Day 3134 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Hebrews 12:1 NIV

To know that you've been held back from a life of deeper meaning and more meaningful purpose is altogether gut-wrenching.

But to know that millions around you may never care to know true freedom as it exists only on the other side a wrongly lived life laid down is as devastating a realization as a human mind can consider. Because along this narrowing path unto which we’ve been called, it's not just our freedom which is found. No, so too do we find that too few others care to find theirs.

And yet, despite the division deepening between us and a world we remain in though no longer of, that the weight of that saddening realization remains firmly in place no matter where we go or how hard it becomes to speak the truth in a world in love with lies testifies to the true purpose of our very existence.

It's not what we've always thought it was. We're not here for all we've always assumed we were. Our lives are indeed not our own, and yet that's a truth found only along a path too narrow for those around us to find of enough interest to take for themselves. But perhaps the world's lack of interest or understanding as to why we few choose to live the way we do is nothing but a goldmine of opportunity simply waiting to be taken.

That's where we come in. Because that's where He came in.

I doubt many read these posts every day. They're long, almost obnoxiously so in light of modern attention spans shortened by a fast-paced life far too busy to be lived. They're offensive as I simply no longer find cause to pause to consider the persnickety preferences of a population that doesn't care to posture itself toward the perfection to which we've been called. They're perhaps hard to read as I don't shy away from the classic appeal of true language which leaves me unimpressed by the shorthand which appeases a tech-savvy society.

But, should you have read any of my recent offers you'll know that God's been doing a work in my heart for a couple weeks now. It's a tearing apart at the seams of all I've sewn together improperly. It's a reminding of a reality in which I've not walked as I've been running against myself for as long as I no longer wish to remember. It's this shaking awakening that's roused my slumbering soul from the shadows within which I've steadily stumbled through my elder years.

At times I've wondered why the recollection of days gone by. Other moments have left me in a sort of ecstatic exuberance as the excited anticipation of making some changes in hope that they finally find me free from the miserable weight which has been crushing me to the point of feeling entirely too small to live boldly in Christ. But mostly, it's just been this constant inflow of info that's showing me all I've held onto which now just needs to go.

Because there exists a calling for every heart that simply can't be found until we stop looking in all the places we've been promised it isn't to be found. That's the simplicity of the Gospel that's so easily lost in our overcomplicating of everything in order to feel ourselves superiorly special if not seriously auspicious. We want to feel as if we're the rulers of our lives, and thus we cling to everything which offers us even a slight semblance of vain glory.

And that's what we ought to be in a hurry to shake off. Yet sadly, we've lived in such a hurry that we've lost sight of the truly priceless chance to lose everything we've thought for so long we needed so bad so as to prove ourselves among those worth listening to. Because we all just want to be heard. We all just want to be seen.

We all need this validation of our existence because without someone else saying we're here, we've lost all reason to care that we are. And this is evidenced in just how few are willing to undertake a simple change of outlook that is promised to change our entire outcome. Too afraid to lose anything as we've been convinced that life is a matter for winning, so we must win everything.

Thus we live afraid to let go of that which we can't keep, and in turn, we never come close to taking hold of that which we can't afford to lose. Simply because it seems to demand a loss in order to accept it.

Take up your cross. Go and sell all you have. Give to the poor. Speak up for those rendered voiceless in this land of incessant noise unwilling to hear those in need. Deny yourself. Starve the selfishness taught to thrive. Lay down your life for those you love in a world so void of compassion that love is as cold as ice. Trade all you've known for all that you can't and follow a path so narrow you'll be forced to lose all but your hope along the following of it toward the unknowns promised along the way.

Sounds crazy. Sheer insanity. Who would do such a thing, they ask. But to that I respond, what do I have to lose?

What do we have to lose in all honesty? What are we afraid of losing in this life we're losing? Why are we so afraid of losing when we've lived for so long on the losing side of right? How much longer can we avoid letting go what will be left behind?

No, while all those are great quandaries worth our consideration, I believe the greatest question is how much longer we can afford to ignore the opportunity to stop living as if our lives are the only ones that matter.

I've been so wrapped up in what I'm doing trying to make sure that I'm doing as perfectly as I can because I'm terrified of not being enough. Because I know I'm not nor ever will be. I've lived lost inside the battles I'm fighting against myself to stop bringing upon myself. I lay awake some nights recounting the wrong turns I made unable to find words or reasons for having once more been so foolish as to repeat the days prior also defined and deflated by the same mistakes.

And within it all, I've suddenly realized that I've missed chances to help others. I've raced past open doors meant for me to walk through in order to be the light in someone else's darkness. I've become wrapped inside my own thoughts thinking of ways to help myself when in reality, oftentimes to help oneself requires the humility to put others first.

But most heartbreaking of all is that I can finally see that in all of my efforts given to trying to please God by becoming what I think He wants from me, I've lost the simplicity of simply living the path He carved for me.

Because surely it can't be that simple. To follow. To learn wisdom from the source and then simply share it with whomever dares courageous enough to listen outside themselves. To reach a strange place of so little regard to my own needs that I can finally understand that they've always been accounted for by the God who knows what I need and daily supplies it so that I can live in a kind of ongoing gratitude that will shine effortlessly inside this land of deepening dejection.

That's just it my friends, we're surrounded by everyone who is everything we need to do what we're here to do now that He's made it simple to understand what life is really meant to be.

We walk among the heartbroken and hopeless. We work alongside strangers who are afraid to become friends because of past experience. We share the road with folks who've no idea where they're going but seem in right hurry to get there. We carry devices that serve as lifelines outside the confines so many are locked inside. Yes, we're amidst a sea of endless connections uniting a people who know only to remain divided into despair.

The harvest is plentiful. So much anger and bigotry and misunderstanding and uncertainty and fear and foolishness, all places where the truth can do what the truth does. It brings freedom. It inspires courage to overcome obstacles thus far assumed barricades. It breaks chains holding hearts in bondage to themselves. It sets feet upon that path which leads toward a home that's everything this place can only pretend to be.

But there's a hindrance to this opportunity, and it's that we've become convinced of our inadvertent inadequacy. We've grown so well aware of our sinful inability to be anything other than sinful that we don't rightly know that we really can be despite what the cross says. We find that we can imagine freedom, but imagining ourselves actually finding it seems a bit too fanatical.

Because again, you've gotta be crazy to believe beyond yourself to where this promise of freedom waits to be found. That's what we've all been told. That's what everyone is still being told. That freedom is merely a matter for someone to find within themselves and the desires we sadly think define us. That it up to us to assume freedom, regardless of whether or not we’ve ever known it.

But the question then becomes, do we know better or still doubt there is better because of all we've seen and done and said that seems to prove better is something we just can't be?

The Bible tells us that God uses the foolish to shame the wise, the weak to shame the strong. What we are and what we've done to become what we no longer want to be now that He's said we can be something different doesn't matter. It's what He said that matters. Because what we are is merely a result of our efforts given so clearly to the wrong paths.

Because yes, those mistakes have left us weak and weary. Our pasts have proven us unable to make an impact as we've proven unable to make even simple changes. Our lives have been miserably mistaken for something of our own creation, and well, we've made a right mess of it all. Such a mess that we have no right to say anything to anyone.

Who are we to speak truth when our pasts read like a study guide for how to live a lie? Who are we to stand boldly before a breaking world when we've so far broken everything we've touched and tried? Who are we to claim we know the way to what we've not yet found when we've far more evidence of all we've not found than what we have?

Well, we're the perfect candidates to testify to transformation. Because our pasts look like a disaster, we can speak to the healing we clearly couldn't bring ourselves. Because we've lived every lie we could create in order to make doing so seem reasonable, we can share that reason is found outside of human ability to construct or dismantle.

Yes, because we've been broken we're now shining examples of the expert work of the greatest carpenter ever. Because if He can both put us back together and lead us out of the darkness we've designed, He can do it for everyone else too.

And because everyone needs that salvation, but because nobody can bring themselves to admit they need that salvation, well then the world needs a few freaks who aren't afraid to say they've found it despite plenty of reasons as to why they shouldn't have been able to.

Sin is enslavement, entanglement, ensnarement inside ourselves, designed to keep us lost in ourselves, unable to help ourselves and therefore sadly uninterested in helping anyone else. It tells us of all we've been which seems to prove all we can never be. Innocent. Selfless. Courageous. Faithful. Disciplined. Righteous.

Time to shake off the lies telling us what we can't be, because the cross says we've been given back all that we’ve so sadly agreed to lose in order to remain winners in the eyes of a world that only sees who we weren’t meant to be. Friends, this means we've got our voice back, and it's time we use it to say what we know we needed to hear long ago. People need to hear this message now, because today is dark and tomorrow will only be dimmer if something different isn't done.

You and I are that different. We can be different. He's marked out a path along which we make changes that make us different from who we've become so that we can be the different the world needs to see in order to see that different is not only possible but it's undeniable.

I pray everyone can feel for themselves what I've felt of late. This stirring inside reminding me that I'm alive and therefore able to shake off everything that's only been keeping me convinced otherwise. I'm tired of being tangled up in my own mess, especially since I claim to believe He's already fixed all I've torn apart.

If we truly believe in what He's done, what He promises, what He is, then how can we be anything other than willing to do whatever it takes to help the whole world see it for themselves? We live to make Him known, or at least that's the opportunity we've been offered. But it's on us as to whether or not we agree to try.

Sure, we have every reason not to because we've lived a certain way that's well-shown we can't be anything but broken, lost, foolish failures. But we have one reason saying we can.

I for one believe all those reasons from the past can't come beyond the cross. And I'm going to live like it. But I can only make that choice for me. Guess that means that it’s your turn to decide.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold