Day 3256 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Matthew 10:13 NIV

Oh the dangers of a life spent driving distracted down this dividing line of undeserving devotions.

Seems that we’ve all come to forget that this world and its ways invite in us a risk of so quickly losing sight of salvation's severity that so too do we soon lose sight of the varied blessings such salvation has secured inside of us who claim to be inside of Christ. Because the truth is that we've so much to lose even if His mercy can't be lost. No, it's what His mercy has given that might be taken should we for a moment allow past blindness to catch up.

And yet such mistaken misunderstandings don’t even have to struggle to catch us as we never really seem to move on from a life wasted on wanting all that this world wants for us, wants from us. Headlines and hatred creating in us an identity shared with everyone else too weak to war for what Christ died for. No, we’re still very much the same as we’ve always been, those stubbornly lost so lost inside assuming that we’re supposed to belong, supposed to fit, supposed to do whatever we need to do to ensure such is the outcome found in our lives.

Fighting only to belong leaves us failing to understand the gift of never having to try.

It’s that beautiful opportunity that I long thought I was chasing boldly, this courage to follow a changed course not wanting for anything of the world. No, I’ve long thought myself the proverbial pioneer out here in this chance to be the strange and become even more different from this world I’ve also long lived to please. But seeing suddenly scales I didn’t know I had fall from eyes I didn’t realize couldn’t see, I sit here now ecstatic at this chance to do even more to be ever foreign.

That's kind of what we talked about a little yesterday, or at least it was a post in that direction. It's this most tangible transformation accomplishing for us a new beginning so novel that it truly comes as if that first breath befalling before an initial blink taken by eyes seeing life outside the womb in which we arrived on this scene, newborns bringing to this place a reason for our being that we still may not even know for ourselves.

But that's the tragedy that I sort of want to attack today, this reality that we've all likely lost more than we ever realized we had. A surrender of our responsibility to select most carefully that which and those to whom our peace is allowed to rest. It's this lack of understanding that has us standing inside this confusion as to where we might find again what we likely don't know we always had from the start.

Because He didn't send us into this world without what it takes to make it where He's taking us. No, where God guides, He provides, peace even in this place to see us through the race laid out forever before us.

It's just that we've become so distracted by the awe of it all that we've forgotten the gravity of what all His promise has already given. We think it something held in wait, always still a ways away, perhaps something akin to a gift still to come, yet another scheduled outcome for which we can't see that far.

But because such blindness remains alive in us, well, we sadly assume that until we're home that we'll have next to nothing of everything He's offered. Why? Why do we so stubbornly insist that He can't awake in us a way of life that arrives at the promised finish before our race is done? I don't rightly understand how we began to undermine what He's already finished.

All that said after having long not realized what all I'd already given away to only the wrong directions as designed for me by clearly the wrong projections.

You see, this world tells us that the entire idea of peace is itself somewhat withheld inside the realm of myth and lore. It's a figment forming for most a fairly hopeful effort of perhaps someday accidentally stumbling upon this most fleeting of feeling. A promise proven pretty much only ever in part as the bigger piece of life is undeniably unbecoming of this peace that always seems to be somewhere other than where we're going.

A hope always out of sight yet still somehow so firmly hoped for that it remains on a sort of life-support inside these souls set adrift atop a life lived lost out here in the shadows of sin and shame.

That's one place our peace is lost, the memories of mistakes already made, assuming more far too easy to make. But yet, even aside from all the asinine that we've accomplished thus far, it's not always our failures to remain faithful that find for us a faltering peace. No, this past week has seen such scales fall from my eyes that I see a little more every day all the ways and to all the wants that I've resolved to dissolve His design.

We don't want to count them though. Not here inside this idea that paints us always the victim of unseen circumstances bringing us thus unavoidable consequences of actions or decisions obviously not at all our own. Obviously. Because none would really choose to lose this chance at peace we've been promised. Right? None of us would readily lay aside the opportunity to remember our responsibility as demanded of His righteous decrees. Right?

No, we'd never be the ones to walk away from what our mouths proclaim we're so very desperate to find!

And they say you can't write sarcasm?

Well, they also say that you don't know what you've got until it's gone, though this cliché is usually shared more in regard to a romance relinquished or a love lost or some other torn attempt at trying to tie up something so seemingly special that it leaves a person to tears once they see what they had and thus could have kept. But what about the blessings taken for granted that we've not come to love enough to lose sleep over losing?

What about the hope that calls us to another home, asking obviously we leave this rental behind? What about the love for the Father, a calling shown clearly in a life lived quite differently than that replica which this wicked world has designed? How about kindness or compassion, mercies of our own we're called to share but seldom do? What about forgiveness, yet another chance to share in something Christ showed us how to share?

Or maybe peace?

I doubt highly that many have read the last several of these as such would demand a sort of dedication that is about as rare as peace anymore in this place. But if you have, you'll have seen an ongoing speaking to something that's left me seeing something new all of the sudden. Just like Saul having eyes peeled open by the very truth against which he was contending, seems I've been granted the gift of something so new that even my eyes couldn't stay the same as they were.

And one of the gifts that I'm now witnessing inside this refreshment of life itself is that within my way I've found what I now know as such a vastly misplaced peace that it's amazing I've any piece left of anything that might be even potentially useful to such a kindness as He who died for all of us. Yes, seeing through these strange eyes seemingly seeing for what seems the first time I look around to see that for far too long I’ve allowed my peace to be placed in a place that doesn’t welcome peace.

A life wasted in a world that doesn’t actually want to truly live, as to live life demands we die to all that tries to kill our peace.

But the horror is found in just how readily we agree to let it go. We've become so accustomed to assuming peace impossible that we don't even try for the responsibility to hold it as we now just think it was never within our reach anyway. Why try to grasp for something that we think we can't get? If peace is nothing but a passing fancy too fancy for this place that's passing, why then waste our time trying to find what plenty agree isn't possible?

No, we stopped trying a long time ago, literally just gave away so much of what He gave that we don't even remember that His promise is already paid in full even here in this hollow still seemingly outside of Heaven. While yes, we don't have streets of gold, we still have God, and in that we should find all we need to find all the peace we've so foolishly misplaced.

But alas, to find where all it's been lost demands we look too at the pasts we've proven unable to live well. It asks that we reconsider all the devotions to which we've divided ourselves, our time, our efforts, our intentions. Yes, to even begin to find the peace He's already given requires us to resolve to dissolve all the discrepancies we've selfishly designed into this way of life we call our own.

Personally, the sheer number of worthless pursuits I've prized has left my eyes weary from looking at what looks like the biggest mess a person could ever make. What I've done with my life up until now is so completely worthless that I'm now left longing for any bridge I might find not yet burned, any ship still floating that I might sink as I want nothing more than to never go back to who I've been so far.

Because as it turns out, all I've always wanted is only all that wanted my peace. Wearing myself thin to become all that my so called 'friends' wanted me to be, wanted from me in order to be what they wanted to be. Losing sleep thinking of ways to please or appease so as to achieve a chance that the other person didn't want to give. Asking for opportunities to bring me what I didn't know I already had.

No, peace isn't in bank accounts. Love doesn't come from a world running the other way. Purpose isn't promised to those trying to prove themselves for a promotion. The meaning of life isn't meant to make a life that makes people happy with all you do and whatever you say. We're not here to allow this world nor any in it to dictate for us what to do with what He's done for us.

And yet we do. We look to the world to instruct as to what's acceptable. We ask our friends to tell us again the jokes that make them laugh so that when our usefulness has worn and left us drifting from their welcome, well, we can pull again those punchlines that at least remind them that we can please them with humor. We let our bosses walk all over us, crushing our personality, our purpose, our passions all so that we can keep that paycheck.

So many misplaced priorities that we should never be surprised that our peace lies in pieces upon a ground we assume is meant for proving ourselves acceptable to a people that still mostly hates our Savior and His promises.

I'll do such no more. Give this world any attention. Let people instruct me as to who to be to be deemed worthy of whatever they feel they have to give me that I know I don't need. Allow the media to make me more mainstream inside lies aimed to confine us all to their wanting to think for us. Staying stuck as a slave to social media, aching daily for the artificial attention found on screen.

No more. No, as for me, I’ve lived in love with the world long enough, doing all I could to gain a measure of their mercy that was never able to measure up to that which Christ so freely gives without all the different requirements as seen in this world of deception and disarray. No, seeing now I’ve been in this city for far too long trying to make a home where I didn’t belong, losing so much peace that I’m but a piece of who I could have been, should have been.

No, I’m moving out, moving on, leaving the wealth of the world behind in exchange for the chance to finally find Him out in the only place He’s found in full.

Why? Because His peace is worth more. Peace is priceless in this place, rarer than gold itself, a prize to be cherished more highly than all the riches this world can offer. Why? Because this world can't offer peace. Gold you can grab. Silver is scored all the time. Wealth is easily worked for, and even should you spend it all, all it takes is a little time to earn some back. An ever-revolving opportunity to retake what we let be taken away.

Peace doesn't work like that. Peace isn't replaceable. Peace can't be replicated. Peace can't be purchased, just ask every king who's ever lived. No amount of worldly wealth or social acceptance can allow us to sleep well at night should we still carry the weight of our living wrong. And so now seeing a deeper measure of what Christ has done for us, for us to let go part of what He did it all for is a mistake bigger than every other we've made so far.

Because He told us of the value of this gift He gave. In every place we go, He goes with us as He lives in us. The Holy Spirit always beside every step we walk in this world we'll leave. He told us that in this place we'll have trouble, not the sermon you hear as much as we should. And since He Himself knew well said hardship, He warned us to guard well the peace He promised.

If the home is deserving. How often do we even care to consider? Do we ever stop to ask whether or not something is worth putting our peace at risk? Do we take the time to weigh whether or not we should invite a thought into our time? Do we live slowly enough to sift everything through the Savior and His truth so as to only allow only what keeps us following Him alone?

Or do we rather just blindly, arrogantly, foolishly plunge through every single day just wasting away whatever peace or hope or joy we might have had had we had the courage to refuse this place the right to decide for us what matters to us?

For me the list is long of things I've agreed to think mattered more than the peace I lost to get them. Because the challenge is that we might not notice the peace passing as we pass it by in this rush to receive whatever idol we've chosen to serve. No, again, you don't know what you had until it's gone. We see peace best when life has fallen apart on the wrong side of our dividing ourselves among every worthless pursuit possible.

No more.

No, because the simple truth is that peace is incredibly easy to find as it comes a natural setting designed in us from our Father. He gave us His peace, problem is we’ve given it all away in exchange for a chance to live like a world that sadly assumes peace is something we have to find. And yet nobody seems to know where to look through eyes so blind to hope that none reach for it anymore. Ironic.

And while I've been there for longer than I can now understand, a lesson I'm learning a little more every day, that life isn't for me. Not any longer. No, I’ll not let this world have my peace anymore, taken away inside headlines and outrage. Done. Moving on to finding in every moment any reminder of my Savior that I might see should I remain zealous to live life outside the concessions everyone else has settled for.

No, I’ll have peace in this life and the next as that is who He made me to be and too what He proved a life worth dying for. Peace, not at all impossible to find, just never found among a place that so appreciates such an imperfect focus that none see anymore just how desperately close He’s always been.

If the home is deserving. If the person is deserving. If the idea is deserving. If not as most aren't, shake the dust and stay in the woods.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold