Day 3018 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Romans 9:22 NIV

As the storm of His wrath tarries upon the horizon, we've the opportunity of this fleeting moment to seek our chance at His promised peace.

That’s kind of the whole point of His incredible patience. All this ugliness we see around us is evidence that we need His refuge from what's coming. The sheer amount of benevolence displayed in God's patience is without question one of His most merciful attributes as it shows just how deep His compassionate forgiveness runs.

His kindness and its inspired relenting that's being witnessed upon all of us in this time is all the excuse we need to turn from our ways onto the path which leads toward Heaven that was paved by a cross which now forever forms the crossroads between where we've been and who we can become. Just the mere fact that hope is something within our grasp is evidence of a love so powerful that it can even bridge the chasms we've carved between the shattered remnants of our hardened hearts.

For Him to not simply offer to heal all we've broken and torn apart, but to get down in the dirt and bear our sins so that they're not upon us anymore is truly a gift too impossible to be rejected. And yet, as we discussed yesterday, it's being so widely refused in this place that it stands as a living testimony against the many souls too stiff-necked to bow in this place before the One who both created it and will ultimately judge it in righteousness and truth.

Yes, we're witnessing a world venture into that age-old valley, or at least one of similar motif depicted as the shadow of death. Society all around us is crumbling in ways that bring this radical sense of shock mixed with a humble expectation. Because we've been told to expect this. We've been warned these days of souls filled with love growing cold would come. We've been made aware of what the finality of life upon this temporal rock would be like.

And yet, to carry the eyes that witness the implosion of decency, morality, urgency as well as the likes of kindness and compassion and longsuffering is truly a life none of us fully expected to experience. Yet it's that grating reality caught between expecting the downfall to deepen and yet still struggling to accept that it's really unfolding in our time before our eyes that keeps our faith stirred in such a manner that begs us to find ourselves upon our knees in deeper surrender every day.

Can we not see that this was His purpose and plan all along? Do we not realize that if He is of such love and forbearance that He must be also a God who still offers us such clear evidence of the authority and legitimacy of His Word? Does not the darkening around us make the tiny flame of hope flickering inside burn all the more beautifully?

There's a sweet poetic certainty found in this path that guides us into the fog of certain chaos still to come. It's a peaceful yet jarring realization that every word He's spoken to us will indeed be fulfilled. And while that means all the promises in which we hope and for which we toil, it means as well the punishments and persecutions and proposed calamities that mark the path home. It means the rest of our jaunt may in fact be wrought with more misery than we ever imagined.

But that if this part is harder than we anticipated, even though we've been told to expect it as such, perhaps that means that Heaven's peace will also be deeper than we expected as well.

Maybe I'm just crazy though. Trust me, there are days of growing frequency in which I fully realize the unhinged outlook upon all this that I've discovered along the way. Most days it's like I step to the edge of the woods ready to run in and be free from the weight, from the burden, from the watching it all unravel. Yet then I look back and feel that I've still things to do, words to say, hope to try and write into whatever He still has for me to do.

Then you read a passage like this here in Romans 9 and realize that I'm not alone in this mindset of seeing it all differently. To see beyond the seen, beyond the obvious is a chance I intend to keep trying to take as it affords this widening peace amidst the insanity encroaching quickly all around. It's a realizing that there's a purpose that's not as hidden as we so often try to assume. In fact, His plans and the working of them is so distinct that to miss it requires more effort than to simply watch the show.

That's kind of what's been on my mind for a long time now, just taken me all this while to find the words to try and convey it all. It's what we talked about yesterday. It's in the realizing that even all the disgusting and distasteful and incredibly disturbing and often distracting things this warped and wicked world is doing in increased fervor carries an opportunity to see God's work being done from a direction we don't typically know to look.

The downfall is evidence of His wrath. It's a display of a life lived without Him on the throne. This world has become a science fair presentation meant to explain what happens when truth is exchanged for falsehood and fallacy. The societies in which we're called to serve but from which we're asked to distance prove the distance between God and His creation. And all of it, as discussed yesterday, all this sinfulness and the unrest it's achieving is a small glimpse of what's to come for those who think hell is but a joke.

And then there's the other side of that coin of reality, the side seen from only the inside looking out. It's the ability to better understand just how badly we need more of Him because of all the darkness we see in this place where He's not welcome. All the ugliness of this earth and the clear realization that this crumbling ruin is but a meager representation of the damnation that is luring people in more and more as time ticks away only makes His beauty seem all the better.

That's the part that I think all of us miss in one way or another, and in greater occurrence than we might consider. We've existed in this place where God is taught as nothing but a constant means of the inundation of blessing and prosperity, and so many assume that the world is evidence that He's not there. They see the rampant hatred as proof that His love is either absent or so insignificant that it can't even make this place better. They see the downfall as reason to doubt, when it's actually only the opposite.

That very message is found in Romans. It's that the glimpses of His wrath that we see displayed and performed by a world ignoring His presence and His calling stand as reminders to those of us who are striving to live upon the right side of eternity that this path is owed our most concerned efforts for however long we've left to walk here. It's a reminder that this road is going to be hard, but that the hardness of it is there only to strengthen us and deepen our faith in what we know is the only source of strength strong enough to overcome the death that this world is still sadly choosing.

What causes us to miss it is that we've grown to expect God to be in the earthquake. We look for Him in the fire. We assume to see Him amidst the chaos of the winds of misfortune that are blowing in down here. But, He's in the small. He's found in the tiny glimpses of hope when all seems hopeless. He's in the flower springing up from the cracked and corroded concrete of life as we know it. He's the gentle whisper that reminds us that peace is still coming, so that we don't have to keep looking in vain for it here in this place of violence and disdain.

He displays His wrath so that we can also see His peace. He shows us the danger so that we learn to find value in His refuge from it. He leaves us in this world where more is wrong than is right, not because He wishes to punish us or withhold His promises, because He is not slow in keeping His promises, but knows that we need as much time as possible to shake as much dust as we can. He knows that we're simply slow in seeing the value of His promises and finding the urgency to leave all else behind so we can run toward them faster.

So this life is a relenting. It's a patience. It's a time given unto us in which we're able to learn more about Him, both the reasons to fear and the reasons to trust. In this world of incredible darkness, we have such a chance to experience His light, and it just takes our hearts longer than we realize to realize that. And since He knows that we've so much to surrender, forget, repent and leave behind, He gives us all this visual encouragement to flee from this crumbling world and the time it takes to get as far away as possible.

That's exactly what we see in the very next verse. We're here to understand the riches of His glory shown in His endless mercies being given new every morning. This life is a lesson, all of it. The things being done which shouldn't be done teach us to value His righteous commands. The hate and harm being offered more and more teach us the opportunity of His love and healing. The darkness of the depravity and debasement allow us to yearn for His promises and the hope they contain.

His wrath is being poured out, but so is His mercy. And as this world grows further apart from Him, the differences between that wrath and that mercy will only grow more obvious for those who are genuinely looking and searching and hoping and praying and trying to find Him with as much passion and intensity as they can muster. But we only have the chance because of His great patience displayed in letting the world continue in their choices to deny and reject Him.

It takes a special kind of outlook to see the blessings inside the hardships we face. To find hope in a place where the tragedies outnumber and outweigh the victories. To trust even more when it all seems to be falling apart faster than ever. To keep going, to keep serving, to keep speaking His Name and spearheading this mission even though the world cares less than ever before. To become more certain of both the cross and the home to which it leads every single day is among the greatest of blessings made possible.

But we need to go through trials to see the gift that His peace will really be one day up ahead. We need to see a world craving destruction to help further our eagerness to repent of all that might keep us apart from Him. We need to watch it all disintegrate so that we can finally learn the humility needed to hand Him all the pieces we've long thought too broken to be put back together.

That's what all of this is for. It's a lesson. It's an opportunity. It's a chance to watch, listen, take it all in and let Him do inside what He needs done. Because this is all just a sample. The peace we experience in the most impossible of places is but a hint of what's still to come when we’ve finally moved out of this rental. And the hatred and torment and turmoil we see are also mere foreshocks of what hell holds ready to unleash forever. And we've a little more time, as long as it's called today, to seek Him while His peace is still possible.

Because one day it won't be. One day, it will be too late. One day, the gates that are open now will be closed again, and when they close, they'll be shut forever. Nobody can leave hell, and nobody will want to leave Heaven. This middle ground is where we choose where we end up. And He is giving us all the time and reason we need to make that already simple choice even easier to make.

Personally, I'm ready to go home, a little readier every single day, because this world isn't where I hope to stay much longer. It's getting bad, worse by the day. The little bit of kindness and decency that remain are only beginning to wane. And as they do, and as the darkness dims, and as love leaves, and as people push it out, as they push Him out, we're seeing why Heaven means so much that Christ came to die to make it possible.

This road ends, and when it does, it ends in one of two places. Destruction or glory. Everything we see and hear and feel down here are glimpses meant to inspire us along the right path, the narrow path. Please don't discount the messages being shown us every moment of every day. Each minute of this life is a reason to let go of here and take hold of Him.

His patience will run out, so please use this time to grow as close to Him as you can, because though His patience will run out, His peace never will. And we don't want to see what comes next down the road this world is taking. Better than you thought possible or worse than you could imagine. That's the choice we have to make, that we get to make. Thankfully, He makes it as easy as it could possibly be!

Don't take His patience as proof of His weakness. It's only proof of His kindness, and that's a massive distinction that society is sadly getting very, very wrong. And we can't afford to make that same mistake, not when He's making it so clear so as to help us make the most of this time that's running out.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold