Day 3540 of the 7 day Bible verse challeng.

Colossians 1:16 NIV

The image of the invisible.

For in Christ God brought us a perfected reflection of Himself, a sight shown for all who’ve eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart so tired of being shattered by all that is always only lifeless as found within this saddened existence in which the best for which we’ve come to believe is but a betrayal of life itself as held inside the things we hold, the lies we’re told, hoping them to be our home or lead us there to that somewhere in which someone else says our best is still waiting, always ahead as we fall ever behind.

Because that is the only coming outcome for all who succumb to staying so blind as we’ve always been and even fight still today to all but remain.

Indeed, it’s an amazing thing to think, the foundational understanding found standing within this Scripture. That all things are from Him and thus for Him as it’s all to Him that all things shall return as He is the first fruits of all who’ve fallen asleep within that end that we call death that is the final enemy to be defeated in life. It’s just that we can’t defeat that enemy having become such strange bedfellows. No, it’s perhaps the very personification of what is a love-hate relationship.

For we here hear how all hate death and yet love all which demands it of us.

How have we managed to have so mangled this mercy that is life into what asks an unending loss of it? Death is loss of life, and we all know this well as we cannot see those who’ve lived who’ve since left, leaving us who live believing only what we’re seeing to assume their lives ended, gone, over, finished. And sadly we’ve become so afraid of the same that we live our days trying in so many wayward ways to fill our lives with things that we hope we’ll never lose or leave, again, leaving us faithful to only what we see despite the promised impermanency of it all.

Because that which is seen will one day be seen no more as such is the overall outlook of all life as lived in what is a land on loan in what’s a life leased from the Lord of life itself. Yes, it’s been referred to as the ‘way of all mankind’, the experience of ‘being gathered to one’s people’, the promise of passing on, passing away, passing through and onto whatever someone may dare agree to believe before they leave. It’s all just a way of speaking to the end of the seen, leaving those who believe only in such things as sight to fight that fright of finding out that maybe there’s always been more than meets the eye.

Indeed, thinking about this post for today as my family trekked out to track down some morning grub, and I just realized the limitation to our sight. Not that we perhaps couldn’t see more but that we’ve instead just settled for assuming we see less. And this is mostly because we seem to see only what we want to see, seeking such things as vanity and virtually anything and everything which caters to it or comes along with it.

From politicians to platform shoes.

Been talking for a few days now about some of these so-called priorities that we’ve come to so prize and prioritize in what is a life we seldom live anymore. For the truth is that life isn’t waiting within these things we’re all wanting or fighting over. It’s not made manifest within the many mechanisms and machinations that we make of manmade material or just some man in a suit. It’s not contained inside currency or counted in digits or factored within our followers or proven in this pitiable profit we feel proven within popularity.

And yet these very things seem the things we seek to see more than anything. Only because they’re proven or otherwise provable. And it’s such evidence that we’ve become convinced is the best and most evident providence of our substance being worth something. And that’s all we all want in life, to feel alive and to do so whilst leaving a mark that means enough to someone else that when, one day not seen anymore, we’ll not then be forgotten.

For that feels the epitomic failure in life, to be forgotten, forsaken, afforded a final remembrance that fades and forgets that we were here for what was a lifetime filled with what mattered to us enough to live our time fighting for the finding of it.

Because surely it’s all been worth it, right?

Yes, surely all this stuff that we’re searching for, seeking toward, piling up and placing our hope within, surely it is all that matters simply because it’s something seen. And seeing is believing, right? And thus to believe our lives matter is to make them a matter of what is seen.

But what don’t we see, can’t we see anymore?

That’s what hit me this morning. It’s what we don’t see, can’t see. What have we never seen? What will we here never see? And realizing that there are things in this world, places that people have never been, sounds that some have never heard, stuff that folks have never held, what are we chasing after? Can life truly be so directionless as to decide upon worrying about what we can see while not worrying about all the rest that we can’t? This seems a tragedy to me.

Because God made us for more than we’ve become, this we all know. He made us each in His image and yet we live amongst many who live as if He’s not there. He gave us His Word, which many will never read. He affords us the patience to hear our prayers, but some, at most, only scream at Him when they don’t get their way and then go right back to ignoring Him when they do. He sent the Christ to carry our cross and endure the cost, and yet some here mock such a mercy for what is entertainment such as music videos.

And having become surrounded by such blatant refusal to honor Him as God, it seems that we ourselves have adopted or accepted a share of the same. We do it every time that we settle for a focus settled upon the seen, for here we see that such is at best half of the whole of what life was and is and might not be for long. That’s the fear of death, it’s found in our finally realizing that we cannot accomplish what our cravings have become convinced is possible.

For we, again, cannot see all that there is to see. We can’t hear every sound or every song. We’ll never read every book ever written or get fully caught up on every season of every sitcom. We can’t take a step onto every acre of land within this world. Can’t taste all the variance of various delicacies or visit every delicatessen. No, we’ve yet begun to even begin to fathom the fullness of even this world, and so what makes us so willing to imagine that we can find some theoretical best life or even pick from the little we can see what actually matters most?

It’s insanity, and so much so that indeed we’ve become all but blind to everything bigger while trying so hard to see everything closer. We’re all terrified of missing out on something great in this life, in this land. We’re shaken at the suggestion that we might never know something, see something, go somewhere that might add to the overall experience of our time here. Hate the idea that we’ll fall so short of seeing it all, knowing it all, having it all.

And this fear finds for us a fallen faithfulness into what is a fellowship with other fair-weather fools who feel the same fear of believing only in the seen and still not having it all before it’s not there anymore.

And this focus on the faithless has found us unable to see into the unseen. The invisible. The eternal. The unlimited. The Almighty.

Yes, this is clear in that those in His day doubted Him. Even though He was walking beside them. They missed the Messiah for sake of seeing this fear found and felt between them, between us. For we feel it still. We’re afraid of Jesus because He confronts us with the fact that we’ve given up on life by settling for chasing the seen, assuming it to be all that matters most. Does it? Does what we see really mean all that much? Can it, considering one day we’ll not see it anymore?

Indeed, can anything we have or our worrying about not having truly add to our life? Can anyone, by worrying, add even an hour more time to trying to find this mythical best life that we can live for what is but a moment before it’s over and the unseen is all we can see?

What are we doing?

It seems that I ask that question perhaps entirely too often, and yet somehow it still feels not at all often enough. Why? Because we’re a people of habits. We routine everything right to the point of anger should our schedules be shifted because of some unforeseen conflict or confusion. Because we’re convinced that this life is our only chance, because it’s the only one we can see.

Whose image?

That’s been the basis for this recent string of these daily posts. A reminder that the coins are Caesar’s but that we’re not the coins. We’re worth more. We’re called to be more. We’re here for far more than what we so often settle for. Why do we settle? Why do we contain God in a book? Why do we insist He hear us inside our moments of fear or frustration but hears nothing from us when having fun in a life finally easy? Why do we wear a cross around our neck but refuse to carry one in our hearts?

Why do we act as if we can’t see Him, or that He can’t see us?

Why do we give ear to this worldly commonality that says there is no proof of God? For the proof is everywhere, in everything, in everyone in fact. We just can’t see that. Because some people look like enemies. Some situations look like challenges. Some opportunities look painful. Some challenges look nothing like opportunities. Some worries seem worth it while others not worth anything. Some days feel alive and others find us only ignoring that death knocks.

But He’s in it all. Every trial, every challenge, every hardship, even death. He’s in the breeze that blows a gentle whisper of nothing but quiet for a moment that doesn’t last long enough this world so allergic to peace. He’s in the smile of a stranger who’s probably dealing with their share of struggles but unwilling to let them kill their kindness. He’s in the closing of doors when someone says no to a date or in a memo from your boss saying you’re fired.

He’s in the joy we feel when life makes sense, but also in the urgency we find when it’s all falling apart. He’s in the words we write, and those we sadly leave unspoken. He’s in the food we have that sustains us along this journey called life, and also in the moments in which we take such things for granted. He’s in the morning sun, the stars at night, the clouds that drift above and the rains that ruins our plans. He’s in the hope of a brighter day and in the courage to find it.

He’s in the fear we feel of missing out, but only because we’re missing Him.

That’s the point for today. We’re missing Him. Inside so many gifts and so many giants, we’re missing the One who made all things, endured all things, gives all things, gave everything. Visible and invisible. Known and unknown. What we’ve had and all we’ve lost. What we say and the more we refuse to hear. We’re missing Him because He’s in every moment, every minute, every misery. And yet we can’t see it somehow. That’s how broken we’ve become.

We believe in everything, but remain the ones who decide upon everything we’ll believe in. It shouldn’t be this way, us so reliant upon us to figure this out or find what matters most or chase down what we can’t live without. How do we know what we can’t live without? Have we died yet because we didn’t get something we wanted? Have we added years to our life having gotten something we wished for? It’s a chasing after the wind, all this wanting things we can see, not seeing the end is in sight.

For it’s what awaits after it that matters. Not that some stuff here in this before doesn’t matter, it might. But not to the degree in which we pretend it does. Because, in truth, the only way for any of this to matter is if He’s the basis of it. Because He is the Life, and so without Christ being the foundation, the cornerstone, the only consideration and main communication, nothing we say or do will amount to anything.

Because He’s already created everything, and thus we can neither add to nor take away. All we can really do is decide just how much of all He is that we agree to miss.

My hope for everyone is that we slow down, not to just smell the roses but to realize that He colored them for us enjoy for that moment in which we just let the rest of the world go right ahead and run on past this perfect portrait of God’s patience. Because we shouldn’t have those opportunities. We shouldn’t have the rainy days that ruin our parades. We shouldn’t get to hear the sound of car horns and strangers yelling at one another. We shouldn’t get to sit down with our families and enjoy food we didn’t grow and learn things we didn’t know and make memories that matter more than we can imagine in that moment in which they’re either made or missed.

How much more will we miss? How much more of Him will we leave here not seeing or knowing or sharing or caring about more than all that never mattered to begin with?

Friends, He is in all things and, in return, all things are in Him and for Him and from Him and for us and thus we shouldn’t be so quick to rush after missing more of this miracle of a life we didn’t give ourselves.

Please don’t fight so hard to stay in step with a world that l claims they can’t see Him. For sadly, many here do indeed have an image of godliness but indeed deny His power, His presence, His patience, His promise. Just be careful as to how much longer you stay blinded to the better that He’s always been and always given. Because Christ is the image of the invisible.

And while we may have to fight somedays to see Him amidst all this blindness about us, we won’t make it if we arrive at the shores of Heaven without the ability to recognize Him or that hope that He’s willing to say He’s known us.

Don’t miss Him my friends, for there’s just no excuse in it.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold