those work who work cheerfully, and the very nutriment of cheerfulness is found in thankfulness as to the past and hope as to the future.
--- John A. Broadus

Wallis, D. (2001). Take Heart: Daily Devotions with the Church's Great Preachers

     Women are tough as nails when it comes to working for Christ, as George Fox realized when he began the Quaker movement in the 1600s. From the beginning, he welcomed women preachers. His first convert was a well-to-do, middle-aged mother named Elizabeth Hooton from Nottingham, England. She soon became the Quakers’ first woman preacher. Her new beliefs landed her in jail, and she was sent to a grim succession of English prisons before being released at age 60. She booked passage to Boston, but when authorities there wouldn’t admit her, she sailed to Virginia and started for New England by foot.

     She was stepping from pan to fire.

     Governor John Endicott demanded the reason for her coming to America. She answered, “To do the will of Him that sent me.” She found herself behind bars again, and over the next several years she was in and out of Boston, and in and out of jail. Even worse, her grandmotherly age didn’t keep her from the whipping post. At Cambridge, she was given ten stripes with a three-stringed whip, knotted at the ends. At Watertown, she was whipped again. At Dedham, she again felt the lash.

     She remained undaunted, and when nearly 70, she said, “The love I bear to the souls of men makes me willing to undergo whatsoever can be inflicted to me.” At length she returned to England and wrote King Charles II saying: Oh that thou would give up thy kingdom to ye Lord, God of heaven and earth, whose it is, and thy strength and power to Jesus Christ, who is King of kings, and then thou wilt be more honorable than ever thou wast.

     The message was not well-received, and in 1671 she boarded ship for the West Indies to do missionary work and to escape further abuse. The ship reached the islands the first week of 1672, but Elizabeth Hooton, the Quakers’ first convert and first woman preacher, had fallen ill. She died on January 8 and was buried in the Jamaican sands like a soldier falling in the line of duty.

     Three times the Romans beat me with a big stick, and once my enemies stoned me. I have been shipwrecked three times, and I even had to spend a night and a day in the sea. During my many travels, I have been in danger from rivers, robbers, my own people, and foreigners. My life has been in danger in cities, in deserts, at sea, and with people who only pretended to be the Lord’s followers.
--- 2 Corinthians 11:24-26.

Morgan, R. J. On This Day 365 Amazing And Inspiring Stories About Saints, Martyrs And Heroes

FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY
YEAR 2

Psalms (Morning) Psalm 146, 147
Psalms (Evening) Psalm 111, 112, 113
Old Testament Genesis 1:1–2:3
New Testament Ephesians 1:3–14
Gospel John 1:29–34

Index of Readings

PSALMS (MORNING)
Psalm 146, 147

1 Praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD, O my soul!
2 I will praise the LORD as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God all my life long.

3 Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortals, in whom there is no help.
4 When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
on that very day their plans perish.

5 Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD their God,
6 who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith forever;
7 who executes justice for the oppressed;
who gives food to the hungry.

The LORD sets the prisoners free;
8 the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.
The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
the LORD loves the righteous.
9 The LORD watches over the strangers;
he upholds the orphan and the widow,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

10 The LORD will reign forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the LORD!

1 Praise the LORD!
How good it is to sing praises to our God;
for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting.
2 The LORD builds up Jerusalem;
he gathers the outcasts of Israel.
3 He heals the brokenhearted,
and binds up their wounds.
4 He determines the number of the stars;
he gives to all of them their names.
5 Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
his understanding is beyond measure.
6 The LORD lifts up the downtrodden;
he casts the wicked to the ground.

7 Sing to the LORD with thanksgiving;
make melody to our God on the lyre.
8 He covers the heavens with clouds,
prepares rain for the earth,
makes grass grow on the hills.
9 He gives to the animals their food,
and to the young ravens when they cry.
10 His delight is not in the strength of the horse,
nor his pleasure in the speed of a runner;
11 but the LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him,
in those who hope in his steadfast love.

12 Praise the LORD, O Jerusalem!
Praise your God, O Zion!
13 For he strengthens the bars of your gates;
he blesses your children within you.
14 He grants peace within your borders;
he fills you with the finest of wheat.
15 He sends out his command to the earth;
his word runs swiftly.
16 He gives snow like wool;
he scatters frost like ashes.
17 He hurls down hail like crumbs—
who can stand before his cold?
18 He sends out his word, and melts them;
he makes his wind blow, and the waters flow.
19 He declares his word to Jacob,
his statutes and ordinances to Israel.
20 He has not dealt thus with any other nation;
they do not know his ordinances.
Praise the LORD!

PSALMS (EVENING)
Psalm 111, 112, 113

1 Praise the LORD!
I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart,
in the company of the upright, in the congregation.
2 Great are the works of the LORD,
studied by all who delight in them.
3 Full of honor and majesty is his work,
and his righteousness endures forever.
4 He has gained renown by his wonderful deeds;
the LORD is gracious and merciful.
5 He provides food for those who fear him;
he is ever mindful of his covenant.
6 He has shown his people the power of his works,
in giving them the heritage of the nations.
7 The works of his hands are faithful and just;
all his precepts are trustworthy.
8 They are established forever and ever,
to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.
9 He sent redemption to his people;
he has commanded his covenant forever.
Holy and awesome is his name.
10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom;
all those who practice it have a good understanding.
His praise endures forever.

1 Praise the LORD!
Happy are those who fear the LORD,
who greatly delight in his commandments.
2 Their descendants will be mighty in the land;
the generation of the upright will be blessed.
3 Wealth and riches are in their houses,
and their righteousness endures forever.
4 They rise in the darkness as a light for the upright;
they are gracious, merciful, and righteous.
5 It is well with those who deal generously and lend,
who conduct their affairs with justice.
6 For the righteous will never be moved;
they will be remembered forever.
7 They are not afraid of evil tidings;
their hearts are firm, secure in the LORD.
8 Their hearts are steady, they will not be afraid;
in the end they will look in triumph on their foes.
9 They have distributed freely, they have given to the poor;
their righteousness endures forever;
their horn is exalted in honor.
10 The wicked see it and are angry;
they gnash their teeth and melt away;
the desire of the wicked comes to nothing.

1 Praise the LORD!
Praise, O servants of the LORD;
praise the name of the LORD.

2 Blessed be the name of the LORD
from this time on and forevermore.
3 From the rising of the sun to its setting
the name of the LORD is to be praised.
4 The LORD is high above all nations,
and his glory above the heavens.

5 Who is like the LORD our God,
who is seated on high,
6 who looks far down
on the heavens and the earth?
7 He raises the poor from the dust,
and lifts the needy from the ash heap,
8 to make them sit with princes,
with the princes of his people.
9 He gives the barren woman a home,
making her the joyous mother of children.
Praise the LORD!

OLD TESTAMENT
Genesis 1:1–2:3

1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

6 And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. 8 God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

9 And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17 God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

20 And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” 21 So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

27 So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” 29 God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

2 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. 2 And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

NEW TESTAMENT
Ephesians 1:3–14

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. 5 He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight 9 he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 11 In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, 12 so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; 14 this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

GOSPEL
John 1:29–34

29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ 31 I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”

The Episcopal Church. Book of Common Prayer Lectionary