Day 3069 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Proverbs 28:26 NIV

Of what account am I that any should place their hope, their trust, their lives in my hands?

I sit here writing this while wrestling with this thought that never leaves my mind telling me of all the things I’ve cost myself in living as if I knew what I was doing. Seems as though every dream I once had has floated off into the nullity beyond nonexistence. All I once wanted and wanted to be has now become only scars that prove the decimation that comes from following yourself down a path you think you’ve the authority to write into perfection with a mind bent toward blindness and a heart deceitful beyond compare.

And now considering I highly advise everyone to not trust in me, why would I ever trust in myself?

Why is it that we refuse to tear through the veil keeping us reliant upon ourselves, instead choosing to remind oblivious to the fact that doing so is the epitome of foolishness? How often do we seek to lambast ourselves in such unrestrained manner as to admit we’re unable to be anything other than unable? How often do we agree to lay our shortcomings out for all to see, starting with who we see looking at us in the mirror?

How many times have we sought only our failures and flaws and the weakness through which they continue to undermine our every effort so as to finally allow ourselves to understand we need to change our ways even to the point of finally following another?

No, instead we do as we've been taught by a world run by arrogance. We look only to our strengths. We speak heavily of our victories whilst glossing over or even going so far as to the denying our failures. We sell this image of perfect propriety knowing that that's what society is buying. And through it all we keep trusting in ourselves to maintain the lies that we honestly think solidify that facade so that the trueness of our fakeness doesn't sweep our legs out from under us.

What is humanity that we hold ourselves in such high esteem? What is it that we've accomplished that has concreted this belief that we're enough to undertake anything and somehow prove successful? Can you point to a place in your past that stands as sufficient evidence that you're able to find flawlessly a path of perfection you can actually follow toward a place your past equally proves you do not deserve to be? What in our pasts gives us reason to think ourselves able to find our own way to anything, let alone to the promise of Heaven?

You see, behind all the lies, beneath the slanted recounts of our histories as told from a winning perspective held by eyes unable to see ourselves the defeated, beside the masquerading undertaken to prove ourselves able there stands the truth of who we are, what we've done and just how insignificant it proves we've been. Our pasts read not like a medieval dramatic opera such as the Arthurian tales. We're not heroes akin to Odysseus or Hercules. No, we're not the ones who've saved the day at any point.

We’re just the one who’ve made a complete mess of most of them.

Yet that's in no way the story we hear or tell. You know, if we were all half as great as we so often make ourselves seem to be then this world would be a much different place. If humanity still had the ability to live humanely then this culture wouldn't be crumbling. If our society were truly overflowing with nothing but heroes incapable of making a mistake or proving insufficient then the Gospel itself would be unnecessary.

We could save ourselves, but we'd not need to as we'd never err, never wander, never make a wrong choice or allow ourselves to lead others astray. It would be impossible for us to mess up. And yet, look behind you. Look at the days you've lived already. Look at the days we're living in now. Where are these heroes able to prevent mistake or misery? If we're everything we think ourselves to be, why is the world getting worse considering we claim to be in control?

It's because we're liars. We're fakes. We're monsters who've painted ourselves as masterpieces. And worst of all, we've bought our own nonsense. We've created a culture wherein people can look in the mirror and see only their imagination. All because we want to trust in ourselves so that we never have to lean on another. Because that's weak. It's unacceptable. It's sickening to a world doing the most sickening things under the guise of an authority that we've never had.

When will we stop the insanity? It better be soon because we're past out of time. Every single day brings both the reality that our end is closer and that we're of less strength than the day prior. Every day I wake up knowing less because this world has overnight made a new change in the way they say we should be living. Every day brings a new demand we cannot meet.

Every day is a reminder that we need another chance because we messed up the one we just wasted.

Indeed, every day is a gift not that we receive but that we should be giving to something bigger than ourselves. But sadly, we've grown to such perfection in our own eyes that we fail to see anything bigger or better or more important than ourselves. And in that tradition of tragedy we realize why the road to a better place is lonely while the one leading to a furthering of this monstrosity we're creating is packed with souls cheering it on.

Because we think we know what we’re doing, only because we’ve bought our own lies telling us we have the ability.

We're trusting in ourselves to know what's best, even though we often can't even choose to do what's decent. There are so many things that get lost when we lose humility, and that's why I talk about it so often in these posts. Without humility we cannot see who we really are. And if we can't see who we really are then we will never seek the One who can save us from who we've become.

And if we never do that then all we'll ever have upon which to lean is ourselves. And if we think ourselves enough to contend with the God we've denied in order to place ourselves upon His throne, friends we deserve the destruction that's coming.

The way I've grown to see it is this: We will all be destroyed at one point or another. It will either come through the judgement of a God we never tried to know let alone came close to honoring as the epitome of grace and mercy and kindness that He is. Or it will come through the starving of our selfish stupidity so that we can finally see past it to the accepting the salvation we cannot live without as it helps us survive the death we owe for all we've done.

There is wisdom which gives life as well as a counterpart that takes it away. There is a way of understanding that refuses to seek it inside ourselves and there is a mindset that's set on serving only ourselves. There's a path that demands we admit we don't have a clue as to where we're going nor how to get there and there's one that has us convinced we drew the map. And it's our daily choice as to which wisdom we seek.

But friends, wisdom isn't found within us. It's just not. Our pasts prove that without effort. One transgression is sufficient for our rejection. A single cross word carries enough weight to bury us in the deep. A lone misstep is more than plenty to point us down a path toward purgatory. What do we think we can actually accomplish successfully knowing all we've failed to do properly so far?

The undeniable fact is that you and I are but breath and ashes. We're dirt only alive by the grace of God. We're a bundle of bungled opportunities to be something better than what we've chosen to become. We're a wreck on a wreck hurtling through a world that inspires corruption and confusion and the most cantankerous chaos possible. We're sinners, and as such, we haven't the foggiest idea as to what is right or wrong.

And considering that our souls will be judged according to what is right and wrong, we'd best begin seeking He who knows and who cares and who offers to lead us to that place we don't belong only through His willingness to take our place in order to make us right in the eyes of the One whom we've wronged without restraint nor remorse. Because if we keep trusting in only ourselves knowing what we've done when left to our own devices, we're too stupid to live.

Yes, it hurts to admit that. But believe you me, it's something I've confessed many nights as I lay in the bed which I've made. Mankind detests having to look upon the messes we've created in the wake of pretending we could do no wrong. We hate having to admit we're not good enough, not good at all. We hate the fact that all we do is make a mockery of everything we put our hands to.

But if we never admit we're not enough, then we'll never have hearts willing to seek the only One who is.

That we've been given the opportunity to become something other than the fools we've always been is a gift too good for us to refuse. Friends, we can't make it. We follow our hearts as we're told not willing to consider just how deceitful the really are. We listen to minds blinded by desires not caring that it's led us to all the mistakes we've already made. We learn from the world that is to the point of tearing itself apart.

What do we think will happen to us if we keep doing as we've always done?

Thankfully we don't have to. We've been offered perfect wisdom from above that reminds us that we live below the expectation clearly laid out for us to follow. We've been sent the Savior who taught us that nobody goes to the Father except through Him as without Christ that veil remain hanging between us and the source of this life we still tend to take for granted. We've a whisper resounding behind us urging us to rage past ourselves and seek another to guide us.

We have gotten one thing right though, albeit a little twisted around. Our insufficiencies should scare us. Our failures should scare us. Our pasts and the countless errors made within them should scare us, not into hiding them but into repenting from them. We should be embarrassed by our mistakes, but in a way that implores us to accept salvation, not in a way that inspires us to concoct a mountain of lies we think high enough to conceal our errors.

Each of us will one day find ourselves before our Maker. Now, we can take the prideful path there following this idea that we're enough. We can live out the rest of our time believing ourselves of such esteem that we can't make a mistake. We can hold to this fallacy telling us that we needn't be forgiven as we've not a flaw nor a failure in which to worry. And we can run right up in God's face on that day and expect Him to flinch.

Or we can enter that day leaning on Christ's promise to intercede for us knowing that we cannot enter His presence without the punishment we've earned being immediately imposed upon us. We have no business in His presence, let alone in His Heaven. And yet, as He is known for doing, Jesus flips this reality upside down and grants His everlasting peace to those who allow themselves to agree that they don't deserve it.

That's the point in all this nonsense about trusting in ourselves. We don't deserve anything good as we've done nothing good. And so it's probably time we stop assuming otherwise and instead admit we need the gift we've done everything to avoid having to acknowledge we need.

At the end of it all we’re either following the sullied selves the world has caused us to become which sadly know only to live seeking satisfaction in the fulfillment of our selfish desires, which have thus far never managed to help us draw a map toward anything other than a path leading deeper into our own foolishness. Or we’re following the One who chose to humbly walk into our grave so that we’d find that life exists only in that kind of humble surrender of our selfish preferences.

We’ve all lived as fools long enough. And while fools may not want to follow another, we’ll not live if we keep trying to lead.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold