Day 2377 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Proverbs 28:13 NIV

"Men need a long life to know that they ain't right." If there's a line or lyric or quote that better fits what I've been feeling lately than that one I can't think of it! I think just about all of us manage to find our way to this place where we think we're perfect. We develop this amazing ability to convince ourselves that everything we do is okay and that we couldn't possibly get anything wrong. It takes a lot of time to grow past that arrogant stage where we think we're flawless and never mess anything up. And in reality, the kind of humility that it takes to realize just how wrong we've been is something that I don't think some can ever find.

I've been thinking back over the paths that I've taken and the choices that I've made in my life up to this point. And as much as it stings to admit it, I don't think I've gotten much right. To be honest, I don't know that I've really gotten anything right. Somewhere along the line, way back in the day, I just started swerving. I got captivated by the glimmer of the ways of this world and I blindly went all in. The appeal of sin, the validation of social approval, the freedom of doing as we please, the ability to choose our own path and decide for ourselves what we want to focus on and who we want to become. That opportunity to be careless and selfish is custom made to pull us off course and send us careening in a pretty dangerous direction.

And sadly, it never seems to lose its appeal until we're so far gone that we only have the faintest glimmer of who we once were and the higher paths that we could have chosen instead. That hurts. It sucks to realize that our choices have been made for all the wrong reasons. It's a truly miserable thing to be forced to sit and wonder what could have been had we made a different decision or done things just a little bit differently. What might have been better? What opportunities did we miss out on experiencing? What chances will we never get back? What was God trying to lead me toward while I was busy running the other way?

Those are just a few of the questions that start pouring in when we allow ourselves to admit that we've made some mistakes in life. And well, we don't really want to face the regret, the shame, and the sense of embarrassment that comes with having been wrong and having made so many mistakes. So we just avoid it. We run back to the comfort of thinking that we never messed up. We choose to continue believing that we're not all that screwed up and we haven't gotten that much wrong. But as this verse is telling us, choosing to stay in that place where we're convinced that we never get anything wrong destroys any chance at growing or improving.

Thinking that we don't have any flaws or mistakes to address is definitely easier. It's far more comfortable than staring down the barrel of the truth. But friends, always doing what's easy and comfortable will only hinder how far we can go and how much we can accomplish. I could not understand more how painful it is. As I write this I have so many thoughts and questions rolling around my mind that aren't fun to think about. But the only path to progress is the one that requires us to do what's hard and requires effort. If we keep running away from the cold hard truth back to our cozy little hideouts of delusion then we're never going to get anywhere.

As we talked about yesterday, we have to stop letting sin tell us who we are and what we're capable of. Mistakes happen, more than we care to admit. But allowing those mistakes to become good enough because the truth of the matter hurts too much is never going to be okay. It's only going to keep us from something better. So we have to find it in ourselves to be honest. We have to seek out the mistakes, the weaknesses, and the sins in our lives and wash our hands of them. We have to lay them down and walk away so that God can finally lead us to something more.

The hard realization is that we can't go back and fix what we've messed up. We can't take back all the mistakes we've made. But we can stop allowing them to dictate where we go from this day on. We can stop letting them stunt our growth and hold us back from something better. At some point we all come to this place where the truth is inescapable. And that truth is gonna hurt either way. We may as well rip it off and get to the healing part now. We can put it off so that we can avoid the pain, but that will also delay the learning and the wisdom that we gain in the process. There is mercy and healing and a chance for redemption. But it's only found in realizing just how badly we need all of the above.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold