Day 3290 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Matthew 9:37 NIV

Who will go?

Who will stay? Who might dare follow into the fray the Way which brought the life that demands, that deserves the truth spoken in love as only the Spirit can do, can be? Because we wake up again once more in this world so much the same as it was the night before, only the distant idea that an even dimmer darkness awaits just ahead of us. That is the only way this world knows to go, deeper into the depravity, deeper into disrepair.

And yet it’s within such disintegration that our obligation should become in us an excited opportunity to finally see His leading us to do what He’s called us to be.

That’s what this world doesn’t understand, a reality that even we seem to struggle with at times. This isn’t a calling as if a phone complete with voicemail in case we don’t feel like picking up some days. This isn’t a hobby enjoyed on weekends or in rare times of boredom with nothing new on TV. We don’t turn this off as we weren’t the ones who turned it on. No, He began a good work in us, a work that should inspire of us a willingness to run and gun for His good will being known by everyone.

Yet this place thinks we do this for the same kind of vain glory that every other story is trying to write for themselves. That we serve to be seen, to be known, to be loved. No, we serve in love so that He’s seen because we know that we all need the hope He made so real that we’ve left no reason to deny Him anymore.

So why do we? Why do we step to the edge of this world and wait for them to want us to speak up? Why do we whisper, wanting for none to hear us speak too loudly a Word we know will likely be hated? Is it not so that we’re not known for being those who cut down the growth of a world growing the wrong direction?

There are many courageous sounding passages strewn throughout Scripture and the many generations in which it was written, breathed for our benefit. Almost as if God knew that within each lifetime there was a shared need of the resiliency of courage as this world still is what it has always been. And so He continues to lead into such a humility that finally accomplishes for us a resiliency to stand and speak this Word He’s so graciously given.

Because let’s just face it, arrogance and pride aren’t at all willing to die the way this faith deserves. And so thanks be to God above that within His provisional love He for some reason still sees fit to get us through the thick of it. Indeed, seems anymore that the walls are closing in, a world inviting itself to consider for us our own giving up, giving in and letting them go along burning down. Be it the complacency of sinful comfort or the vast wealth of worldly applause that awaits for all who fall in line behind the lie of disbelief, the fact is that most are quite content to stay lost enough to assume themselves found.

Thus the harvest at which we tend to wait along the edge expecting the reaping to come to us asking for applause for their fleeing the ground upon which we’re called to work.

See, that’s the whole point of being a messenger, an emissary, a representative ambassador. To work. To want for the world to hear this hope we have. To war if need be if such would set someone free from this failure of a life to live for more than this life. Because indeed, if it’s only for this life that we have faith in Christ then we are truly those most to be pitied. He’s a bridge to better, a promise of a pace unavailable in this place. The promise of a place not in this place.

Why do we seem content then to consider any others staying behind if we believe He’s gone ahead?

See, this world had done a right confusion in our hearts. So many blanket assumptions assuming even for us out here an insistence upon agreement with all that the masses make clear they prefer. There are endless lines drawn on and more being decided upon this hollowed ground by this hopeless idea that everyone is not merely able but almost fully expected to insist from others how to be approached, appreciated. Indeed, this world has convinced us of a great catering to the calamity, a chaos of cultures crumbling.

All in the effort to dissolve so much reason and responsibility so as to allow everyone their own outcome as each sees fit to expect.

And within these billions of varied expectations is found either evidence of our difference unwelcome or encouragement to speak a welcome to their being different. That’s the gift He’s given, a chance to choose to change for a change. To lose past pretense and present preference in exchange for a change that inspires in us a fire demanding we burn through both the barricades this world has made as well as the bridges back to indifference we’ll undoubtedly wish frequently across.

Indeed, as this world grows darker as such is undeniably promised, a reality undebatable already occurring, we will find ourselves in such a fear that inspires us to fail this faith. The odds, as we’ve been talking for a day or two, are high and heavy, a clarifying retribution rewarded to all who risk running against the ways this world wishes to remain. And as such venom and vitriol as hatred and its hardship increase in both misery and monotony, our inability to hold this road will show for us a reason to quit.

Because we like to quit. That’s why we wait to start.

We like to run. We love to hide so as to avoid the trial and trouble we know outside. There’s a lion out there! I’ll be killed in the public square, the sluggard and slacker says. Proverbs 22:13. Indeed, we look readily for any way to avoid everything that even hints of risk rather than reward. A life given over to fear even before we get going. And if such is truly our outlook, well then where are we going? What are we doing? Is anything we’re doing conducive to where we claim to be going as following a faith that’s led the way up out of this place?

If it has, if He has, stoned rolled and all, why do we still live like we’re afraid of dying out here in these fields of furiosity and foolishness? Has He overcome our death leaving us to live forever no matter what happens along the road home? Or do we retain still an undisclosed doubt as to whether or not we can maybe make out of this life alive? Personally, I don’t plan to, don’t know that I want to. No, as potentially sad or strange as that may sound, as this place burns itself lower I don’t really want to watch all that much more of the misery.

It’s hard to see. We walk daily alongside people who look at us as if they’d either we not be there or as if enemies they’re glad they’ve the opportunity to oppose. Without even knowing us. The hatred is so deep down here anymore that to even walk is an effort undertaken by seldom few. And to walk against the grain only invites a pain that none seem to see as worth the risk. No reward. No reason therefore to want for the kind of war that’s coming, a battle which by all accounts has already began.

Who would do such a thing to themselves as to choose the path that’s been proven so despised it’s deadly? Are we not meant to live this life? Well, while such is the assumption most widespread throughout the world, no. No, I contend that this life isn’t ours to live but rather ours to give. To surrender. To suffer if in all honesty such is needed for any to see a reason to flee the suffering that’s coming. Because you see, my faith teaches me that God knows I’ll die and when that end will come.

But yet in Him I’ve also this trust that says just beyond my leaving here is my arriving home.

And so I can’t see anymore this idea telling me that my life is mine to keep, to live as I see need. No, I can’t keep doing as I’ve done in the past, as many do in the present, as more will do as love grows cold up ahead. I can’t step to the edge and assume a whisper quiet enough to not be heard by the hatred will accomplish anything for anyone that He’s left me here to try and help. Which is exactly what I think life is meant to be.

Because if He died to save me, set me free, why else am I still here? If He wants so badly for my soul to be home inside a peace beside of Him then why do I still walk streets of dirt and despair rather than the gold we’re told is up there? Is it to test me? I’ll fail. To break me? Already shattered. To punish me for sins already final? Why the cross? See, if all this faith is will always remain but a distant hope for me alone, why such a price?

I am not worth what He went through, a fact I find in deeper measure inside every day in which I fail to be anything close to everything He deserves.

So why am I here? Why do I believe? Why this unshakeable insistence upon sitting in this closet with a laptop on a shoebox typing 2,000+ a day seeking for some way to speak a word that defines the life held in His will? Is it just for me, another vanity? Is it somehow a seeking after glory even after nine years of very few noticing? Is it a stupidity, this seeking and speaking through words few read that keeps me trying anyway knowing today will by and large be the same?

Why does He keep me coming back?

If not for the hope that others might somehow get something out of my life should I give it back to Him to be used as He sees fit?

Because I can’t do anything with it, I’ve done proven that perfectly inside a past that’s most pitiable and pathetic. And yet for some strange reason I can’t quiet this storm inside asking me to speak, to say something, to write something or think something that might help someone, somehow. I don’t honestly have any idea, not a single clue as to how He might use anything I do as none of this of which I’m able seems all that worth anything anymore.

But I can’t help but believe that it is. Even just for one. Because I want to be that rarity, that lone weirdo who wants a life to mean more than something to just one someone. I don’t want my life to just matter to me because what can possibly be the point of that? Why would He leave me here if I’m still the only one to get anything out of my time here when that time is up?

No, He has us here for a reason, calls us to this season knowing the harvest is ripe for the taking. Couldn’t be more ready to hear what He has us here to say, to share. This world is hurting in ways we know nothing about. You hear it said all the time that everyone else is fighting a war you know nothing about. Do we just wait while they waste in worry? Do we step to the edge of His hope and wish we could do more to help others find this faith we claim?

Do we carry His Name but avoid the pain His presence has chosen, has proven? Are we merely here to wait for our reward? Or does He not have a purpose a little bigger than just our one?

So much of life as it’s not lived all that much anymore has become all about populations of a single soul. Everyone all around doing only what benefits them, what comforts them, what satisfies and supplies for them. And it’s gotten so deep, this rampant selfishness, that even we who claim to follow the epitome of selfless surrender are at risk of doing nothing because anymore it seems that to do anything, say anything is the best way to be hated.

Friends, let the harvest hate us. It’s okay. It’s all but promised! Because the point isn’t our peace or prosperity, those are perfected in Jesus and the place He’s prepared for us. And if we hold to that hope of that home and the forever in which we’ll be there, should we not want that for everyone else, who like us, has become a little too used to life down here?

Indeed, if we have this hope in Him that says nothing can take us away from Him or ruin the beautiful promises we have in Him, then what are we worried about? What are we afraid to lose if our lives are held in His hands? What can this world do to us, think of us that will change His mind or undo His plans? No, friends it’s against that nonsense that we’re called to fight against. And it is a good fight because any who hear of His promise of peace through salvation by repentance will find such a harvest of everything good when they find Him that it will change their forever.

Isn’t that worth working for, fighting for, suffering for?

He thought so.

Guess then it’s down to what we think. Do we think He can use us? Do we believe He can work through us? Are we willing to be used by Him, for Him, before others? Or will we instead allow this world to hold us on the edge of this harvest?

Truth is that I don’t know that there’s been a better time to do what we’re called to. So many hurting, so many lost, so much hatred continuing the two. It’s perfect. This battlefield is perfect. And if our faith is striving for the growth it demands, the growth in trust He deserves, then wouldn’t we be ecstatic at this opportunity to spread His light inside such a dim place? Shouldn’t we be overjoyed to speak of His joy among so many sullen faces? Yes, if we do believe in His promise then we should see that this place needs us to stop living in fear of this place.

Because again, fear is a snare that will keep us from doing all He’s called us to do. This world doesn’t want the kind of love He asks us to share, it’s too truthful. People don’t want to hear about sin or the necessity of repentance, too humiliating. In fact, nobody even wants to understand His salvation because it proves we’ve gotten so lost and broken that we do need saving. It’s caustic to our arrogance.

But that things such as arrogance and pride and vanity and gluttony are as widespread and well-loved as they’ve become, becoming for most their very identity, the harvest is ripe for the taking. But will we take the chance? Will we risk the thorns and scorns of those to whom we’re called to try? Will we plunge ourselves into His purpose or instead lean again on the excuses we’ve long used to prevent the persecution?

Such a choice is up to each, but if it takes the hatred of this world to please Heaven, somebody hand me a sickle. Because I know human applause can do nothing for me. But hearing Him say “well done”, well, guess that means I’ve something to do that He can do well through me. And so it’s into the field, into the fray.

Who will go? They will be few, but what they’ll do is something so amazing that even Heaven rejoices.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold