Day 3242 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Amos 3:3 NIV

So much of the gravity of all this faith offers is entirely reliant upon our making an agreement that unfortunately our learned irrationalities only find waits to be found in a most disagreeable direction.

"That where I am, there ye may be also."

We see that hope-fueled promise fulfilled in John 14:3. That Christ has left the down here to go up there to get ready a place prepared for our arrival which demands first a leaving. But yet it's that leaving that a few of us have already gotten underway that has us walking away from all which the world around is still racing toward. And this difference of direction designed by a difference of perception is purchasing a right divide between diverging hopes.

Because one thing that this world seems insist upon is making absolutely no decision in regard to going any direction that may bring any inflection or breed any infliction that stands to grate our ungratefulness as seen inside a doubt designed inside hearts so cold that neither light nor love hold much worth anymore. No, not even hope seems to be allowed enough weight to measure into the weighing as to whether or not we agree to do what He’s already agreed to complete.

You see, this world actually has decided to become decidedly consistent upon this persistent assumption that here's all we have. This idea has many therefore living as if this is all we need and thus all we could or should ever want. And wrapped inside that misunderstanding is this perception of a disillusion that has so many disagreeing with our direction as they look from their outside and see only what they want to believe, which is truly just a lack of belief altogether.

And well, when a lost world looks unto to those few who've found reason, they find only reason to doubt and debate that we might be onto something big.

Because for the majority of folks, the biggest outcome of life is a vast quantity of everything. It's all about having a mass of friends, a wealth of wealth, always soaring health and an endless everything else. Life's been diluted to a game of numbers wherein the bigger the digits the greater the meaning. And so we've all learned to find our meaning in whatever means the most to the most.

But most don't see what we see out here in the uncertainty. This isn't a place where people want to be as there's comparatively little safety out here. No, this narrow lane is marked by a way that many consider insane as it runs entirely against what entirely everyone else is just certain holds the only true form of prosperity. Yes, this skinny highway is in fact so thin that each day begins with a realization of something more that we need to lose or let go.

And when seen from within eyes blinded by the seemingly limitless possibilities presented upon this planet, well they see no reason to let go of anything in exchange for what seems to them only a chance to lose everything.

That kind of what we talked over yesterday, this idea that has the world seeing our strange existence spent walking humbly behind a lone stranger as this barren belittlement marked by only loss and forfeit. But that's only because this world still vastly sees through eyes mostly still in accord with this way we've all known. That life is best lived when it's lived filled rather than to the full.

And that some might honestly see no difference in that is what designs this dividing line upon which a few of us are walking away from everything this world offers.

It's because we just have a better deal on the table. We've caught wind of this impossible opportunity to walk home rather than wish for worldly comforts that deceptively tell us we're already there, or here, or wherever people down here assume their home to be found. I don't really claim to understand that anymore, which is one of the most exciting turn of events that I've experienced lately as it incessantly reminds me that He keeps reminding me of a world to lose in exchange for a promise to find.

Something that I truly wish everyone might feel someday as it's a sort of freedom that brings an elation that no worldly toil or trinket can afford.

And yet, it's found only out here on this road so lonely that the world thinks we're doing this alone. That's amazing to me. That people still think this is our own doing, our own choosing, a choice we made to silence our voice to chiming our opinions and rather live the rest of whatever this is hoping instead to share of measure of the Messiah we don't want to be compared to.

Isn't that crazy? That in a world lost in competition that some might be so wacky as to walk away from being heard? A people would find such hope in their humiliation that we race into the fog of our being unknown all so that none might confuse us for Him? That people might find, despite an endless array of opportunities to do otherwise, reason to refuse to speak as if our words matter, as if what I think is something this world wants to hear? No, out here I've learned that this world can't benefit in any way from me sharing my personal ideas.

No, truth be told, I can't help anyone.

Thankfully this path isn't about what I can do as I'm not the one walking it. I'm just following the One who already finished it.

See, it's saying something like that that would likely confuse most people so monumentally that they'd resort back to this tired old guess that has them certain I'm insane. But I for one love that as it's to me just proof that I'm both different than this world as well as drifting even further away as my thoughts seek to only mimic His as my life insists upon the same. Because the last thing I want in life is for this world and the wayward wickedness within to think I'm in my right mind.

No, I can't be crazy enough. Which oddly enough forms quite the inspirational goal to pursue while I'm still here!

And thankfully I've got the best example that I could ever hope to have. Because this One I'm walking with was once thought so crazy that the whole world thought that the best thing to do with Him was just to rid themselves of the madness. This human walking around looking like everyone else talking about how He's above us all, God Himself in fact.

Yet, while that's nothing new as humans have always found ways to assume ourselves divine, something about the way Jesus said it or did it or something just made the world want a doubt so deep that it demanded His death rather than a hope that formed the rope which led us spiritually blind and emotionally crippled along the falling walls of this fallen world from which we’ve been invited to flee.

And it's that wide that so many still choose upon which to abide that has inspired us over here walking alone to keep striding into the unknown rather than back into what we don’t care to know anymore. Because it’s incredible to watch a world choosing to stay blinded rather than risk the beauty of belief. Opting for opinion over the option to be offended. Purchasing perpetually a place upon the picket fence, positioned just outside of purpose on purpose.

Why? Why does this world seek so many ways in which to doubt and disbelieve?

What gain is there in missing every opportunity to find something so worth having that the very One who brought it laid down His life that we might find even more of Him within the Spirit He left as down payment upon His promise of a reason that makes this life we lose not at all a loss but rather a gain of godliness which sparks a contentment that worldly comfort can't possibly buy?

No, lost inside this heartbreaking assumption that seeing is the only means to believing, it's thus what this world won't see that defines their unbelief. Because the truth is that we walk not alone but with the Spirit who is the Son who is the Father along the one Way that is the Truth that brought us Life so that we might not perish but have everlasting treasure stored up in that place this world can't see through eyes dimmed into doubt as designed by a discontent that demands comfort over courage.

Because you see, a loss of the courage to try something new is in my view a death more dire than losing this life I can't keep forever. Because if we never walk a strange path, what chance do we have of growing beyond the barricades we want so badly to stay behind? If we can't allow ourselves to risk anything, then of what worth can whatever we happen upon actually have? If life today is defined by the same broken opinions of yesterday, then how can excitement exist?

And if we're never alone, never afraid, never broken apart or broken altogether, well then how can we possibly know the hope of a friend who paid our debt and not only accomplished our atonement in the process, but even promised to sustain us all the way home?

Even more, He promised to walk with us all the way too. And in this world that wants so badly friendship and community, to refuse communion and agreement with Jesus seems the most hypocritical choice one could make. Because He offers everything we need, everything we want even. And so I guess it's only because what He offers comes in a way in which we've never seen before that has so many so unwilling to agree to go where He died for us to be.

Do we not see that yet? That this faith demands we agree to walk with He who died to walk with us? Because His giving us such a gift should strike a cord in us that signs an accord to walk according to the path He paved doing as He did, or at the very least to opt for a life lived in accordance to the gravity of what He's done to open up unto us where we've now the chance to agree to one day be.

But I guess that then again, it's only what this world will let themselves see that they can agree to believe. And so never coming anywhere close to agreeing with anything God has said, many will simply never know the hope that comes only in agreeing to walk with Jesus toward a promise we can't see along a path that isn't visible which was paved long before we were here in a place none of us have ever been before within a time we can't imagine according to way we've never tried.

It's entirely foreign and strange in every possible way. And yet, if any have the courage to deny themselves to walking a different direction from the world around them, they're the same who find the Savior who proves we've never been alone a day in our lives, but that we've lived our lives blinded by a blaspheme that convinced us so greatly in the other direction that we settled for selling our souls to get what we already had before the bidding began.

Friends, you may look at the Christian faith and see loss. You might listen to some of the things we say, watch a lot of what we do and wonder why we're so insistent upon losing so much. Indeed, I have no doubt that many look upon this narrow different that has a few fleeing from freedom toward freedom and assume that we walk alone out here in the woods of weirdness as planted by a concept that seems most contradicting to the chance at comfort and acceptance as offered by a world filled with everything everyone else wants.

But it's what this world doesn't have that keeps us going against the grain. Hope isn't here. This place doesn't provide peace. Love is so cold and desperate at the moment that one has to wear their eyes blind to find it most days. So to those who think Christians foolish for walking away from the world along a path that seems entirely lonely, please tell me what you're staying here for?

Because it's fine to be surrounded by people who agree with everything you say so long as you say whatever they'll agree with. It's easy to learn all the lines and rehearse all the moves to make sure we get in where we're allowed to fit in. But is life to be lived always needing to be something different to someone different so that we never have to feel so different that we don't belong?

Or is it not so much easier to just agree that no, I don't belong, but that no, I don't have try anymore?

Because there's one choice that will open that door that breaks every chain that's held us captive to the loss of life that so many are trying to gain. I'm tired of losing myself in order to please someone else. And simply put, that's the last thing that God asks us of in Christ. In fact, it's that very mistake that Christ came to cover. It was our living a way that encouraged us to forget who we were that caused Him to come and remind us whose we are.

I am not my own, because I never was. And while in that most would see only a loss of self, no, it's nothing but a finding of a forever friend who has never left even though I ran away. It's stumbling upon the Savior who saved me from me so that I couldn't ruin my life anymore. And because of that love that He laid down for me, I want only to take up my cross and follow where only He can go, because Heaven is unlike everything I've ever known.

And though this world will think I walk alone, that just couldn't be further from the truth. This world just can't see who's walking beside me because the truth is only seen through eyes tired of believe the lies that we're told everyday by those who in every way want us to just stay in the lane that has us living to serve them rather than Him.

I can't do that anymore because living on a leash trying to please people is the loneliest life I've ever known. And that's just it, having known that way, His way seems endlessly perfect and filled with a purpose that gives me a reason to keep leaving this world in the dust. Because that's all this world is, it's just dust and doubt waiting to die. But in Him on the other hand, there's nothing but the promise of life eternal.

And so if I have to walk alone through this world as seen by millions of eyes who refuse to see the evidence God that's all around us, that's fine. Because I'm not here to be understood. I'm just here to try and help people understand that what we agree with is what determines where we end up.

As for me, I agree with what Jesus said in that no one goes to the Father expect through Him. And so I'll walk in Him for however many steps of this life I have left to take. And though that choice will eventually take me away from everything, and maybe even everyone, I know that I will never walk alone because if He left Heaven to track me down once, I don't think He will let me get so lost again.

And that's the only reason I need to keep trying to follow Him no matter how narrow His way really is.

Because He, for some reason still unbeknownst to me, chose to walk with me and lead me home. And so in light of such a gift, I humbly agree to walk with Him by living my life that shows that I also agree that home isn’t here and that I’m done yet because I’m not there.

He will get us where we honestly have no right left to be having sold that birthright to be seen right in the eyes of world that can’t and won’t see Him. But for us to go where He’s gone, we have to agree to let go of this place that just wants Him gone. And that choice gets easier every single day.

Because I’d rather agree to walk alone through this valley of the shadow of death fearing no evil than to walk in step with the wicked and wind up where all this evil will spend eternity.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold