What’s that Ash Wednesday joke?? “From dust you came and dust you will return. I don’t dust because it could be some of my friends…”

Haha, I do dust, it’s good to be God’s dust and be detailed away, like from a car, cleaned and put in proper order, washed away and free. There is no freedom like God’s freedom. 

Yeah, DUST. My friends, we are made from DUST turned into MUD turned into MARVELOUS.  Marvelous because God calls us beautiful and very good from the very beginning, so much so because we are made in His Image and He calls us His own children. That’s why our inside stuff also is so marvelous: order in organs and sensational systemic systems… and WOW, our circulatory complexity catches and culls critters, and our lungs leverage us into life… Unreal but totally real and we are ready to live because God holds all the parts together… our parts… dust from the rust, grow old gracefully. 

“Wow… that’s some delightful detailed dust you got there!”

What then is the Spirit inside of us? It is, of course, more than simply icing on the cake, it is divine delivered and destined. We hold His Holy Breath in our being. To dust we shall return, but our spirit will be called out to speak, better is one day in His Court than a thousand elsewhere. Our dust will be cleaned in the cloaking cover of the Savior. Jesus Saves and the advocate of His Spirit which indwells us will be freed. Our Judgment Day will be better understood if ahead of time we read THE BOOK (that is not thrown at us), read it now and live it. In the Good Book,  we have the opportunity to see where God keeps all the dusty souls like us: UNDER HIS WING. For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.

The GOOD NEWS for us reads like today’s headlines should: Jesus Saves. 

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… a poem:

Ash Wednesday, are we in disarray?

Let us get our dust ‘DETAILED’ today.

Let Lent lead us prayerfully to His Glorious Easter Day.

Let us broken people go on living best we can, cleaned up in His Way.

Let God say: My house is filled from dusty people because I always loved them anyway.

Love IS the Order of the Day…

Amen 

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Psalm 84 NIV

For the director of music. According to gittith. Of the Sons of Korah. A psalm.

How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord;

my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young—

a place near your altar, Lord Almighty, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you.

Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baka, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.

Hear my prayer, Lord God Almighty; listen to me, God of Jacob. Look on our shield, O God; look with favor on your anointed one.

Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.

Lord Almighty, blessed is the one who trusts in you.