Day 3046 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Ecclesiastes 7:23 NIV

The sheer impossibility of our ability to adhere to this path is both incredibly daunting and unimaginably inspiring.

It's safe to say that as I've sat down to write out a disheveled attempt to understand God's holiness every single day for over eight years, I've studied more than some and still less than many. And as a chronic over-thinker, I've thought more than most, and again, still less than some. What I continue to find each and every day as I try to gather my frenzied thoughts into a coherent idea that hopefully manages to make sense is that it's beyond me. All of it.

It's all just beyond me. It's beyond all of us.

And sadly, I think that's one of the main reasons that such a large swath of humanity avoids the narrowness of this winding road. We're very much creatures of comfort, of habit, and well, what's more habitually comforting than that which we already understand or can readily figure out? What is more appeasing to our tendency toward the mundane than the mindscapes we've already explored and therefore now know our way around?

This can be seen in all its laughable glory in a simple visual experiment: Take away all the maps, all the phones, all the GPS devices, and you'd find that nigh all of society couldn't find their way to anywhere other than where they've already been.

Problem is that down this long and winding road of faith, we're not going where we've been. We're not following the same paths we've trod happily behind the rest of those sticking to that which has already been. We're not even following a leader we can see. No, those luxuries vanish when true faith is demanded. Because if we could see, hear, understand or somehow find the promise of salvation, we wouldn't need to trust.

But without that trust, a relationship cannot exist.

I figure that's why God makes all of this as impossible as it is. All that all of us have ever known is to rely on that which we know. We know that we can always ask someone else for directions should we get lost. We know that we can buy a new map as we venture off the old one. We know that we can always fall back on the tried-and-true classics such as compass navigation and sundial calculation. We can even lean upon our strength, our wisdom, our ability.

However, not a person exists who knows for certain the way to a place none of us have ever been before. There's not a map that has ever been drawn leading us via road-signs or landmarks that perfectly points the path toward the gates of Heaven. While a compass may help us find true north, it cannot discern pure truth. And while our strength and semblance of wisdom and other often self-perceived abilities may have served us fairly well thus far, thus far is just about as far as they'll get us when He finally opens our eyes and we humbly realize that we've still not learned to see with only our hearts.

The scary truth is that this is so far beyond all of us and our 'abilities' that we cannot possibly fathom the fullness of faith let alone the path by which we can possibly perfect it. This road runs so radically against all we've known, and so it demands a kind of humbleness that our souls have never considered. And if we've never considered it, how can we understand it? And furthermore, how can we offer something that we don't understand?

You see, what's asked of us is beyond us. And while on the surface that seems entirely unreasonable and illogical, it must be that way. There must be this great jumping-off point in order for us to find faith, because faith cannot be found in any place we can find. It exists outside of everything known. It's a concept too deep to be tangible. It's a gift too priceless to be afforded. And yet, those instinctual attempts are all we know to try.

And so, our humanity keeps getting in the way of our humility and our faith stagnates as a result of our incessant insistence upon understanding. All because we still equate understanding to comfort all because we know that if we can understand something then we can control it in some way. And for us, that's always what we desire.

Over the course of the past several weeks, this thought has been unraveling inside my mind. It's this realization that I'm no further than I ever have been. I'm not gaining the ground that I thought I should have already gained. I'm still every bit the failure and flaw I've always been. I'm entirely unable to offer up anything of any value all because I still see value in being able to perfect something. And as a perfectionist, this path of faith is one I often see only as failure.

How do we reconcile our inability to be anything but insufficient? How do we find this audacity to approach the One who knows the directions as He's the One who paved the path when we know we're the ones who made the path necessary? How do we dare look in the eyes of the Savior we need knowing we've lived like we don't need Him? How do we ask for forgiveness for the mistakes we keep making? How do we pray when we know our words have no business being heard?

You see, all these thoughts and questions and concerns and fears plague this path paved with a trust we don't know how to fully offer. There's this unquenchable certainty that we will never be enough as we know deep down that all this is well beyond us. Wisdom is outside our reach. Holiness is a demand we can't fulfill. Even mercy is often a gift unoffered unto ourselves. Grace has left this place. And yet, we're still in this place in such need of His grace.

It just often seems like we're trying to put together a puzzle without the picture on the front of the box, and all the pieces are just the cardboard and none of them fit together.

"When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."

It's not that wisdom isn't there, but that we often seek it so we look smarter than those around us. It isn't that humility cannot be found in deeper measure, just that we still want a bit of recognition for the courage to let our selfishness go. Yes, truth is well within our understanding, but as product of a fallen world, we still don't mind a white lie that leaves us unoffended. And faith is something we can grow, unfortunately we tend to ask it to grow alongside the other concerns we're tending.

And it's not that we don't have help, only that we're still a bit too arrogant to ask for it and actually accept it knowing that we really do need it.

You see, God, as we discussed yesterday, gave us of His Spirit, a priceless gift offered to help lead the way knowing we have no idea what we're doing or where we're going or how to possibly come anywhere close. He gave us His Word to inspire and correct, to teach and rebuke, to guide and to chide knowing that we'd stray wildly at every turn that lay ahead. He sent His Son to pay our debt knowing that we'd still charge more against our souls.

And He did it all because He knows we can't.

That's the gift of God's grace. It's given to those who so dearly need it as they so clearly can't earn it. Still, so often we get stuck trying to earn it with perfect offerings and pristine prayers and lives that look like they don't need His mercy. We still let ourselves get in our way as we focus on what we think we need to be doing instead of focusing on Christ, who's already done all we never could.

Of all the studying and thinking and botching it all that I've done all this time, one thing I've found for sure is that perspective is a crucial concern as it determines our entire outlook. Where are we looking? Where are our hearts aimed? What encompasses the majority of our time, our thoughts, our energy? Is it trusting God or trying to prove ourselves to Him? Is it worrying about our endless failings or laying them at the pierced feet of the only One who can do anything with them?

There are great many questions we have, and we will find even more up ahead. But the answers won't bring us peace. Having the answers won't solidify our faith. Having the answers, knowing the reasons, understanding everything would only ever obstruct our faith as we'd pull back and once again rely on ourselves knowing that we knew enough to at least get close to where we think we're going. And that's simply not something we can agree to anymore.

No, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that there's this line along this journey that we'll one day come to that demands we finally choose to either let go or keep trying. We will have to either let go of our need to be enough, to know enough, to have enough to offer in return for this gift we've been given, or we'll keep trying to do more thinking that maybe we can get there under our own merits and achievements.

Then again, maybe it's all just another overthinking I've settled for diving into. That's the challenge in doing something such as walking this path of faith having no idea how to do so, let alone how to do it well. The more we focus on the twists and turns and shrinking width of this road, the more we'll find ourselves entirely aware of our inability to follow it as well as it needs to be followed.

And maybe that's the line I mentioned above. That spot where our inability to keep going finally reaches out for His patience and kindness and guidance so we can keep going even as we know we by ourselves never could. That's why He calls us to such a journey as this, a journey we can never undertake alone. It's because He knows we'll never find Him if we keep looking, but only when we let go of our need to see and understand.

Yes, much of this will always remain well beyond us. But that's a very good thing as it demands we lean on another. It demands we look outside our ability and our wisdom and our inability to perfectly offer either. It demands we kneel and surrender and accept a gift we cannot possibly do enough, know enough, have enough to ever earn. But that's the beauty in a gift, it's given as a choice from the one that gives it, not as a matter of whether or not the recipient deserves it.

My point is that we've always known only one way of doing things. And that's what we need to leave behind because our way, our normal and our ability to adhere to them means nothing when we don't know where we're going or how to get there. We can't approach this walk as if we can somehow perfect it someday. "I'll become wise." "I'll live an exemplary Christian life." "I'll make God proud as I serve Him well."

No friends, all we'll likely do is make God laugh as we put on a show of nothing but feeble attempts to drag our dreams along a road on which they cannot fit.

What we all need to understand is that it's okay for this to be beyond us, because everything we hope for is beyond us too. I guess we just need to let ourselves go and stop trying to find a way to make ourselves acceptable in His sight. Christ already did that, and we cannot do anything near what He's already done. Perhaps instead we should just live to perfect gratitude, restore reverence, follow humility toward greater holiness and seek to harbor a heart that seeks only His honor rather than our own.

No, we'll never be enough, but spending our lives trying won't help. In fact, it will only keep us apart from the only One who can. Yes, wisdom, hope, trust, the very foundation stones of faith are all well beyond us. But that which lies beyond us beckons us to seek beyond ourselves where we yearn to find another upon which to rely to be all that we never could.

And that’s where we find Christ, just beyond our ability to be enough.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold