Day 3291 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

2 Timothy 4:5 NIV

Seems anymore that we see only the storms caused by the hatred within rather than the souls caught inside the chaos of what life has always been.

I’m honestly not even all that sure as to why we still seem so surprised by the sights and sounds anymore. Life has long been shouts and sirens, someone somewhere screaming about something that someone else is doing or not doing or doing wrong that shouldn’t be done. Yes, life has been that way for as long as I can remember, just a collection of varied calamities of a billion individual lives lived as if lone constructions so disjointed and divided that everything we do will be wrong to someone.

Perhaps it’s just that the contempt isn’t really concealed as well these days, but truth is that we should have known days such as these were coming. We were warned so as to not be alarmed or caught unprepared. As to why then we are is a matter for another musing, but for today, I think we need to look at what we’re losing within letting the hatred of this world win a fear inside our hearts.

Because we contend ourselves vessels of good news going into all the crooks and crannies of this world doing something we say changed our lives. Speaking the truth as if we’re free from past captivity, saying indeed that the truth does as such. I once was blind, but now I see. What do we see though? What can we see through? What are willing to go through to get through to the light that’s leading us through what we’ve yet to go through? What are we excited to go through to get to the promise that we say still rings true?

That’s where all this missionary idealism gets a little real. We seem a people content to sit inside our comfortable considerations of a faith already figured out leaving us all but waiting to finish off the last few plans inside these few remaining days before we’re done and home and eternally retired from trying. Read the Bible a few more times, pray a little more while we can, maybe wave at a stranger and try to not accept any invitations to any concerns or catastrophes that we don’t need to worry ourselves about.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m extraordinarily guilty of this myself. I’ve for a long time seen faith as an extremely solitary existence. Just me and God, my trying to find Him and His wondering why I make it so hard sometimes. And I do truly believe that this path needs to be utmost personal as it is in fact a relationship between we sons and daughters and our one lone Father.

But where I’ve found myself lazing into a letdown is that I’ve made it almost all about me. What am I doing that I shouldn’t? What am I saying that I need to stop? What can I, should I be doing better? How better might I please Him so that He’s somehow more proud of me? Can He be proud of me when I find inside every single day a million reasons not to be?

I hate to say it but our natural inclination toward selfishness runs so deep that it may in fact be our biggest enemy. After all, it’s even the approach that the devil used to tempt Jesus out there in those forty. See, the devil knows perfectly how to play to our preferences for personal profit. Look at all the world has that you can have if you just worship me. All the kingdoms of down here can be yours if you’ll let go of the one from which you come. So much gold and glory just waiting to be added to our story if only we’ll hand the devil the pen after we’ve made the deal.

But sadly, it’s goes well beyond riches and royalty anymore. The devil doesn’t even have to offer us anything in exchange for our souls, their salvation. These days he just needs to hint at what might happen to us if we don’t fall in line and serve him like the rest of the world is so clearly choosing to do. Warns of all the hatred and hardship that will come from a people so perfectly opinionated and proud of these endless preferences built to prevent their repentance.

Indeed, it’s pretty much crystal clear that if we do or say or even act as if we might kind of believe in something that someone else doesn’t like, doesn’t agree with, doesn’t understand, well we’re living a life that’s stepping into the crosshairs. Because the sad reality is that there’s so much confusion and concession in this place that anything we do or say will find for someone a reason to hate us. That’s what we get in this world more amazed by animosity than appreciative of His acknowledgment.

No, down here few seem to care that He cares enough about us all that He died for us even as enemies. Instead all we clearly care to continue is the dividing up and sectioning off of society into so many eternally different directions that everyone is falling apart while pretending they’re figuring it out. And inside such incessant separation we see only the dangers involved in stepping one foot too far in any direction that anyone might think is so wrong as to be an act of war.

And so we’ve settled for not doing all that much. Share some stuff of the socials. Wear a cross around our necks, not too noticeable really as a lot of people do that. Maybe wear a little WWJD bracelet or toss on a shirt with some Scripture written on it. If they come to us, we’ll talk, otherwise, well, don’t want to ruffle any feathers. Not here to rock any boats. It’s not our place to hurt feelings, hurt feelings inspire only severed friendships and a furthered distance to the doing of what we’re called to do.

We can’t do what He calls us to if we accidentally say something or do something that hurts someone’s feelings. So we try to not try too hard.

No, we don’t want to try too hard because we know well that the world already doesn’t like what we believe, what with all the reason and responsibility and all. So we drift along the surface, slightly out of notice, quiet the controls and ghost right past those we assume don’t want our work being done in their vicinity.

But friends, every day that we choose to lose an opportunity for fear of the opposition is one more failure to prove ourselves faithful to the One who endured hardship and promised us the same would come for whomever had the courage to follow the course that led to the cross. And as if to inspire our trying inside this world that daily insists we don’t, He reminded us that greater love has no one than to lay down their lives for the good of others.

Question then becomes whether it’s our lives we’re laying down or if we, like most, have simply run aground. It’s not whether we have something priceless to share with those around us that’s in need of consideration. The eternal worth of this hope we have isn’t up for contemplation. There is no doubt nor debate about the importance of this message of salvation. No, seems the breaking point that defines, divides our service from our rather living in fear is found in who we do fear.

And again, the devil uses that point to point out the risk involved in doing what Jesus calls us to do. Reminds us that people won’t like it, will then hate us, might even go so far as to harm us, hurt us. Look at Jesus! This world did that to Him! What will they do to us for speaking still that Name they still so clearly don’t want to hear?

Why does it matter? Why this fear of hardship and hatred? Is some temporary pain in this temporary life worth failing our Father through not following His Son into the doing of what needs done? Friends, this opportunity to serve in such a time within such a place is clearly as ripe and ready for our reverence of God alone to show forth for the strange courage it’s always been. This world needs to see such a boldness of faith that it invites the hatred as if we truly believe that to die is gain. But alas, such a truth has become for us a distant idea too far gone up ahead beyond the poor reception of common indifference.

That we’re vessels, these souls carrying a cargo of hope into the seas uncertainty we see and the fear we continue to agree to feel is not what’s up for discussion here. No, the problem has become that to tote such a hope into such a cantankerous society as this has defined in us an unwillingness to venture too far into what we know will prove hostile territory. We despise the risk and thus forfeit the reward of a “well done” simply because what we’re called to do, called to say, given the opportunity to share is not at all what any want to hear, want us to be.

So instead here we sit upon the outskirts of the downfall just watching it all unravel despite the hem which is the thread that’s always promised to hold us all together. Now granted, there’s not all that much in Scripture that promises peace in this place, in fact, we’re made well aware of quite the opposite. And so maybe His offer to hold us together as if one body, a community invading the immorality holding hostage so many broken hearts and shattered souls all around us may not to be found in the usual sense of community or continuity as those would demand both humility and at least a measure of hospitality.

And well, such things are nearing extinction if not already relegated to fossils of purposes past not having been passed down to keep a fire lit to fight the worst of it that’s still to come.

No, seems that where there’s warning of war, we run. We flee in fear of facing something other than friendship, anything other than fun. We look at a world choosing new sides in new divides every single day and such shows our doubt-tending eyes that failure is all but inevitable if not imminent. And as those who’ve come to equate our worth with an absence of struggle, we just keep running away any time any day dares to bring anything that might risk our insistence upon a present reward of lasting peace.

Indeed, we want only peace in this place, but friends, it isn’t coming.

And yet we keep running as if we might outrun this war. And in that frantic fleeing in fear we find that we’ve run aground along the outskirts of this outcome we claim to already know. Yes, we claim we know that He’s already won a victory irrevocable, but yet we live like we’ve got something to lose. Society insisting we understand that they’ll hate us for this hope we try to share has become a sort of spiritual sandbar upon which our service has bottomed and left us unable, unwilling, uninterested in trying anymore simply because of the risk involved.

Stuck and sinking inside a misplaced worry constructed of a negligent concern over what man prefers rather than what God so clearly deserves. Yes, we have a priceless payload perfectly aimed at the pride-filled paydirt of a world gone so cold that we should know it’s only His love keeping us afloat. But instead of charging to this shore with this Good News we’ve to share, we again just sit out here inside this fear that says nobody wants to hear it, even if we know everyone so desperately needs it.

Indeed, seems we’d rather be loved for what we’re not doing than hated for what we’re here to do, a most dishonorable discharge from service as opposed to the dispensing of honor and hope as He came to start.

In many places throughout the sea at many times throughout history, ships have been known to run aground upon banks and bars. And when said vessels find themselves in such peril, all that can be done is simply to succumb to the battering and beating of the waves breaking until the breach broken and the ship then sunken. And sadly, such vessels are we more often than not. Cast atop a changing tide of cultural expectations that ebb and flow, leaving then the opportunities to come and go.

See, we’ve been called to be fishers of men, lives then lived out at sea in search of a harvest of hope in which to sow our souls for the saving of those many drowning between here and the harbor of Heaven’s shore.

And yet, because of the same battering and bashing of beatings like betrayal and belittlement we too run risk of finding our souls bottomed out and breaking, stuck in place and sinking. Unable, unwilling to save any all because this world doesn’t want us to do what we’re called to be. And that’s the part that I don’t think entirely understood especially among the masses, but maybe even among us as well. This path is called a calling, a resounding sounding of something to do, a voice of the most truthful hope asking us to do something.

But while this faith does have things for us to do, this faith is what we’re called to be. Things like love and testimony aren’t merely undertakings of our following of Christ, they’re part of our very identity in Him. We can’t just shut it off, or rather shouldn’t be able to. But so often we do. We stay within the limits of acceptance and expectation. Avoid the controversy as if to calm the quarrel that’s bound to come. We steer clear of the consideration and conversation about things such as conversion and surrender as such aren’t welcome down here.

No, this world despises all we’re called to display, dispense. And such hatred as already seen in past evidence of lost souls acting wickedly within it are the sandbars upon which we wash demanding apparently an abandoning of ship long before Heaven’s peace. But that is the goal, the gain, the glory of His Name as opened through His pain is it not? That every soul might find salvation in Christ as this open gate into everlasting peace? And if such is the purpose, well then what’s the point of our agreeing to give up trying when the harvest is so ripe for the taking?

Granted, there’s so much animosity and anger anymore that we’ve a great many reasons to give up and jump ship out of this service to which we’ve been called, but if seen from another angle we might realize that this is a prime time to preach the Word that sets free from such frivolity. We are surrounded by souls equally adrift through fear and failure, and yet the many without the hope of Jesus are undoubtedly more eternally lost than we who welcome the battering of a world so broken.

And knowing, even seeing now every day a blankness upon the faces so starved for hope and purpose, how can we not help others to this hope we know? Because we’ll be hated by some if we do? Friends, we are not here for the many who will hate us but rather the one or two who find themselves welcome through Heaven’s gates because we lived a life that ached to die for such a reward for more than just ourselves. This has long been, will always remain so much bigger than us. He died for all, aren’t we then willing to risk a little pain or persecution for some?

I mean, if we’re going to be hated anyway, why not then live doing something that matters rather than simply sinking under the pressure to please opinion and cater to preference?

No, this path is one of proven pain and promised persecution. If we hope in a share of His redemption, we should expect a measure of His misery. Because weapons will be formed. Hatred will grow among the masses leaving them foaming at the mouth for a reason to unleash the venom within them. But, “blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.”

That’s the whole point and purpose of all this. It’s not to love the world nor find a way to be loved by the world. It isn’t to love our lives and so seek to keep them safe from harm or hate. Our time here is not our chance to avoid the cost or chaos. This life is a battleground upon which we cannot bottom out as inside our hearts has He placed a hope that we need to deliver to any eye willing to see and every ear willing to hear.

Yes, we are here to love Him in such a way that wants for all the world to know why. Let us then not wait for the rocks to cry.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold