Day 3409 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Luke 12:15 NIV

It’s almost as if Jesus has this thing about offending our present conditions as conceded upon possessions proving to those blind that what we have is worth more than who we are or hope to be.

But indeed, though considerably contrary to the seed planted by greed, no, neither is life made more meaningful within an abundance of possessions nor can an abundance of possessions contain anything that could in any way be considered a life. For the gravity of greed is that it’s always going after what can be gotten. It’s a mindset set upon a thing, always a thing, something somewhere that someone says we need more near. It’s an idea, an ideal in which resides this lie which says our lives are not as vast or valuable presently as we presume they’d be if we could just get our hands on what someone else is always holding.

Yes, we live as if someone else is always holding something in which our lives are to be lived better if we could just have a share, a spare, a replica or reflection.

Thus we live never seeing past the seen for such is where greed grows within the glitter of gold which hands can hold and souls can sell, apparently then giving us a story to tell worth the life we don’t have, the life we don’t live, the hope we can’t give because we’d done given it all away for all the gain we’ve already got, which was fine at the time but left us empty in the end. And this story spins again, and then again, and again, again, again, it’s one that never ends.

Because greed can always see something more we need, leaving our hearts and minds and eyes and lives always looking as if we’re so empty that what we have is no longer worth a thing as who we are is always compared to that something that someone else always says they have, says we should want, convinces us we need. Indeed, our lives are lived in need, not because we’ve not had our real needs pleased, but merely because to need is the way of greed and it just never sleeps.

For why rest upon provision perfected when there be preferences to prioritize and pursue and purchase and promise to ourselves to be the one that will finally leave us looking like a world so lost in this lie that everyone here thinks which says that who we are is defined best by what we hold rather than leaning upon the simple fact that we are held? We don’t care about such simplicity anymore as there’s to be found no competition in it. And where there’s no competing then there’s no winning. And where there’s no winning then there’s no living.

And if we’re not living by competing to keep winning whatever everyone else already has, well then no, perhaps our lives really aren’t worth more than what we have and hold as held down here.

Indeed, down here we're taught to look upon the world, to look to the world, to walk and talk and want and wish like the world, both society and culture combined, and to there behold all we might hope to hold as if that’s all that might hold hope. Yes, we're encouraged, expected, expressly instructed to look at the world laid out before us and to therein imagine all we might find of this place, take from this place, become in this place. And for a while, a whole lifetime in fact, for some, for many maybe, for all of us in fact, that's great.

It's an outlook greatly exciting in fact. For here there are indeed so many things and thoughts that are so very enamoring that we've all likewise followed that path paved with the self-perceived glory of personal gain. We’ve bought this idea we’re sold, this ideal we’ve stole that says the grandest experience of life, the entire outlook of such an outcome is one best built upon and hinged within our getting of everything in or of this world.

And this line of that lie is one in which once along, we just keep going along, for again, greed never sleeps as it knows we might miss something we might not know we need if we take a chance at not caring about what all the world is selling and saying and sharing for a second. Yes, this idea of ever-growing greed is one in which we’ve grown only to look for ways to laze and daze and dream and draw and demand and design an entire lifetime lived within a world in which life is only confined for the meantime.

Because that’s the concession to which greed agrees to concede. That life is nothing more than whatever we might imagine to want, convince ourselves we need as picked from lists of lots the lost have found upon this ground. Yeah, and having all sheepishly followed one another along that path through this life, we’ve indeed seen and sold, bought and believed in and of so many things which may have, at some point or in some way at some time, become to us something nearly considered a necessity we cannot see our lives being lived without.

A mindset that once set in says, and again, a lie we’re most ready to buy for this present mindset we all so sadly and shallowly share, that this place does indeed, as we've so selfishly come to agree, seem to have all that heart may want, all that a worldly life may need. And, like most, we’ve all reached at least a close proximity to this personal proclivity in which we believe only that for anyone to have the whole world at their fingertips does indeed seem to offer them a great many things to have, hold, experience, enjoy.

Yes, again, just look at everything this world has to offer, just imagine all you can have here!

It's seemingly endless, isn’t it? And yet even then, we see every day in so many ways so many others who are living that line, loving that lie, looking for a life within the lifelessness of a world living for looks and looking for the laziness that affords a soul the ability to assume it can afford to live for nothing more than what we can look at. Because to us, such has become the easiest evidence of our existence. We can all point to something with which we can tell someone that we’re someone who’s worth something, who’s done something, who is something. And so that's why we so easily agree to it, go along with it, settle for it.

Because we just want to be able to prove that we matter, that we’re here, that we’re not a mistake or haven’t lived a life making mistakes. And even beyond that, we want to belong, to feel like we’re home, to exist as if we have a place, a peace, a piece of importance that can prove our importance to the people we’ve come to please while still competing against. And in that life as lost to looking for a world to love us via our loving the things and thoughts and ways and wants of this world, our eyes have become so blind that we cannot see belief beyond the barricades of manmade misfortune.

Indeed, our eyes are the window, not anymore to the soul as such we’ve sold, but rather to our wanting whatever everyone else says they've found they need in their lives that’s, to them, worth the souls they sold to get it, have it, hold it. And so such has become the status quo, the only way we go. And so sure, let us all just keep rinsing and repeating everything that everyone else is doing. Why not spend one more day looking only here for all that a heart may hope to have? Everyone else lives as if that’s good enough, maybe they all know more than we do even though they’ve no real hope beyond what they have or hope to hold.

Yes, a community of strangers denying the dangers of devoting our dreams to the things in scenes shown on screens that scream that there’s something new we need. For the world knows well how to hold our focus here, for the devil’s always known the way to keep us wandering after the wrong way of wonder. And like those who just can’t seem to help themselves, we live like sheep led to slaughter, simply because our communal greed gives us something to chase after.

But is what we have really worth more than where we’re headed? Is having something here so important that it discounts the importance of what’s not held here? Again, as we talked about yesterday, a topic of ongoing importance in these posts, in my mind, in life itself if we’d just be serious for a second and admit it, is that hope should not be something so small, so trivial, so mundial that we live as if we can find it in things made by people, wanted by people, won by people who are no different than us.

Are we truly in such a rush to find a replacement meaning for our lives, for ourselves that we see no other way than just doing whatever everyone is doing, losing whatever they’ve not seen reason to keep around, to keep ahead?

As for me, as I’ve said, I want my hope ahead. I want to live this life knowing that the best of it is still to come, long after even this life is done. I want that horizon to be the beginning of my hope, my happiness, my best and brightest. I want Heaven, for such must be so beautiful, so magnificent, so just miraculous, for why else would Jesus have died to call us toward it?

Must be worth losing a life to find it! And so that is just what I plan to do with this one. And no, not in some maniacal or potentially suicidal way. No, I mean only to say that I am more than happy to walk away from anything and everything of this life, because I finally agree that no, life does not consist in an abundance of possessions. I’ve had an abundance of possessions. I’ve had a bunch of preferences and opinions. I’ve crafted or curated a whole museum of idols and ideas that I just knew at the time would add to, if not better define my life.

And they didn’t. Not one of them. Not a single possession has made my life better. Save for one.

The living Word of God.

That book changed my life, saved my life, is still changing and saving and restoring my life. And the more it does, the more He does, the more here I don’t want. For I can no longer, even though so many still do and will continue to, I can no longer see life inside something that I have to give a part of my life to get. Because I can’t get my life back. No, none of us can for the gravity of life is that we all only give it away.

Perhaps not something then that we should be letting ourselves give away so freely as to worry so fiercely about what temporary treasures we might get in return.

Because, again as His Word says, treasures as had and held here only tarnish. They get lost, stolen, broken and left behind. Everything from money to mansions, picket fences and concert tickets. It will all be left. But the scary part is that it seems we’re forgetting to wonder as to what we’ll ne left hoping toward when these lives are falling away from behind us. Will the best be behind, all this gold and gain we’ve become greedy to get? Is that the best there is?

Friends, that idea, that’s fine if you’re fine with your life being held here, your hope being held here, you being held here inside what you hold. Truly, if this is the best you can believe for, then go right ahead and listen to the world tell you what you need to live a life that means something while you’re here. Buy those lies if they seem to you like a life worth living, a life alive at all. Pretend you’re nothing but the possessions you have. Tell others about all you don’t have yet but have plans to get. Go on.

Chase more chalices and choices and chances to avoid changes. And look always to all this world has for you to hold so that you’re not left holding the weight of such a wrong way of living. Yes, build yourself as if an idol, an ideal made of marble and mammon. Consider yourself a statue of granite and gain, the glory of gold if that’s all you care to be. Have at it! Look always only to all this world has to offer to offer you and your life a meaning, a reason, a substance of something.

For yes, there is so much here for us to have, but show me what isn't here. Show me what this world doesn’t have to offer. Point out for me the location within this land where your hand, my hand might hold hope itself. Yes, point out where in this world I can find what isn't of this world. Where here is happiness housed? Locate for me love on a map. Point out the place of perfect peace. Where can one come upon purpose? Where here does rest rest?

Yes, can any prove that reason resides between the sea sides? Or are we not rather just blown to the tides, all of us tied to trying for all that's not worth dying for?

Or is that not the entire point of our pointless pursuit of pretending that possessions prove our purpose? That, if our lives are locked inside the unalive, then we don’t have to realize we’re not either? Perhaps never have been. For could we have? Have we not lived, again like all do and many will, lost inside this idea that a bunch of lifeless idols are enough to allow us to merely ourselves alive through those materials, alive only to those materials? What then?

Because the truth is the warning which defines the undertow of this calling against our greed going always unchecked, un-choked. It’s that if we live for only what can inspire greed, then we’ll never be anything more than whatever we’re currently looking for. And friends, that is a heartbreaking outlook indeed. But sure, do as everyone does. Why not?

Why? Because if you look to what's here then you'll find only what can fit here inside a hollow world passing away. Yes, look for life here and you’ll find a version that fits here. But because Jesus said we could, said we should, I want one that can’t. And so I’ll look only to, only for what can't fit here.

For He came not to live a life filled with worldly wealth but instead died to prove that there’s something on the other side of this life that’s worth far more than everything this world has to offer or threatens to take away. Thus I’m done trying to fill my life, my time with what He went all the way to the grave to show us is best lived emptied of here so that our hope isn’t left empty too when we leave here.

No, friends, please stop trying to confine your life inside things that are lifeless, eternally worthless. Who cares if they matter here? I don’t know about you, but I’m not planning on staying. So why live my life as if I might need to be ready should eternity never come?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold