Day 3564 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Proverbs 12:25 NIV

And yet, despite having His Word, here we’ve come to live what seems a life bound by what are but a billion burdens, all of which are pretty much only personally perceived. And thus permanently pointless.

For indeed, how much does a worry weigh? We tried to tie that one down yesterday as it seems a problem entirely too up close and personal for each of us, all this worry. Or at least that’s apparently anymore what the world seems to run on anyway. And why? What of worry is able to offer the possibility of personal profit? Or rather is not our every worry borne from within a selfishness which has us seeing ourselves as prophets?

Is not worry only a matter considered either dangerous or delightful as measured always in the distance to wherever the up ahead still awaits?

Yes, how much does a worry weigh? What about a want? Because you see, I feel we’ve found only ways to disagree that some of our worries are held not in regard to what we want to avoid but rather simply what we want to enjoy. For if we were to ever dare be truthful, is this not indeed a matter so well proven in our lives that we shouldn't be so able to deny as it seems we've tried so hard to become? Denying the worry that our delights design, that is?

For I know we’ve all carried the weight of worry over the many things we’ve felt we should fear. But is the fear of missing out or doing without not also a weight carried that’s pretty much too perfectly unnecessary? We all know this feeling of being weighed down by a life so filled with stress that we seem to struggle in the remembering of brighter days or better hopes. All because we’re anymore so worried, so bound down by both doubt and too the belief in something else that we want or need to perhaps make our days feel a bit better that we scarcely live any of them anymore.

Because be it the weight of worry or rather the wants which weigh, we all know both ways in which a heart can be burdened by something that’s not even present, or perhaps even possible.

And yet have we not all felt this anxiety? And even that, again, it’s not even over only that which we fear might be or feel bad? Are we not as equally anxious for the things we want? Do we not get excited at the suggestion of something we assume we'll enjoy? And does not the waiting for it to arrive or reveal, does this not even weigh down the heart? Indeed, Scripture reads that a hope deferred, delayed, waiting to catch the train and begin the trek to where we waste away in wait for this coming brighter and better day, it makes the heart sick.

This is what we read here as well. It’s that worry, anxiety, the overall monstrosity of a life given to the vanity of stress and strife, it all just weighs down a life. It forces us into these feelings of doom, of doubt, of again going without what we want or rather into what more we don’t.

Is this not why we so hate patience almost as much as we loathe punishment, because it asks that we wait for whatever it is that we want sooner no matter how quickly it might come?

Indeed, do we not always want the good to come sooner and last longer, and too, don’t we wish the worse to take its time and only then leave sooner when it does fearfully arrive? And as is so, well then here within the both we've indeed tasted and seen this weight of worry as won within all anxiety, both the positive and the positively punishing.

But my current worry as considered within all the thoughts and theories tracing each other’s steps inside my mind as listening in somewhere between by head and His heart for my life, they’ve all but again left me wondering why. Why keep playing into it? Why embrace this excessive swapping of extremities? Why embrace this bounding and bouncing in between life’s highs and lows? Why want so much for the highs and lows of life as all but demanded by the excitement we seek measured against the fear we don't?

Indeed, why not seek instead a more relative consistency to our existence?

Why not learn to be as happy in that which is hard as we are in that that isn't? Why not seek the growth in wisdom that helps us learn to be content despite the content of a moment? Does being happier truly make the sadness we feel then less sad? Does wallowing in heartbreak hinder the heights toward which happiness flies? Sadly, sometimes. We always, as we talked about yesterday, we always find a way to give way to worry. But why?

What's the point in it? What do we gain from it? Rather what more do we lose? Do we just enjoy being weighed down by worry, anxiety, fear? So much so that we seek things to worry about or want, disagreeing that in so doing we’re only burying ourselves deeper in distress over these new things we want taking too long to come and lift us up? Even that, why are we both lifted by the trivial and still crushed by the transient?

Does not all worry only fade once it arrives? Who still worries about what they’ve already endured? Who still lusts after what they’ve already found? Do we not move on, if not all at once, at least in what’s a rather reliable progression into whatever comes next? And yet, despite all this ever-changing ebbing and flowing of a life flooded with both fear and folly, why then do we hold tight any of this for which we want or find reason to worry?

For in honesty it seems we must because we just seem to continue choosing it for some reason. And this seems an incredible foolishness as it's a choice not at all demanded of us. Not even one asked of us. Nowhere is it even possibly requested. Rather, we read in His Word countless passages and promises which all ask that we give all our anxiety to Him. And so then I suppose the trouble is that to give all means even the good kind of anxiety as felt in such things the likes of hopes and dreams, wish and want.

Yes, perhaps there it is, this even fuller picture of the weight of worry. It’s maybe found in that we have to surrender the lot if we're to ever find His peace in replace, the kind promised to prove repose. Indeed, we must give away both what we want as equally as we fight off what we fear. And this right here, it is a challenge indeed. Because again, we’ve now done this so very long that we don’t even seem to know it wrong.

We just wake up and welcome the worry in whatever form or fear it feels the need to have already found for us.

But, as my questioning tends to travel, what have we to lose? And as always of almost every question, at least many of these considered within a Scriptural perspective, there’s too the counter. What have we to gain? As we contemplated yesterday in our search for worry’s weight, might we in fact gain life by letting go all this worry and want we’ve come to know? Not that we can literally add hours as that’s never been ours, but we can rather fight to keep the ones we have from being taken away.

Indeed, we can, rather than giving our minutes and moments to wanting more and fearing more still, we can instead keep them as in a faith focused on the Father as opposed to all the fear or fallacy. For in truth, is such not all that both worry and want have always proven themselves to be? Again, they’re both as fleeting as we fear they won’t be this next time. Indeed, we always build up our next trial as the one that takes us out of the fight of life for good. And too, we also imagine our next idol the one that finally soothes our selfishness so fully that we then want nothing more.

That’s never the case though, is it? At least thus far is hasn’t seemed to prove itself so.

No, as mentioned yesterday, our every worry and fear has always seemed to have found their way out of here. No matter what we’ve stressed over, the stress leaves once it’s over, if it ever even comes at all. And too, the things we want, these goals we chase and dreams we crave, one reached we enjoy the victory in our vanity for a second, but then it fades and we’re right back to building up our next best idea for what might make our lives feel finally full. And so again, as we know this having lived this so many times thus far, why do we continue doing it this way?

Why do we keep giving way to worry and want being allowed to weigh us down, to lead into doubt, to instill still this ever-present fear of either finding out we can’t or never finding what we want? Are the things we fear or the more we crave, are they truly this worth giving our every single day? Do they indeed add anything so amazing that they deserve the time we’re wasting? Do they rather take anything that isn’t actually worth the giving away?

See, we live as if everything that might happen that we’d probably hate, or too the things we know we’d like that might never come soon enough, we measure them up into days, weeks, years spent either running away in fear or full steam ahead as if we can’t wait anymore. And in this constant conflict between hurrying up and trying to wait out the rain we think we see, the lions we know we heard, we just keep ripping ourselves to shreds.

Right up until the point in which we’re so beaten and broken by false doubts and even more foolish delights that we just dissolve into a puddle of pity upon our bedroom floors, floored by the flood of fear and want all mixed in what feels a furious flurry of our finally failing so fully that we find no reason to keep going.

Why?

What is so important in the life we fear or rather the one we crave that we’re willing to crumble inside this day in either worry or want of something to either come or stay away? Indeed, as both worry and want are anymore so sadly always believed beyond a breath, as so often they are, are they thus truly worth more the moment in which we give them such gravity? Are they worth more than our enjoying, appreciating, finding the beauty in this day? Or rather do they not deserve but a brevity of our belief?

For why hold long that which lies or invites loss of such things as hope or joy? Yes, why enjoy what jades when life is more than the breath we give so often to either worry or want? Has not every past burden as borne in the weight of want and worry become but a regret as the in the moment failed to prove worth the hindsight of our having once again given in to either want or worry wanting our weary as won within the moments in which breath is taken for granted as we give it instead to that which is lifeless, stealing thus our life from us?

Yes, as we focus rather upon the heart of a matter we believe to life rather than just living ahead without the moment weighed down by worry or regret, is this truly what we’re here for?

It seems, if nothing else, at least what most have commonly settled for. For this world is so stressed beyond belief that is feels as if everyone is just finally scared to believe. Tired of waiting for the good whilst imaging all the worse that’s probably coming. When? When is better to be finally proven? When is this apparent punishment to start? Is there some schedule to our suffering that we can see and then possibly plan around? Or rather are we not all just playing around in what has got to be the most heartbreaking game ever?

For God didn’t create us to be so bound down by both doubt and desire. He didn’t create us to wake up only to once more set our lives on fire, either trying to ward off the lions we fear or to light the way to the lusts we crave. Because here in the middle of two such monsters, both lust and lie, here daily we die in what is a hurried hesitancy to live this day as if it’s the last we have. Nobody lives like that as we all waste away in want for what tomorrow will hopefully bring, or too we wait as long as we can to leave the house and face the fears that we hear roaming around out there.

And thus we live not at all because we’re always lost somewhere between want and worry, wanting to hurry toward what we hope will measure up while also praying to miss the moments we’ve already made more monstrous than they could ever prove.

Why is it all this that we do? Why so much room, time, life given unto anxiety? Why awake each day only to once again stress for our desires and at the same time fight the fires that our doubts refuse to let drown? Why are we so willing to drown in a life bound down by want and worry? Is it fun? Does it feel good? Are we having the time of our lives here living just like everything is more important than anything has ever once proven?

Why is this that we keep on doing?

Friends, we all know well that anxiety weighs down the heart, but here too we read that a kind word lifts it up and out of that doubt, the dread, that life lived dead as if what we fear might kill, so we help, or rather as if what we want might miss us, inspiring again our assistance in this coming death of us. Is that what life is supposed to be, always dying inside our every day, afraid of pain or frustrated having to wait? We all know what this feels like as we’ve felt more days lost this way than we can even recall.

And yet all along, His Word, one indeed so kind, has been there all the time to lift us up out of this weight underneath which we’ve come to wait and waste.

Yes, a kind word cheers it up, this heart so often down. And well, what’s a kinder word than His which asks that we lay our burdens upon Him? What’s a kinder Word than His where it inspires all who are weary and worn to exchange their yoke for His which is lighter and lessened? Is this not the lesson of almost the entirety of Scripture? To let go and let God?

For the truth is that we know only what we assume, but He knows that our assumptions have never actually amounted to something worth either wanting or worrying about.

No, we have a really bad habit of making mountains out of both miseries we’ve not yet felt and too the moments we’ve built up into majesties that they cannot become. For life has never been ours to either worry about or want to go a certain way. This life is His story, for His glory. But friends, that is our gain.

It’s the getting of a forgiveness for all this foolishness as found and felt between want and worry. It’s the trading of our hearts, so weighed down by life that they’re but stone cold dead for His new heart of flesh as given us in the Son.

What do we have to gain? That’s what.

We have peace, hope, mercy, kindness, assistance, guidance, a God who has promised to walk both behind and before us. We have a King who chose the grave, only doing so to save us from having to keep worrying about it. He takes all worry away, and simply asks that we set our minds instead upon things above. Not things here, neither those we want nor those which weight us down with worry. He calls the weary to come and lay it all down, both doubt and desire, so that we can in that learn what has always mattered.

For what we fear cannot matter more than His promise to get us through whatever comes our way. And nor then should what we want ever be allowed to outshine such a promise as proven in His doing all we needed to have opened unto us the hope of Heaven.

Do not continue agreeing to anxiety my friends. It might be a hard shift to understand, but truly, the stress of life can only beat us down as long as we agree that it stick around.

Leave it in the tomb, for that’s just the best place to put things that never added to life.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold