Day 2623 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Proverbs 1:32 NIV

We've all spent many years running from God. Chasing after all the alluring promises of sinful lies. Buying into the lives of selfish satisfaction and personal gain. Building up these little kingdoms that we can rule and boast in as we show off our possessions and accomplishments to those around us. Seeking social validation and peer approval in order to feel like we matter. An entire lifetime of seeking something that we'll never find down the paths we've been walking.

And yet, we just keep going. We just keep searching. We just keep wandering. Bouncing from one broken promise to the next hollow deception on down this endless line of a life completely void of anything lasting. And then we wonder why we never manage to find joy or happiness that hang around for longer than a day or two before the new wears off, the shine fades, and we're right back to rock bottom looking for another cardboard box to start building up some way to climb out of the pit we've called home for so long.

Don't we see the problem? Can't we see that one step forward and two steps back only leads us further away from where we're trying to go? All of this half-hearted faith, part-time effort, and ever-divided attention brings this comfort of feeling like we're doing something without ever really doing anything. It allows us to believe that we're moving in the right direction, but affords us the ease of not really having to move or take any risks or let go of anything.

Friends, complacency is what got us to the place where we were so broken, so tired, so sick of life that we hit our knees and asked God to save us and lead us to something better because we finally realized that a life spent chasing our ideals down the broken paths of this world would never lead us to anything worth having. But following Christ requires both full surrender and a willingness to change. One of those 'be careful what you ask for' kinds of things.

God will help. He will lead us to something better. He will peel back all the lies we've fallen for and help us get to work clearing it all out so that nothing holds us back from where He's calling us to go. But He won't do it for us. He won't lift our feet and force us to start walking. He won't make all the choices for us because if He did then it wouldn't be our faith. It wouldn't be our choice. It would simply be us being led around without any personal connection, or risk, or reward on part.

We have to move. We have to try. We have to change because if we don't, we'll never find anything different than what we already have. And what we already have is death. The sinful paths we've travelled lead to hell. The lives we've lived are hurtling us toward an eternity of suffering, and yet it doesn't have to be that way. Christ came to offer us a different choice, a different path, a different destination. But we have to make that choice and stop settling for the comfort that complacency offers us.

If we keep wandering away from God then we'll never know His peace. We will never find His plans if we keep running from them to chase other things. We will never reach an eternity in Heaven if we keep building our lives in this world according to the wayward norms of a fallen society. Make no mistake, this verse holds an inescapable truth that we can't outrun or outwit or outwork. Complacency kills. Refusing to change our ways will kill us. It will keep us on a trajectory pointed away from God and away from His purpose for our lives.

It's definitely easier to keep doing as we've always done. But as we've always done is only leading away from everything we've hoped to find. So do we want the ease and comfort of what we already know with the knowledge that it leads to nothing? Or are we willing to get up, turn around, step out in faith, and follow Christ down a new path in a different direction? Different is scary. Change is hard. But if we keep running from them then all we'll ever find is what we have already found. A life of feeling broken, lost, and hopeless.

We asked Christ into our hearts because we wanted better than that. And His path leads to better, but we have to be the ones to walk it. We have to make the choice to embrace the changes that His path require. Expecting different results but continuing to do the same thing over and over again is the definition of insanity. We can’t ask Christ to take the lead if we’re not willing to follow Him. We can’t expect to find a better path if we keep choosing the ones we’ve already seen. We have to do something different if we want something different.

Because if we don’t, then we’ll get to stay all comfortable in our current state of living all the way up until that final grain of sand falls and we’re left with the crushing reality that comfort in our foolishness led us to something that nobody wants, and that we get to enjoy that suffering forever.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold