Day 2891 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Psalm 139:24 NIV

I think we’re afraid. Scratch that. I know we’re afraid.

Afraid of letting go. Afraid of being wrong. Afraid of this violent clash with a truth we’ve long attempted to pretend didn’t exist. I’m certain that fear drives nearly the entirety of all that’s foundational to our ego. And I believe that because we do so much, go to such great lengths to protect our pride and remain convinced of its legitimacy. And all of this conceited effort spent in the attempt to protect our vanity has instilled many deceptions that are in fact offensive to God.

And, granted, every so often we do notice the stumble. We do feel the bounce off of rock bottom. We do notice the errors committed along the path of prideful pursuits. And in those exceedingly rare moments of noticing our fallen nature, we do experience moments of sorrow and regret and shame. But as we discussed yesterday, that sorrow and regret and shame are often a result of how we feel rather than what we’ve done that caused us to feel that way.

That’s the problem with worldly sorrow. It’s largely nothing more than this passing sense of guilt that’s simply not strong enough, or at least not given enough consideration to be able inspire the change necessary to set our lives on a new trajectory. If all we ever do is feel bad for doing stupid things, then I'm afraid that won't accomplish much. And this fact is evidenced by the utter lack of change and alteration that we've witnessed in our lives thus far.

But we don't see it that way, do we? Oftentimes we fall into this assumption that our feeling of guilt and regret and shame is enough to appease God's wrath, not realizing just how selfish that assumption really is. We want Him to agree with us. We want Him to also feel bad for us having to feel bad. In short, we've become so weak that we're all but unable to change, and instead, we simply hope that God will change and compromise with our complacency.

That's a word I'm sure you've noticed me using a lot in these posts, complacency. It's this perfect combination of arrogance and ego and laziness and laxity and self-admiration. It's this idea of being proud of where we've managed to get in life, and choosing to settle for selfishly staying put. Becoming complacent, content, careless about the state of our souls, our lives, our faith is not only common, but it's something that all of us have done.

And sadly, it's something that is becoming all but the goal in life. This whole idea of 'living your best life' comes from this theory that we can determine for ourselves what is 'best' and that we can be selfish enough to focus solely on achieving that personally pleasurable goal. And once we make that our goal and purpose in life, well, everything that speaks against it is immediately ignored.

But, what we fail to see along this path paved with selfish intentions is all the mistakes we're making. When we get it in our minds that we can do no wrong, we just don’t give any consideration to the things we’re doing that are in fact offensive to God. We don’t take the time to consider things from His perspective, all because our own is all we know how to care about.

And as this mindset has become more welcome and encouraged in this place, low and behold but we've found ourselves in a world with almost no willingness to acknowledge God. We've either watched or perhaps even actively participated in the construction of a society in which self is king and therefore Christ is not. We have accepted this idea that we’re the ones who need to be served, and so serving Him, trusting in Him, even believing in Him has become all but impossible.

All we seem to want to do is throw caution to the wind and expect God, if He’s there, which honestly, much of humanity hopes He’s not, to relax His threats of wrath and consequence. We’ve become so self-absorbed that we can’t even consider that something we do may be offensive, wrong, problematic, sinful. We humans have grown so in love with our own image and vanity that we refuse to acknowledge that an authority exists outside our own.

And in that incredibly disheartening truth we find that the counter to complacency is humility. Humility is a sense of modesty, meekness, even mild timidity that allows us the ability to see ourselves in a truer light of who we actually are and affords us the opportunity to grow and improve as we don't have this incessant pride constantly telling us that we can't.

Truth is that humility is in no way commonplace down here. It's not the norm. Not the standard. Not even a trait that many seem to be interested in admitting is possible. Instead, pride and ego and vanity and greed are all celebrated, which means God clearly isn't exactly welcome as His existence contends with this arrogant mindset that much of humanity cannot seem to escape.

But it's not that people can't escape, just that they don't want to. In all honesty, the Gospel serves that very purpose of helping us learn to see beyond ourselves as it helps us learn to see the monsters we've become in all this time spent doing things our way. The Gospel seeks to confront the pride that tells us we're incapable of error by pointing to the fact that our errors cost Jesus His mortal life.

But, I suppose that image is simply foolish to those who are trapped in this lie that's always telling them that they've done no wrong. After all, if none of us have ever messed up, said a dirty word, hurt a brother or sister, harbored hatred, spoke against God, or idolized another object or person, then yeah, why did this Jesus guy die? So I guess that means He didn’t because we obviously haven’t done anything wrong. There you have it: Case closed!

Not so fast!

Fact is that we've all done all of those things. We have gone against God, and that fact is what we define as sin. Sin is an offense to God, which, oddly enough, ought to open our eyes to our penchant for being offended. If humanity is so easily offended by all this petty nonsense, can you imagine how angry and frustrated and saddened God is looking upon this creation He created out of love living as if He's not there. If we’re so quick to become violently irate, can you imagine how God feels seeing the wickedness we manage to ignore and pretend doesn’t exist?

My point is that at some point we have to get over ourselves. We have to stop allowing for this settling we seek, as in all honesty, we only seek it as it brings us comfort in being able to stop trying. We have to come to terms with the fact that God didn't give us these lives for us to arrogantly assume that we know better than He how to live them. So this whole idea of 'living your best life' only serves to further this egotistical idea that tells us we are kings, and that therefore He is not.

And honestly, in all of my openness in recent days about the generally heavy tone of these posts, that may be the most poignant message I seek to get across. God alone is enthroned upon the judgement seat of Heaven. He alone dictates truth. He alone decides eternal fate. He alone has the power and authority to author life and to define the most holy and meaningful way to live it.

I can only imagine how detrimental that all sounds to ears used to hearing this rubbish aimed at encouraging selfishness and patting ourselves on the back for having so exceedingly excelled in achieving it.

What if instead of living to serve self and becoming offended by all that speaks against doing so, we gave more concern to that which offends God? What if we took Jesus off the cross and placed Him upon the throne in our lives rather than leaving Him up there suffering while we continue doing the things that caused His misery? What if we allowed God to tear us apart, break us down, shatter our most lavish dream so that we could see beyond what our eyes can see and our minds can imagine?

So much time and thought and concern in life is given to us and our lives and our wants and our problems and this anger and frustration and disappointment that we just keep believing is coming from nowhere. But the truth is that our unhappiness and discontentment with life is brought about by our raging through this beautiful story trying to rewrite it as we go.

If we were to be honest, we could readily admit that our way hasn't gone very well. Our way hasn't accomplished much. Our way, if anything, has only brought anger and frustration and disappointment found in this realization that we didn't actually know better, but a further delve into our pride that tells us we'll get it next time.

But the more we listen to our pride seeking to validate and justify itself, the less we listen to God and His loving attempts to lead us away from the ledge toward which we are racing. It’s a truly sad state of affairs when our ego has blinded us to the most pure example of love that exists. God’s truth isn’t meant to hurt. In fact, it only hurts because we find comfort in lies. His plans aren’t joyless. They’re simply rooted in a joy not rooted in our arrogance.

Why can we not allow Him the latitude and liberty we so easily offer ourselves? Why can’t we give Him a chance to speak without our conceit getting in the way? Could we simply open our minds to a reality that considers more than what we want?

If we could, I think we’d find a kind of joy, a kind of freedom, a kind of peace that we never knew was possible. If we could find it within ourselves to let God take the lead and do what He needs to do, I think we’d absolutely kick ourselves for having listened to our pride telling us we knew better all those years. Because honestly, as much as we think our way is perfect, He sent His Son to lead the way toward something too beautiful to imagine.

But if we want to ever find that beautiful promise, we need to come to terms with the fact that our way doesn’t lead there. Our way doesn’t work. And as much as it stings to admit that, it’s a pain we need more than we could ever begin to realize. We need our pride to be shattered, our ego to be offended, our dreams leveled and our goals erased. We need to get ourselves out of the way of the Way because only the Way knows the way to where we, should at least, want to be.

The bottom line is that we're not here to find our own way through this world trying to create a life of our own along the way. We have been given a life that we need to learn to stop giving away to things that hold no eternal value. Nearly the entirety of faith consists of unlearning all we've learned so that we can be taught how to do this right from the only One who knows the way.

So let God do His work in you. Let His Word confront the lies you still believe. Let His Son show you the way, after all, He is the Way. He is the truth. And without Him we will never know life. Truth be told, in all our time spent running away from Him in search of our own ideals, we’ve known only death. And our lack of concrete evidence to the contrary proves the matter.

Oh, if we could only realize how wrong we've gotten it. And as much as that may seem like a personal jab or slight, it's just the truth of it all. It's not that we're monsters unable to be saved, but that we continue to allow the monsters we've become to dictate our perception of reality. If we could just stop taking everything so personally and just understand that this is about God, not about us.

These lives will end, and all of our hopes and dreams and goals and plans and passions and offenses and frustrations and angers and doubts and fears and worries will end when they do. What will we be left holding when that time comes? Will it be a crumbling ego we thought would see us through? Or will it be the fringe of His garment that we trusted to save us from ourselves?

Let Him do His work because we need it more than our arrogant eyes can see. And if we ever hope to see inside Heaven’s gates, then we simply can’t settle for this staying put and fighting back and scoffing at His truth that we’ve grown so fond of doing. Truth is that there are many offensive ways in us, and as much as we like to focus on what offends us, we should be far more concerned about offending God.

What’s truly incredible is that He’s offering us a second chance. Despite our clear acceptance of all things that bring death through sin, He’s offering us life. Please don’t let ego or pride or vanity or fear or anything else keep you from accepting that gift of Christ. There won’t be another chance when this one’s gone.

In summation, He's only trying to lead us to the light and joy and hope and peace we've spent years trying to find on our own. And while it will require the dismantling or our pride and the acknowledgement of our errors, we can only find His everlasting promise if we allow Him to seek out the pointless pursuits that only continue keeping us looking in all the wrong places.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold