Day 3322 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Proverbs 26:12 NIV

For any to rely only upon themselves and their self-perceived wisdom is to confine oneself to the chaos of our own considerations.

Because if we’re to be either the main, or, and entirely more likely the only, source of wisdom in our lives from which we glean guidance or instruction or correction in terms of understanding, of reality, of reason, of truth even, then we’ve become our own saviors and must then rely only upon our own abilities and capabilities to lead us toward the inevitability of our own understandings never being able to have seen enough to have known enough to have become reliable enough to lead us where our sight couldn’t see beyond the chaos we’ve become.

All we can accomplish when living a life following ourselves is mundanity made unmistakable in this downfall we’re seeing all around us.

Just chaos.

Because the plain and simple truth of it all is that you and I are inherently content with this existence as if ships tossed about by the winds of war of want of wealth. We’re more than happy to wake up and waste our days wandering in want and wondering why it’s never enough. We are entirely a people of vast misunderstanding as proven inside our today being both entirely new and yet still unmistakably similar to the confusion of yesterday. Because we take each and every morning and make new goals in light of yesterday’s failures, knowing well that when we fail to fulfill them today, we’ll just make more tomorrow.

That’s our grandest understanding of life. To take it for granted. To always assume another opportunity. To almost insist upon the levity which allows our vanity to become in us a road sign leading us always only deeper into selfishness and thus deeper in sin. For to put oneself upon these pedestals which we’ve inhabited is to equate oneself with their Maker, meaning then that we’ve no reason to look up to Him as if to rely on Him to lead us toward Him, but rather that we’re already there and thus need nothing of Him.

This is a tragedy found and felt inside every life. This idea that we ourselves are our gods. That we’ve both the ability and thus apparently the right to determine what is right and thus the many others which disagree with our opinion being then labeled wrong and thus wicked. Yes, we live in a world wrapped in a way in which everyone lives and loves as if they alone can determine the proper way in which to do both, leaving then an entire creation lost in the chaos of a billion considerations considering themselves alone the only one correct.

And yet despite the discrepancies and dangers such self-delusion has designed and demanded in days now past, it seems that we still fail to see any reason to see beyond ourselves into the beauty of this opportunity to take up crosses meant to get our selfishness out of the way that we might for once not merely live for more than what we ourselves have ever proven able to find or feel or be or behold, but to actually live period.

For a life lived following only oneself as led then by one’s own desires or dreads is nothing but death as such is done only inside the confines of this calamity we call culture.

That has become arguably one of the greatest fears in my heart and in turn the most rapidly growing focus in regard to my faith. To fight against this world and its way from defining my life anymore. Because it has. I sit here today still wallowing within the weariness of having been shown so kindly the many days in which I wasted away watching the world and wanting them to tell me how I should live my life.

And I know now that the many mistakes I’ve made, and the many mistaken ways I’ve accepted, have only become part of my own dishevelment because I was so incredibly willing to trust myself to know what could be welcomed into my eyes and my ears and my heart and my mind. And I see now only the missed opportunities to see both beyond the wicked ways of this world, but so too beyond myself as lost within those same wicked wanderings.

Because, and all glory to God above as this is something I’d never have had the ability to confess as I never had the ability to see it before, but I know now that in all those years spent living as the world taught me to, convinced I knew it all and could thus rely upon either myself or my surroundings to lead me toward the meaning and purpose of my life, no, all I managed to find was the corruption of my life and the loss of more years than I can stomach admitting were wasted wanting only what this world still seeks for itself:

To be its own savior simply for the sake of never having to accept the humility needed to be saved from what we’ve become.

And therein lies the biggest problem. If we’ve been the ones who’ve created all of our own problems, accepted all of our misunderstandings, lived lost and yet in love with our limitations, how then can we become the ones to lead ourselves elsewhere? If we led or let others lead us to this lost outlook seeking nothing but only what we see or assume we see, how can we be the ones to lead or be led by that same sort of complacency that allowed humanity to lead the way to only what humanity knows to want, to prize, to prioritize?

No, this is why we need a true Savior who is above us, who is better than us, who is the spotless Lamb of God. For neither I nor you have any ground upon which to stand which might afford us the legitimation of our stance that we’re spotless.

We’re sinners, and simply put, sinners cannot save themselves. Which is precisely why there is more hope for a fool than for one who is wise in their own eyes, because those who are wise in their own eyes have convinced themselves they’ve not a need to learn, to grow, to improve, to change. And if there’s a better way to describe what this world has become and what’s become of us because of our having agreed to become like this world, I don’t know what it is.

We are a people who, despite the undeniable reality of our inability as defined by our sinful insufficiency, have managed to convince ourselves that we have no such limits. That we can see enough to know enough to do enough to be enough to be enough. Indeed, we walk amongst a world selling this lie that says each of us can become the authors and inventors and creators and instigators of our own best life, our own flawless outcome, our own eternal worth.

And we’ve forgotten God behind our blaspheme as seen and shown in our living as if we’re either Him or close enough to His level that we can feel free to take credit for what He began and what He died to redeem.

Which somewhat brings about the gravity of this most graceful week in which we’re in. Tomorrow is Good Friday, the day in which we set aside time to remember, to reflect, to realize the cost paid to cover our sins and set us free from the way of life which made them manifest in such disgusting levels that God Himself chose to atone for His creation, when He had absolutely no reason to do so. He didn’t have to die to accomplish our eternal forgiveness as our arrogance still to this day finds ways in which to wander into wonder as to whether or not we really need the sort of humbled reverence our faith demands.

Because for so long now, all we’ve known is to revere ourselves alone. And we’ve become most resolute in such a perspective, so much so that we actually deny our faults and failures so much and so often that we’ve come to this heartbreaking ability to deny the One who shed His blood to wash them away.

And thus we’ve become wise in our own eyes, the same which equate seeing to believing, believing then that since we can’t see Him, well then we’re free to deny Him and try to become Him. And we live as if we’ve not only figured out how to do so, but that we’ve perfected the practice and need now nothing of any that He says, that He did, that He does. No, we’ve become so wise in and of ourselves that we discount the gravity of His grace simply for the sake of our not having to face the humility which proves that not only can we not save ourselves, but that in fact we’re the ones who chose all the ways from which we need now to be saved.

“Jesus said, “’If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”’ John 9:41

Yes, we’ve followed our self-perceived wisdom all the way to the point in which we’ve managed to testify against ourselves, accomplishing only our own verdict of guilt in terms of sin and the shame from which we’ve never seemed to flee far enough fast enough. For we cannot outrun what we have done, and despite our trying instead to run away from the One who made the Way for us to be forgiven, we’ve now come full circle into this violent slamming into that Rock from which we’ve run.

Because God’s truth isn’t some pinpoint problem from which we can run in a straight line and find a place wherein we’re safe from having to accept His Law and leading. No, His truth is consuming for all of life was written within it, and thus no matter what we do or become able to convince ourselves of, none of us can deny His sovereignty as He is the One who made us in His image while we’re just ones who made a mockery of such an opportunity.

Which is why I for one am done living as this world does, worrying about what this world wants, listening to what this world says, believing in only what this world considers possible as defined by the little of life that any of us have seen from down here inside our collective blindness as designed by doubt and furthered by faithlessness. Because I know where that path leads, and friends, it isn’t freedom. It isn’t fun. It isn’t filled with joy or purpose or meaning. It’s not a path with throngs of friends and wins and reward.

It’s hell. Simply the entire antithesis of life and the opportunity to live it within God’s presence and the endless blessings found in such mercy as He is.

No, there is no hope to be found by one who thinks themselves wise for they’ll be forever lost inside this assumption that they themselves either know the way or can find the way or might become the way to whatever it is that they believe life is meant to be. And personally, which granted, I think at this point we’ve well established that I’m rather weird, but I for one cannot think of a more bland idea than that all of life is limited to my way always spent seeing only my ideas, aimed always at my desires, relying solely upon my abilities, able then to only know the extremities of my limitations.

For what can life mean, what can hope be if I’m the one who either has to find it or design it?

Maybe it’s just me, but after trying exactly that for as long as I have in the past, I just can’t seem to see any reason to keep failing to find it. Because if it were on me to be enough, to know enough, to have enough, I’d have located it by now. I’ve had so many things, so many friends, plenty of money, good grades, great ideas, wonderful plans, perfectly placed goals and all other likewise assumptions of my own success and ability to achieve the outcome we all seek.

But still I’ve not found peace inside any piece of property, any personal achievement, any vain sense of understanding or comprehension, any number of goals accomplished or ideals idolized. No, the closest I’ve come to peace has been in those moments in which I finally allowed myself to agree that my ideas, my dreams, my desires were never enough to give my life meaning nor my soul contentment.

The closest I’ve ever come to peace was when I laid something I’d tried, something I’d failed, something I’d wanted, something I’d won at the foot of the cross so that it wasn’t allowed to keep me from looking up to the One who took my place.

Maybe that’s wisdom. Maybe it’s foolishness. But either way, maybe I don’t need to worry about it nor wonder what others might think of it. Maybe all this time we’re spending trying to figure life out can only keep us from living life at all. Maybe it’s not on us to know it all, as such is simply an inescapable impossibility. Maybe it’s not on us to write our own truth, to live our truth as the kids say these days.

No, maybe our greatest accomplishment in life is merely surrendering our assumptions unto the One who never asked us to understand it all but rather to humbly trust that He always has.

Yes, maybe we should do as the world doesn’t and embrace our obvious foolishness, for perhaps in that there is hope of growth as found only by the ability to see that we can’t see everything. Because I just can’t shake this feeling that my own wisdom won’t get me into Heaven, but that my only chance at that peace is found in leaning upon Christ to be the wisdom I clearly never had on my own.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold