Day 2922 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Galatians 6:14 NIV

For eight years I've sat down every day to try and capture the thoughts and ideas and truths held within the many lessons of Scripture. I’ve scratched out these seemingly schizophrenic musings on cell phones from hospital beds and on a laptop sitting on a shoebox in my bedroom closet. I’ve tried to find the words that needed to be shared while hooked up to IV’s and while hurtling down the interstate.

I've gotten many things wrong, taken some passages out of context, and failed to do many if not most of them any justice whatsoever. I’ve read and reread, rewritten and sometimes simply erased entire ideas as I knew they were nowhere close to hitting the mark. And I’ve pressed submit praying that they had all gotten close enough to count for something. I’ve proofread to the best of my ability to try and ensure accuracy, and I’ve also failed to perfect the tones and temperaments as I’ve come to acknowledge that perfection is only a passing ideal that only tends to detract from the passion involved in any undertaking.

I’ve meant every word I’ve said and sadly not said every word I meant. I’ve likely hurt feelings but know that I’ve hurt none no more than my own as I’ve found a disheveled hypocrisy that I couldn’t have imagined harboring inside. I’ve failed to practice what I preach, and continue trying to preach what I’m trying to practice. I’ve fallen short of expectations only to find new ones that I hope I can somehow fulfill someday.

I've had moments of doubt as to why I feel worthy of doing this every day. I've found myself asking questions and pondering mindsets that seem altogether foreign and yet strangely familiar. I've experienced moments of rereading things I've written and wondering where they came from as they so clearly came not from a simpleton like myself. I've asked questions of readers only to end up with more of my own that I've grappled with.

I’ve had moments excitedly thinking about milestones surpassed along this daily jaunt, and I’ve realized more and more with each passing day that the numbers and milestones don’t matter so much after all. I've had times of excitement at the random hope that I'm actually doing something of some worth that may potentially help someone someday. And then I've had periods of wondering if I was actually accomplishing anything at all.

But be it the perfectly imperfect undertaking it’s obviously become, I’ve found this to be an outlet for this hope I continue finding as it reveals itself in new ways as life goes on ahead into the parts of our stories we’ve not yet read.

Because through every post and every sentence and every thought and question and worry and doubt and wondering and wandering, I've stumbled upon what can only be described as a life I never knew I always needed to live while I still have a little while left to live it. I've realized that my time here is best spent not worrying about my time here but in striving to think of more than simply myself.

I’ve finally begun to come to embrace the fact that nothing I do nor fail to do just right has, can, or will ever change the love displayed upon the cross by the One who CHOSE to hang there for me. Because in that choice He that didn’t have to choose, He accomplished everything we’ll ever need to be everything we don’t deserve to be or have or hope to find.

Throughout these many posts and many days and many ideas, I've found one central and foundational truth that remains warmly inescapable and that is that our identity isn't tied to what we do or how well we do it. Our worth isn't defined by our possessions nor our lack of worldly worth. Our value isn't tied to what we can offer or construct. Our lives are in fact not our own, just as we're reminded of in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20.

No, our entire existence is only contingent upon the life given upon a cross by a Savior who simply had no reason to give such a gift to such a people as us. Our identity was founded in the heart of God long before we came to be. And our story was written in all of its perfection by the hand of the One we've wrestled with and fled from and prayed for and clung to and hoped in and debated with over the course of all these years we've been down here in a world sadly apart from Him.

When I started off down this road of refusing to stop talking about the Bible and all that I've found within it, I had no idea what God knew all along: That in this I would find the closest thing to the meaning of life that I've ever discovered. It's not the brash independence that I had way back all those many years ago. It's not the slightly selfish perspectives that once defined my outlook on life. It's not even the hope of what may or may not come of the few dreams that I've managed to hold onto while watching the rest fizzle and fade.

No, what I've found is that every life owes a death and that because of that promise, true life can only be found through death. And that my friends is the beautiful gift that we received from a Savior who chose to die that we might find life through His sacrifice.

And even as I sit here for the 2922nd time typing out this daily effort to describe the indescribable, I can't help but wonder how and why we continue to miss this most incredible opportunity we've been given to simply let go of it all. All of the dreams confined to a life that's only temporary. All of the hopes held in captivity by the abilities we know we don't have and may never find. All of the treasures and temptations to trade away our eternal peace for passing prosperity. All of the false joys and empty promises and hollow ideals and harmful ideologies that only serve as comforting distractions from the hard work and radical change that is demanded by the process of growing our faith.

I think that our world finds a sad dejection in this idea of losing. It's a common fear to be considered a loner, a loser, an outsider. It's terribly avoided this idea of laying it all down for the sake of someone else, someplace else. It's entirely alien for this humanity to contemplate humility let alone actually consider the call to surrender. Instead, many still sadly hold to this idea that there's something to be found in this place.

But the more I've studied and thought and attempted to rationalize this faith of ours, I now find myself more of the mindset that when all is lost then all is left to gain. It's only when we lay it all down that we finally have room to take hold of something much better. And it's truly only when we finally die to this world that we can even begin to consider the promise of our home in another.

I believe that this faith of ours found in and founded on following Christ takes us to perspectives that are entirely impossible as they lie well beyond the comforts that we've grown so terribly fond of having around. This path leads us into the desert, running violently against the grain of a society rushing into the furthering of a societal structure not at all interested in building anything other than castles made of sand. And in that strife we find bits and pieces of who we were being sanded away, slowly beginning to reveal inside who we were always meant to be anyway.

He leads us away from everything that everyone else is running toward by teaching us that He has more than whatever everyone else thinks this world holds. And in that I've grown to find the most joyous hope and excited expectancy as I can't bring myself to want the world anymore. Not that I now know in my heart that another home exists where all the worldliness of this world doesn't exist and isn't welcome.

I think what excites the most is the promise that we'll be able to find courage we never knew we had along this journey into the unknowns of faith. There's still so much to learn and let go and that promise promises that we'll grow in ways that we never knew we needed to. There's just something about this idea of leaving behind everything for what seems to be only a very distant hope. The fact that it all sounds so crazy to those on the outside looking to stay outside just brings a smile and a chuckle and a furthering of that excitement to be among the few that travel the narrow road home.

If we could only see what He has in store for us on the other side of our final breath, I believe we would welcome its coming rather than living in fear that its arrival only spells the end of our enjoyment of the only life we've ever known.

And friends, at this point that's what I truly hope to get across in all of these frenzied and insufficient posts: That the only life we've ever known is undeniably limited by if nothing else time and space, but that the promises we've been given through the One who bore our cross open up for us a reality not hindered by neither time nor space nor any other restraint to which we've grown accustomed.

No, we have the promise of life unending that is filled with joy unspeakable and peace undeniable and hope unchangeable. We have the promise of forever in the presence of a love that this world can't offer and the grave can't contain. We have the promise of the chance to shake all of this mundanity off of our souls forever in exchange for a glory we can only attempt to try to imagine.

There is no dream, no goal, no plan or priority or personally prized perspective that can come anywhere close to offering what we've been given in Christ. There is no worldly accomplishment or accolade or amount of acceptance that can achieve for us what He did upon that cross. There is no trinket or trophy or talisman that can defeat death or bring life or buy our ticket to Paradise.

In short, there is truly nothing to boast about in this life that's worth boasting about. As I said, and as I continue to believe more strongly with each passing day, our identity is not found in what we have or what we do or what we lose or who hates us or who appreciates us. Our identity, our worth, our value, our everything is found in Christ and defined by what He did for us on that cross.

Because with just a couple pieces of rugged wood and some rusty nails, He purchased our forgiveness, set us right in our Father’s eyes, and became the Holy Spirit that now dwells within leading us home every step of this twisting and trying journey that we know deep down we could never make on our own without getting lost or giving up.

And so, just as Paul writes it here in Galatians in what has become one of my absolute favorite messages: May we never boast in anything other than the cross of Jesus Christ through which we have been given the promise of life that not even death can take away. May we never boast in anything we gain because as long as we've gained an unrelenting faith in our Savior, there's nothing more to be gained. May we never boast about what we've done or accomplished or achieved as nothing we do can do or undo what He's done for us.

Through His gift and the cross that helped Him give it, we too have the chance to share in His death, His burial, and His resurrection to a new life. We have the chance to die to this world, to bury our selfish ways, and to rise again into a new perspective that now has room to consider eternity whereas before all we could ever imagine was sad reality tied to a world that we won't be in forever.

All of the priorities and pursuits that are commonplace among mankind pale in comparison to the opportunity to not be seen, not be heard, not be known, but to live this life to try and help people see the truth, heard the Gospel, and come to know Christ as their Savior. All that matters is Him and our chance at building a relationship with Him. Because be it today or 50 years from now, all of this other stuff that so many are so worried about will be gone.

And all that will be left is Him and whether or not we knew Him. And if nothing else will matter then, then nothing else should matter now.

We can't live in fear of losing because it's a necessary part of the process. Rather than living to gain the world, we should live to let the whole world go so that we can take hold of something this world can't hold. We should live to leave this world behind. We should live to shake the dust of this place off our feet so that we don’t have any evidence that we ourselves were ever here. If there's a better goal than fading from recognition in exchange for being known as a servant of Christ, I honestly don't know what it is.

For me, just as with Paul, through that cross this world has lost its value and importance. And yeah, this place probably doesn't think too much of me and my faith either. I welcome that. We all should. Because when this world and everything in it stops being of any importance and hate-filled people start hating us for our faith, then and only then have we actually managed to do something right. Because then and only then are we actually participating in a small taste of what Jesus did for us. And friends, what He did for us is all that will ever matter!

All of this other stuff we’re surrounded by and go through, it’s all just there to help us learn that.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold