Forged By Faith

Ecclesiastes 4:6 NIV A piece of peace There are days that come and go in which I simply do not know why but I’ve always inside this hope that somewhere out there is peace as perfect and permanent as it’s supposed to be. And indeed, those days are many in which I find here little if any and you would think that the struggle would eventually wear down that hope and leave only a rather fixed and final disappointment in its place thanks to the way of this place and how things continue to get only harder and heavier and more harrowing, horrific, heartbreaking and hopeless. But it doesn’t. Don’t know how it doesn’t but as of yet, in my almost 39, I’ve yet to have come to find a time in which my mind just finally agreed to let what I see, how I feel inspire me to give up that hope that I still have of a place where I hope hope is and things aren’t bad. A place where waits my piece of peace. Now don’t get me wrong I have little pieces here and there from time to time. There are days in which I...

Proverbs 23:5 NIV A fading fortune For the most part such is what every fortune found upon this ground really is. It’s ours for but a moment. It’s a treasured pleasure felt for a second or maybe two. It’s a comfort which asks that we continue chasing after it. It’s a convenience that demands we keep doing something inconvenient to keep it. It’s an assurance that’s about as sure as time itself, which, granted, seems entirely reassuring seeing as how we’ve been given so much time that time’s always proven to keep on coming. But one day it won’t come anymore. And, well, what will it matter what we have or don’t when we don’t have any more time with which to spend it, see it, watch it, hold it, have it or wish we had? Such a strange thing has befallen we fallen inside this way of life wasted upon that which is lifeless and honestly already ruined. It’s that we can’t see the collapse, the rust, the surrender sold inside all we seek to buy. We don’t care to consider what all is it to which w...

Ecclesiastes 5:11 NIV The empty lives of busy eyes I’ll surprise no one in saying that we live in a world vastly lost within a constant production of new things, of shiny things, of fancy things, of expensive things. Nor then that it’s all of these various things that have come to become the things upon which most of life is based. We all know that we all go in the way of want as I know we’ve all known what it is to want. And indeed, to want is to buy, to have, to hold and all the above demand the eye sees whatever it may be that we come to want and too that both the mind and heart agree to this belief that is this want that we think a need. And that because, to us, there is no difference anymore. There is no separation to be found inside of us between need and want. Rather the two are such constant feelings that are thus, to us, seeming always the same thing seeking the same result that they’re altogether interchangeable. Need is want and our want is to need. We love to need things as...

Ecclesiastes 5:10 NIV The emptiness of everything Compared to some I’ve not lived all that long to have learned enough about enough to know enough to say I know enough. But compared to me I’ve learned a lot through these years I’ve lived, enough in fact to have come to know some things about some things that seem to say the same thing over and over again without regard to the topic or turnout. And that thing that I’ve learned time and again is that no matter what we hold in our hand nor how much more we may wish we could, the fuller our hands get the emptier our lives feel. And I believe that’s on purpose. For indeed, I have had and owned and possessed and prized so many treasures as have been won within this life. I’ve had things worth so very much that it blew me away whenever I eventually chose to sell them off. I’ve had bedroom walls plastered with my favorite things, things that others would like to have, something I know because of it all I’ve sold it most. Sold it all in fact. Y...

1 Timothy 6:10 NIV The wrong wealth For this world’s wrapped well within this wreath that is the grief gained of this grift that is the thrift of the theft of the souls that we’ve sold to he who wishes to have them for as little as we might give them. And the problem with man is that we’ve come to so devalue ourselves inside this endless pursuit to please only the same that we’ve became always willing to hear his dealing as is done in dollars and all which money can buy. And indeed, in this life money can buy a whole lot that does add to a life such ideals as comfort and safety and the assurance of importance and maybe even the appearance of piety. But money cannot buy life as money is but a root from which things grow. And life doesn’t grow. Rather life starts out as it was intended to be and from that point all of us only flee unto these many faiths as are placed in many things that, while perhaps capable of adding unto a life, they cannot add life to life. Indeed, we’re told in Scri...