Day 3504 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

John 6:68 NIV

A question asked and answered in what feels a perfect rhetorical fashion as such is the simplicity afforded us within this faith that lays all of life out plain so that we might see for once the difficulty we’ve long lived only adding to a life that was never ours to figure out any way.

For we’ve here learned of a life in which we exist counter to the cliché which states that when the going gets tough the tough then get going for whenever it seems that we see that something will either grow or go contrary to comfort then we wander until we want only to wonder why we might continue to endure what we might otherwise avoid along some easier path paved through calmer seas that we can coast atop without all the added strain and restraint of that narrower call into the beyond ourselves and their incessant insistence upon the safety of our selfishness.

And that such is so commonplace amongst all but all of us, well it stands to reality that we’re all then bound to become but replicas of that rebellious requesting to always have an easier life, an easier way, an easier faith, an easier everything.

We just want everything as easy as possible as there is always a way for us to manage that which is easiest even if and especially when said path of resistance’s absence proves only able to provide so much less than a life might know it’s otherwise able to become. Just don’t think about that part. Don’t worry about the more you could have been. Don’t allow yourself to consider what might have been had you been more willing to be unwilling to waver away from the way toward the best rather than instead settling for whatever’s left among the rest of the lost.

Yes, we’re a people of whatever. Always willing to go out of our way, of our minds if needed, just to find whatever is easier, safer, more acceptable, more normal, more reasonable as defined by a world that left reason behind long ago as it unanimously set out in search of something everyone is still somehow looking for. Strange undertaking it would seem. For if we were truly in any way nearly as able to define life as we’ve long tried to contend, and thus knew beyond all doubt with what it should be filled in order for us to feel full, well then surely we’d have found it by now.

But why then aren’t there any who seem all that content?

Why are so many still so urgently seeking something to make themselves feel whole? Why are many here still looking for some hole here in which to hide their hope of a home that fits within this place we’ve been so purchased by? Yes, why can’t we see the little we’ve left of the more we had back when life was so simple that a child could perhaps live it best? Why did we retire from childish beliefs? Why do we mock now those who have such faith? Why do we doubt those who exude a passion for something other than it’s always for something we fear trying to understand?

Indeed, why are we all so focused on finding ways to not fail at finding a filled or fulfilled life when that’s basically all that we’ve done so far?

That is why we look still for things to make our time here better, isn’t it? It’s why we look down on others who are different than we are, isn’t it? It’s why we doubt those who don’t chase the things we can’t help but crave, isn’t it? It’s why we know more about celebrity gossip than Gospel truth, isn’t it? It’s why we break down the doors on Black Friday with credit cards in hand and lists of things we want other people to have so that they are reminded that we remembered them for a moment around Christmas time. Isn’t it?

We’re lost in the flow of a life that’s only falling apart. And inside of it we’re each so vastly distracted by so many other concepts and constructions that we don’t have the time to find our own mind, to live our own life, to lose the many misunderstandings that we’ve erected in between us and hope. We just wake up and run right back to the same places we’ve been digging for meaning ever since the world handed us a shovel and told where to look.

And yet that’s why I love the offense of the Gospel’s simplicity. It cuts right through all this manmade mayhem and reminds us of the overall trajectory of life as defined by, and get this, not us but yet for us. Odd that! For that’s what we’re all trying to do in what’s become the most backward and upside down way possible. We want the path of least resistance so that, as we talked about yesterday, we can refrain from putting our hands to any plows we might at some point grow tired of pushing for sake of the comfort we’ve come to believe we just can’t live without, and too, all that we do decide to do is for us almost exclusively.

So why then does it seem that we all struggle so mightily with this faith that gives us a path so easy that we don’t even have to be the ones who lead it, and too, one that’s now been proven to be so gracious on our part that we’re for some reason showered with blessings brand new every morning?

It’s like God’s given us in Christ everything we’ve ever asked for and far more than we ever knew we’d always needed, and yet because it wasn’t our idea we still descend back into doubt.

We still wake up every morning, ignore the blessings we’ve been given, deny the contentment we could so easily find in God’s provision and hurry instead right back to the same places we’ve been digging trying to find our meaning alongside the same world digging in the same hole as we are and finding just as little as we’ve always found.

How is this even possible? For it should have never become so possible, so normal for our to have become this diluted and distracted and thus able to take all of life for granted while we, instead of being grateful, only live a way of life that is filled to the brim with anger, with frustration, with impatience, with idols, with idleness, with a sort of complacent wildness that has rendered each of us a wilderness in which all we seem to be anymore is just wayward want and worthless wish without any real limit and thus no contentment.

How did we get here to this way of life in which we’re happier to always be looking for hope that we cannot find where we’re looking than we think we could be having the hope that never asked us to look for it but rather came to find us?

Friends, to whom else shall we go? To whom all have we gone? Toward what all have we run? In what all have we hoped? Where all have we looked? What more can we try? Who else can we listen to? What other path that others are already following might we ourselves try assuming that somehow we’ll find something more than they’ve found already? Yes, what can we find, who can we follow, where here can we go that a million others haven’t already explored, excavated, evacuated, eviscerated in search of the meaning of life and some impossible ability to live it well enough to never feel guilty or empty or shallow or insane for having chosen so little as to live like everyone else?

For the truth is that all of us, like sheep, have indeed gone way astray in search of a hundred other hopes, a thousand other theories, a million other miracles, a billion other beliefs, all of them becoming for us an infinite number of idols that we’ve so come to serve that to now sever our submission now that we’re all so scared of giving up all that time to what is our having found absolutely nothing, no, such concession would then mean we’d wasted a vast swath of ourselves, our souls inside what is as inconsiderable an outcome as this world finds faith to be.

And yet thus we see that either way, no matter where we go, who we follow, what we hope to find once we get wherever we’re going or being led, or being dragged, we’re going to be seen as fool to someone. Because we’ll end up putting our faith in something, someone, some place that we chase only because we believe it worth the walk.

For as much as this world so tries to deny the very existence of belief, the fact is that those two are entwined, both this world’s doubt of the singular divine and our now having the same frame of mind in which we’ve made our way only to our way and like them fear now only leaving it for what is then a loss of what’s become an entire way of life that we once believed was worth living. Yes, this world is so blind by doubt that most can’t see that we’re all putting our faith in something that we believe in.

And this makes so little sense in this surround as to most it sounds that to lay down a life for something in which you believe is just to die and thus never find the fullness of the many other ideas and intentions, entertainments and interventions that we’ve long since come to assume are all but key to a life well lived here. And so yes, to whom else shall we go, knowing now the insanity to which we’ve come? Knowing the insanity that we’ve all but become?

What more are we willing to try of this world that either we haven’t already given a shot or rather that we don’t know of someone else who likewise already tried only to have already found nothing? What other worldly idea do we still need to try trying to find life when it’s life that we’re losing in all this pointless searching for something here that can’t give us time back? Yes, how many more of our few remaining days are we willing to waste upon this common wager that within this world is waiting something we need to be alive?

Are we not already there? Is the fact that we woke up today not proof of our being here? Do we need another idol on our mantle to make us happy? Have any of the others? Do we need some more money in our bank account to feel as if we’re worth something? Do those digits not already all but define our value? Why are we so willing to put so much effort, so much trust, so much hope, so much life into things that have never been able to give us life in return?

Why are so many still so leery of putting that same effort, that same hope, that same trust and life and love and reliance into the One who went to the grave just to roll the stone out of the way of our having eternal life?

Is it because it sounds silly to most, even though most are still looking here for something to make their lives perfect before they still end anyway? Is it because it’s not the normal way many walk in this world, a world that’s still lost looking for more idols in hopes that something they make might make them into something more? Is it just because we’re afraid to leave fear behind in a world that’s afraid of everything? What’s more foolish my friends, doing as everyone else is and finding the same nothing as they or doing something different and finding what they then force themselves to doubt?

Is it more insane to believe in eternal life or to believe, like most, that our greatest hope is that this temporary life doesn’t end for a while still?

I don’t know, suppose it’s one of those things each of us have to determine, decide, decipher for ourselves. But that’s just it, maybe it’s time we do decide this for ourselves rather than basing our life’s direction upon the presumptions of man or the pain it might mean to walk away from where we thought we could belong or the persecution proven in those lost inside their minds in that place that has them convinced it makes no sense to leave behind.

Either way we’re all walking both away from something and thus toward something else that we believe to be better.

What? Where? When? Why? To whom shall we go?

Friends, there is nothing in this world that can offer what Christ has already accomplished. Nothing. And too then there is nobody here who has found any other idea, ideal, idol that can bestow upon us the concept of eternal life let alone the promise of it already waiting for us. Nothing. No one. Nowhere. There is here an eternal vacuum of other possibilities in which we might find eternal life. For there is no other Name than Jesus and thus no other place than upon our knees seeking Him through prayer and petition.

Because despite that making no sense to so many, the fact is that this world is fading away, and if measured by the fall and its tempo, it’s fading fast.

Why then keep looking where we’re leaving for what we need in order to stay alive? Life doesn’t last here friends, it only starts here. Faith is merely the definition of where we ourselves believe it continues.

Where else are you going to look? Who else are you going to ask? What else haven’t you tried to make you feel more alive? And when will we see that nothing in a world marked for destruction can ever then possibly prove or provide something lasting?

I get it, this world is filled with all sorts of things that may add to our life for a moment. We’re surrounded by things we can enjoy, experience, taste, see, touch, try. And even more, we’re surrounded by millions enjoying and tasting and touching and trying all this world has to offer and telling all about mow incredible it all feels or seems or looks for the moment. But friends, none of it can change what’s coming. So just be careful how consumed you allow yourself to become by things that are not permanent.

It’s simply not worth putting all our eggs in a basket that’s blowing apart inside a disbelief so deep that the majority of people would rather spend their days sunk deep in doubt than to let go of what they’re leaving behind and find out if there’s more to this Jesus than this world has tried to convince us.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold