Day 3532 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV

Tis here a glad thing to boast about our power as if not such a pretense of pretend as it’s always been.

Alas, try as we have we’ve not yet managed to make ourselves more than ourselves and, to some at least, this seems to say that we’re truly not our own for if we were, well then we would have been able to become all we’ve along the way wanted to be. But that we’ve been so able to fall so short of all those desires and dreams paints a scene in which is seen that this life is not about such things as all that we insist isn’t make believe. Such as our dreams and the demands of delusions they demand.

For we’ve all dreamt of a many betterment or brighter day only to awake once more unto the rain continuing to pour and the flaws we’ve against so fought still finding for us a failure toward that better we’ve never been.

All because to become better has never been within our power. To become worse is by all means something we’ve most certainly made manifest a great many times thus far in life. All of us have fallen and failed and found reasons to wallow within the washout of our every wish growing distant behind our inherent inability to actually force much of anything in life. No, we’ve all told far less power than we so often pretend. And while this is most definitely a most defiant affront to our hearts so arrogant, that it still remains reality still means it’s real.

Especially when we wish it weren’t.

Because there’s a not so secret to the secret of life that all of us have in many ways and in many places searched to find. It’s hidden within the plain sight of our seeing that should any of this truly rely upon our might then we’re in mighty big trouble as we’ve again less of the above than we’ve ever cared to believe. For such a violent acceptance of our true place within this story of what’s always been only God’s grace as written to obtain only God’s glory, it’s not at all something our stolen souls have seen fit to accept.

Rather we’re a rather perfectly prideful people in that all we do is at first a thought as bought within our mostly betrayed beliefs as these days centered mostly upon only such things as us and what all we want for us and what more we don’t and the very most of the absolute least that we’re willing to wager upon such winning of our way as usually written against His will. Indeed, we seem to be most insistent upon that incessant assumption of our consumption of only our opinion being the best basis of basically everything.

All because that’s the only way we’ve ever watched the world around us pretend to win what we’ve come to want.

And yet, again, within all this looking to other prideful people who pretend it a priceless purpose to so pursue their every preference despite the problems such a path has paved in the past, well it’s now become unto us a life in which the same has in fact become us. We are they as much as they be us, meaning thus that we’re every bit this world and equally then less of the Father who did and does know best. And despite our again trying so hard in vain to stop the rain or insist it fall when and where we want, such an accomplishment has never been our part.

For all of this, all of us are from God as He’s the One who imagined us, created us, called us and now challenges us to either undertake that call or to, as most seem more inclined to do, live as if He hasn’t done any of the above.

And because this latter matter has always meant more to a people so prideful as we’ve proven ourselves to remain, it remains that we’re still found somewhere along this spectrum running the length from weakness to strength in what has always been the other direction from wherever we’ve selfishly decided to stay. For He created us in His image and this means that no matter what we do we’re either honoring that or we’re tarnishing it.

And the difference is defined by whether or not what we do is done for our glory or His.

Because despite our insistence upon fairness as felt feebly within such things as equality, there simply is no being equal to God as He will always be the One who was and is and is to come. He is the only Alpha, the lone Omega, the very beginning and the promised end. All we do in what’s always been this in between is thus only an evidence as to where we believe we’ll end as defined by when, not if, but when and mostly how we arrive back at the beginning.

For all of life has always been a gift He has decided be given, and that any of us so use such a kindness to kill ourselves trying to serve ourselves is as blatant a weakness as we could ever possibly pretend we might someday disprove.

Because no matter what we do, we will not invalidate God nor produce something of ourselves that’s of such powerful substance as to successfully disavow our defined responsibility for our existence as defined for us by His.

Indeed, that God exists demands we live as if He does in the only way such an accomplishment can be made. And that is by seeking His glory via whatever means He means for us to do so. Unfortunately we’ve found within this fallen humanity only the ability to offer Him at best half of the holiness He is and made us to be before we fell into feeling this fear of our venturing beyond that half knowing what it takes to even get there to where this life ends and the one we should have always lived finally begins.

We know the cost of a second chance, and so we can fairly easily calculate just how costly our debt now that we know how many we owe due to how many mistakes we’ve made trying to do this our way while proving only that our way is as weak and worthless as any could ever be. And our way is so weak because if anything is done without God being the One glorified, then all we’re doing is fighting against the only power able to not only overcome the grave but willing to forgive us for the countless times we’ve chosen that outcome rather than His honor.

It’s just that we’ve never wanted to see such foolishness as our selfishness as our weakness. We’re roundly told to see it the other way around. For that’s the only message to ever be sent by those bound down to this ground by what is the pretense of pride preferring we do this our way as if these lives are our own. They are not. They never were. We just never found any reason to be found in agreement. And even though that cross still stands recalling the cost of our transgressions, still we step over that line every single time that our pride calls for our attention.

And we wonder why the promise of something so hopeless as hell when it seems that so far our lives have been lived as if an unending dinner bell asking us to this buffet of blaspheme from which we seek to serve these gods in our stomachs who suckle upon the substance of sin and grin all the while as we never stop to wonder why it’s so easy that we can do it alone and all but endlessly.

For I’m of the mind that not much in life should be so easy, not with us found within this world so dark and depraved. Just look at what Jesus did to save! He paid the ultimate price while having done nothing at all to deserve it. This place grew into such a fervent fervor to destroy Him, to humiliate Him, to mock Him and beat Him and belittle Him, and the worst He did was offend us with the truth! We became a people willing to torture and maim simply to protect our opinions!

Tell me of a greater weakness than an opinion found or formed within us who are destined to die.

Alas, again, we’ve never wanted to see it that way. For some of us, depending upon age and the like, they may have never even imagined it that way. For this society has only hastened its succumbing to our surroundings in years recent. We’re so consumed with self that it has all but redefined everything. Right to the very point of our fighting to enact laws and customs and these cultural shifts seeking to assimilate our insanity into what others are then forced to agree is right.

We’re again pressing our opinions upon those around us, offering them only to agree or face the consequences. And tell me this world wouldn’t kill Jesus all over again were they given the chance!

Indeed we would because still our opinions and preferences mean just that much to us. And that is why they have become what I contend is perhaps our greatest weakness. Because people will do whatever it takes to protect what they value most. Folks have been known to break so long as it meant the safety of something or someone. And so our willingness to hate in order to satiate our vanity having become something considered so powerful for sake of it being now so popular, what we’ll find before long is that we’ve long been weaker than we could ever dare consider.

And all of it without the courage to admit it, leaving us what remains a million miles from even someone such as Paul who here boasts of weakness so that Christ’s power can be manifest.

We don’t live that way. The world lives as if that way, that day doesn’t exist. And thus I contend we’re weaker than ever simply because we pretend we’re stronger than ever.

No. Truth is we know nothing of true strength as such isn’t shown in the power we wield over others. Strength isn’t there to be seen inside some athletic competition such as all the ones we’ve become engrossed by over the years. Courage isn’t actually contained within the absence of fear nor the evidence of having never fallen or failed. Bravery isn’t bound inside living a life without doubt or danger. Honor has never been a matter proven within what we hold nor the height to which we hold ourselves.

It’s the opposite. They’re all the opposite.

For true strength is found in our not living as if we’re here to hold power over others. We show our power best inside things done alone as if the only one we’re competing against is the person we were yesterday. Courage is the content of character remaining unchanged despite a life filled with challenge. Bravery is bought by our giving our best when it seems we’ve no way to make it through what we’re up against. And honor, well, honor is something we’ve always had having been made in God’s image, but it’s something we hold only when we hold Him high for all the world to see that this isn’t us managing to make it through all we’re going through.

No, if we make it through another day, it was only because He led the way. And if we somehow make it to Heaven at the end of this, it will only have been because of how much we’ve been forgiven and our boldness to believe in just how helpless we’ve always been without His benevolence picking up the pieces of all we keep breaking trying to prove ourselves without the power to do so.

Within this passage Paul’s talking about this thorn in his side that God gave him to help save him from becoming conceited. Conceit is defined as an excessive pride in oneself. It’s this same warning written numerous times in Scripture in regard to humanity taking God’s goodness for granted even to the point of pride telling them that all they had was the outcome of their own efforts or abilities. And indeed, despite the warnings against such vanity, still we live as if all we have is a result of who we are and what we’ve done as if we’ve done anything of our own accord.

But as much as we’ve never given ourselves life, nor then have we managed to prove that we’ve been able to profit anything by ourselves within these lives we’ve been given.

All we’ve managed to prove is that pride is the foundation of all folly, of all failure, of all foolishness and selfishness and too thus sin. Pride is sin, and perhaps the very foundation of every single transgression. And thus pride is perhaps our greatest weakness. And too, as seen here, pride is the antithesis of strength, of courage, of honor, of ability, of life as it was always meant to be lived.

For pride demands we rely on ourselves while our every weakness is a reason we shouldn’t.

And thus the question is whether we boast in our weaknesses or in our conceitedness. For we cannot do both as pride pretends we have no weakness and too weakness can find no reason for pride.

At the end of this life we will find out whether we were right or wrong in regard to how we lived. Now, sure, it’s normal to live as if we’re right, as if we’re justified in doing whatever we want to do. We see a world living this way every single day. But friends, just because something has become normal doesn’t mean that it’s how it should be. And if we’re so bold as look hard enough, we can see evidence of this every day too. Because there are all kinds of things being done in this world that shouldn’t be, and they’re being done anyway simply because someone feels they’ve the power to do as they please.

But what if this isn’t about what pleases us? Again, we’ve all lived that way and found plenty of pride and pallets of power from doing so. But if it hasn’t helped us to boast in our weakness, well then we’re no closer to Jesus than were those who killed Him for simply offending them.

Maybe it’s time to reevaluate what we’re living for and what it’s leading toward. Because again, this life was always allowed to only run along a straight line. For a long time we’re run straight away from the Creator seeking instead this pride that tells us that these lives are ours to do with as we see fit. His Word tells us of where that ends. And friends, it ain’t nowhere we want to be!

Sure, I know it’s awful scary to come humbly before our God knowing all that we’ve done to let Him down. Makes it even worse knowing that there’s absolutely nothing we can do to earn His kindness or keep clear of His vengeance once found in His presence.

Jesus took care of it. All of it.

And so if we hold on to any of it, well that’s on us. Only on us. Because He never asks us to hold tight to anything from arrogance to weakness. He calls us to instead lay all we are at the foot of the cross in a show of confession that we can’t do this on our own. And while it may all but obliterate our pride to so admit our weakness, what if our weakness is truly the only place that we can find and feel His strength overcoming all we’ve undermined?

He tells us here that His power is made perfect in weakness. And so maybe we should stop living like we’re perfect so that we can instead acknowledge our failures knowing that it’s within them that we’ll find the bounty of His forgiveness and a growing courage to enter His presence.

Reckon it’s all a choice, but friends, it’s one we have to make by ourselves. Because this world is still making its stand entirely evident. But there ain’t much to the foundation of pride. No, the Bible tells us that pride comes before the fall.

Just how far are we willing to fall as measured by how much longer we allow our pride to hide our flaws and deny our weaknesses?

Again, He’s seen them. Salvation hinges upon our finally admitting we haven’t wanted to but are willing to ignore them no longer.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold