Day 3026 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Psalm 51:10 NIV

The newness and renewal brought about by this faith and made into promises only by God's great goodness are truly blessings simply too monumental to summarize in mere words.

You see, a mind corrupted by the stains of sin is all we've known. The way of life spent following habitual downfalls and discrepancies has defined our entire existence here. And while that brings with it a great many consternations, it also brings a realization that offers some of the purest excitement possible due to the gift of a new mind filled with all that we've yet to know outside of the death we've lived chained to ourselves.

Up to the foot of the cross, life has only been able to be lived one way. Hostile to God. In enmity with God. As His very nemesis aimed at ignoring His very existence. Before we found out about this Name that is and was and will always be above all others, a Name by which we must be saved, all our minds ever chose to know is that which is worn, weary, wrong, wicked, worthless and weak.

And those very descriptors are so easily able to define many if not most of the feelings we've had toward ourselves within our days spent trying to ignore what we've become.

But there comes a point where a person has just had enough. Enough of the guilt. Enough of the shame. Enough of the nights spent pleading for a way out of the maze of intense selfishness we've carved in search of something that could satisfy. Enough of the weight of all the mistakes we've made trying to make a way toward all the lavish goals and perfect dreams we've thought would give our lives their meaning, their purpose, their value.

Yet, so often our arrogance and ego do whatever they can to keep us from that rock bottom. Because there's this intense disillusionment found within our desires that refuses to lose. We don't want to admit that we've wasted our lives looking for hope in all these places where it could have never possibly existed. We don't want to admit that our dreams and plans are nothing but hollow and meaningless beneath the surface that we think so pretty.

No, we don't want to accept the humility that allows us to find what we've been looking for, because we know it'll demand we let go and let another lead the way in the direction we've never chosen to try.

Perhaps it's a symptom of our innate vanity or maybe just a foundational principle of our many personal proclivities posed only upon our imperfect preferences and prized opinions, but we seem to just have this great fear of complete surrender. Mostly because we know that once we do let go, it's not only the outcome that we can no longer determine. It's also the glory that we can no longer earn. And our pride just loathes that kind of permanent loss.

But what I think we need to understand that will make this chaotic circumstance must easier to unwind is that we're going to lose one way or another. We will lose something in this life regardless of which path we take. We will lose either all we've known or all we've not yet seen. Problem is that it is a choice that nobody is forced to make at any specific point in this story. In fact, it's not a choice we're forced to make in this lifetime.

And many won't. Many will keep the hammer down and plunge life-long into as much of themselves as they can stomach. Many will wake up adamant upon throwing all caution to the wind and retaining eyes and hearts and minds set on ignoring every single warning sign that may dare pop up and attempt to prevent their rampant indulgence. Many will enjoy every second of it.

But only on the surface.

You see, I personally believe that a person can only run from reality for so long before the weight of the mistakes found in all that rushing and refusing becomes so incredibly crushing that they can't breathe anymore. I think there exists in each of us, and it's different for all, a line beyond which our souls cannot pass without agreeing to never be able to come back. And while some can make that deal and trade it all away for a little more fleeting pleasure, I don't know that many can.

I think that many of us, no matter what the faces or words may say, simply grow tired of living a life so hollow and meaningless provided by sin and self. Many of us reach this point where all we want is all we've failed to find within ourselves. Many of us just want hope again, because we finally realize that we lost it and have no idea how to get it back. And the weight of that is too much to live with.

I shared something yesterday that I've fought against sharing for a really long time. It's not that I care about what anyone thinks or that I'm trying to portray this image of a perfect Christian. I've shared many things in these posts that point to or reflect from the struggles I have, that many of us share. But putting it out there, this one giant that I've fallen before more times than I want to know, that one is one that I never wanted to divulge.

But what I think I've finally found is that as long as we keep something hidden or secret, we can't be new. We can't be whole when we refuse to admit our holes. We can't accept His gift in all its fullness if we won't fully admit just how fully much we need it in the places we fully don't want to acknowledge are broken in such a way that we don't want to ever see the light.

We simply have to finally let go if we're ever going to be able to let Him in.

And while that's incredibly hard as it rages against every lie we've ever believed told by souls stained by sins many deceptions, if we could only see what was waiting for us on the other side of honesty, I think we'd jump at the opportunity to shout our indiscretions for all the world to hear. Only so that we could make sure they weren't allowed to remain hidden in a place where we want Him and His peace to reside.

As part of yesterday's message I mentioned this miracle that's needed to overcome all we've become. This verse speaks to that miracle. It's a kind of new we never knew we always needed. It's that fresh start that our broken hearts have cried for all those nights that our sins refused to let us sleep. It's the redo, the reset, the renewal that shattered lives cannot live without.

And it's a blessing ready and waiting just beyond that point when we finally let ourselves hit that rock bottom that we never wanted to realize has always been so scarily close.

I know it seems impossible, part of it always will. This idea of a new heart, a new mind, a new outlook no longer looking out for what we've always wanted and likely found only to find it to not be what we always wanted. How can it be that He can undo and erase all that we've carved so deep that it defined our lives? How can He heal what's become so broken that we can't even recognize the parts and pieces left scattered in the dust of all we've burned to ashes in our great race to find satisfaction within ourselves?

Not up to us to figure it out or understand how. Our only part is to let go of all that's kept His gift at a distance and allow His blessings to pour into all the places that we've tried forever to keep hidden and covered and concealed so that nobody could know that we weren't okay. And I think that may be the hardest part for us to understand, that He just asks us to accept His help and repent of all that's prevented us from seeing how badly we need it.

I don't know what you've kept hidden or how long it's been in hiding. Don't know the number of nights you've found sleep to evade your attempts to slip into a moment of not thinking about all that's gone wrong. Don't know what all you might need healed, redeemed or forgiven. I just know that all of us need hope. We all need peace. We all need to find a way to finally let the weight fall from our shoulders so that we can breathe again.

Friends, there's only one way. It's not in a therapist's office. Not only available in a building with colored glass windows. Not some secret only unlocked by a handshake or a closely guarded mix of mangled words that form some hidden code. The only way to find what we all need is to find ourselves finally upon our knees, humbled to the point of letting Christ be the Savior He died to be in our lives. His is the only Name by which salvation is possible.

And if we can just find the courage to stop letting our pasts write our present and threaten our future, then He will contend for us with everything He has, as He's already proven by taking our place upon our cross and earning a forgiveness we can't possibly deserve but obviously can't ever live without.

You've heard of water turned to wine and a handful of fish feeding thousands. You know the stories of waters being parted and also them flooding the earth so deeply that nearly all were washed away. There's nothing He cannot do as even death cannot hold Him. But if we let Him hold us, then all that's been no longer has to be. There is healing, there is hope, there is life outside of the death we've known. Don't know how He does it, just know that He does.

And that should honestly be all that matters to souls so lost that they have no idea what a direction is anymore, let alone which one to take.

Friends, wherever you are, however you feel, for whatever reason you've let it go this bad this long, it doesn't matter. Know that it doesn't matter. He already knows all we've done, seen, broken and lost. And by some stroke of a love we can't comprehend, He chooses to look beyond all our failures to reward our faith with the forgiveness and freedom that we all know deep down we've failed to find anywhere else. Not for lack of trying, simply for lack of anything good existing anywhere outside of Christ.

We all need what He offers, but we also need to allow ourselves to finally admit we'll never find it anywhere else. And that's hard. Truly hard. But consider this next time to start leaning toward simply hiding your mistakes rather than laying them on the ground before His throne: What's harder, admitting your mistakes or carrying the weight of them that only grows heavier?

That weight is tied to those corrupted minds that have always defined everything we've ever known of life on the wrong side of what's right. The only way to come out from under it and finally catch your breath is to allow Him to take it and wash it away. Our pride may not like it. Might not feel great the ol' ego. Definitely not going to be the kind of party for which you send out invitations. It's gonna suck to confess all that's been done wrong.

But friends, new awaits just beyond the barricade built by our fear and the hesitation it inspires inside. We don't have to keep trying to keep our dead hearts beating. We can trade them in for the newest model built by mercy and saved by grace. All it takes is the courage to admit that it's all gone so wrong that you can't make anything work anymore. The good part is that He already knows, the hard part is that He's waiting for us to get there as well.

Don't wait any longer. You're only avoiding everything good you've always hoped to find. You can keep searching the dark and decrepit roads you've always wandered. But I promise there's nothing new to be found in places you've already been. New is only available to those who are willing to let the old ways go and let Him lead in a new direction toward a new destination.

Take that leap friends. You'll be amazed at what you find when you start looking in a new direction. I recommend upward this time, no longer looking around or within. Been there, found nothing, moving on. Move on. There’s new up ahead and it’d be a sheer travesty to miss it when He’s made it so easy to find.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold