Day 3615 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Luke 12:19 NIV

There seems a willfully unseen scene of danger designed alongside all merriment as it always invites us to become hesitant as to the considerations of such costs as consequence as always afforded us in ways we may not prove able to afford.

Alas, such is what happens when a people such as we come to be as unburdened by what might be as we pretend to be by what already is. We just get this idea in our heads that says that we've won at life as we've found all we've wanted within or can at least plot a more perfect course through both chase and change should either prove a matter measurably unbecoming what we’ve come to crave or crave may come. And thus life has unraveled into this monstrosity in which all of us seem to know only life as if a mutiny.

Only we’ve no idea as to what we’ve stolen nor then how to pilot this ship we’ve now sought to commandeer, unsuccessfully mind you in that we simply can’t so steal from God what His will won’t relinquish.

No, truth holds that we’ve no idea as to what we’re doing while living as if pirates so perfectly preoccupied with plunder and pillage that we’ve all but forgotten that we travel these seven seas of selfish insanity without anything in the way of either safe passage as so profoundly preferred by all pride nor then anything of safe harbor into which we’re left to land. Rather anymore we’re simply souls still adrift atop what is a sea so still that we seem altogether unconcerned as to how there’s not a shore in sight, no land upon which to land.

For anymore our only shore seems to be seen in that we’re sure that what we do is right as it’s measured by treasures of delight. Yes, we live as if our pleasure is the greatest of all treasure, never confessing that it’s all to be left behind. Never admitting that what we’re getting isn’t rich but rather lost. Never perhaps even able to wonder as to just how far we’ve wandered as we’ve long since burned the maps as they always seemed to tell this tale of which no dead men can speak.

Yes, nobody will know how far down we’ve gone when we’re just, well, gone. And thus death has become both our closest friend for the secrets there promised to keep and yet also, somehow, our longest running adversary in that we spend our lives running from that place that promises to leave our secrets lay alongside all we leave behind. It’s like we’ve become of this mind in which we’ve found the fountain of life and yet refuse to make a map as we don’t want anyone else to know what all steps we’ve had to take to go quite so insane.

Nor then either the fact then that we’ve then absolutely no reason whatsoever to always seem as relaxed and confident as our masks and masts say be we might.

But again, such is simply what the truth holds. For contrary to common expectation as elicited of our every experience, what we show to the world can cover up a whole life that none are able to help us right. And yet I fear that this breed of laziness and laxity has left us so long lost that we may actually believe that we are living right, or at least as close as our arrogance might incline to make itself believe. But that’s been a question seemingly caught within the undercurrent of the past couple of posts.

Is life really to be only best lived within what’s nothing more than make believe in which we make only ourselves have to believe all the nonsense we come up with to keep our every failure and flaw hidden from everyone, everywhere? Even ourselves?

I mean, that’s the foolishness considered within this story of the rich fool. “Watch out!” Jesus said. “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” Alas, from where we’re all sitting, such seems just about all that life does consist of anymore. Guess that’s why we don’t feel all that inclined to share our maniacal maps made toward our fortunes of misfortunes with anyone else. Kind of embarrassing to having gotten so much so wrong when the Truth told us plain how to avoid such a mess of misunderstandings.

Alas, advice is often considered unto us as not anywhere close to nice. After all, for another to offer us help would seem to imply that help we might need, and nay we say, we don’t need to stinking help! We’re entirely too good at living this as close to what we so arrogantly perceive as hopefully fairly close to good enough. At least in the vicinity, right? Yes, we’re all so assured that all we do is all alright that we somehow manage to find a way to sleep at night. And in the day too. Pretty much just where and whenever we have to perhaps pretend, mostly just leaning upon the closing of eyes to keep us from having to realize just how close the storm is getting.

And too how far any shore still seems.

No, we’ve not time for thinking of such things. Well, we do, for as we’ve talked of late we do have time in what’s a gift called today in which to perhaps stop and say, “you know, maybe something new might not be all that bad.” But instead we take said time today for granted so that we don’t have to endure the grating that would perhaps begin our breaking. Can’t allow for those slow leaks to be noticed! No, we might then see that we’re not only starting to sink but that we’re minutes away from going under.

Thankfully there are no such problems proven unto those peacefully aslumber. After all, there’s truly no problem we can’t seem to pretend away when we continue to say that we just can’t see it. Never mind the closed eyes and similar mind. Surely they aren’t making any of our matters measurably worse! Just a sense of self-preservation if anything, something of a self-help that we’ve all self-prescribed.

As if that ever worked before.

Guess we can’t possibly know that it never could though, not when we’ve so many excuses and delusions so piled up around us that we perhaps literally can’t see the storm that’s coming. Even should our eyes be opened to the horizon that every life holds as held within the grave that says the same as it did yesterday. Yes, death comes for us all, it’s just then that again, well, we’ve become quite caught within this onslaught of assumption saying that maybe life does consist of an abundance of possessions.

Only problem then is that Jesus said in not of. And granted, as we discussed for a second yesterday, perhaps such a difference is of such little significance that we’re right in acting as if we neither notice the difference nor then understand the distance there defined.

He said that “life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” ‘In’ meaning then that there is no life in having a lot of possessions as there is no life in said possessions. Problem proven then in that we heard, apparently, that life doesn’t consider ‘of’ an abundance of possessions, possessions here more the noun in focus, leaving that word ‘of’ to denote a sense of filling rather than failure.

Yes, there is no life in an abundance of possessions, but seems we’re still more than happy trying to prove that a life might be able to only consider of an abundance of possessions. Basically we’re not looking for life anymore, rather only what we can fill it with. Such as the plans we’ve been discussing for a while now or the preferences that said plans rely upon or the quite opinionated perspectives and prerogatives which allow for said preferences upon which our every plan hinges.

It’s just a collapsing calliope caving in upon itself.

And yet we’re increasingly proud of it. So much so that in fact we’re all seemingly quite content with just resting our way out. We’ve made enough, done enough, found enough, imagined somehow that it’s all just that and, well, enough. Yes, we’ve all apparently seen enough to have encompassed to us what a life is supposed to be and mean. And thus we’ve tried in vain to steal the reins from the One who refuses to let us do unto this gift what He gave His to ensure could be undone through what is a greater gift perhaps than the first.

It’s hard to argue that there’s a better gift than life itself. But forgiveness as given despite what the recipient has so misspent their life upon, it’s pretty amazing!

Alas, it’s also something that we have to keep claiming that we still aren’t seeing from out here upon what are ever-higher waves of our wanting things that both waste our time and will still be left behind. Not worried about that part now as that part isn’t now. And when living by sight as opposed to faith, our not seeing death through these eyes wide shut has convinced us that perhaps it’s not coming at all. Indeed, anymore it seems as though we live as if there are no storms coming to wreck our seas as we simply won’t say we see them.

But does not seeing undermine believing? Or is that not kind of the whole point?

And indeed, I fear that such is the point being made here. It’s that, much like the rich fool recounted in this tale, we too live looking to what we have to define our worth, our meaning, our purpose, our safety even! Yes, we live so fattened upon the ill-gotten wealth of an increasingly wicked world that we’ve had to hide so much of the wicked ways to which we ourselves have resorted to sort out our share of said victories bought by vanities that we’ve also lost sight of the overall gravity of life.

For that gravity contends that we can’t take it with us, and nor then will any of it matter all that much when we’re finally found before Him without then anything in the way of what to say as to what for which we gave our lives away. Problem is though that He already knows. He knows what we’re doing as He sees not only all that’s done under the sun but also knows our every reason and wanting behind it, and thus whether or not said weather is won under the Son.

Yes, I’m reminded here of that passage in which He says that we ask yet do not receive because we ask with improper motives. Meaning then even what we do may not matter all that much in our end because He knows the reasons and motivations beyond both all we’ve done and those too for all we’ve left undone. Meaning further that we’re so far away from making this mutiny successful that we should be elated at His gift of not merely a stay of execution but rather of His having been executed on our behalf.

Ever think about that?

I doubt many have because there’s something quite heavy about that word. I mean, crucifixion is heavy in its own right, but I fear that the weight of it is somehow lost in the sands of time as we don’t really do that kind of thing anymore and so we might struggle mightily to even picture the process. But only because we don’t want to. But execution, well, that paints a pretty clear picture in our minds of what really went down as we’ve seen such scenes unfold in the much nearer past.

Making then that word quite harder to look past. Even for eyes pretending themselves asleep.

No, I find it all quite unresting, uneasy, unrelenting in regard to both. But indeed that is what happened unto Christ. He was executed. Murdered. Broken and beaten and betrayed and flayed as if nothing more than some heathen or scoundrel that we even today wouldn’t treat in such a way. But He was. Because He loves. And yet instead we look to what we’ve learned to love as lost within things we have and more we want.

We are foolish farmers planting harvests of hopelessness as watered in want and reaped in emptiness.

For that is the promise of all worldliness as won within a world that’s passing away. It’s that everything we see, and thus all done by such sight, will one day be unseen as this world is destined to be done away with. And this has become our problem perfected in that we’ve learned only to love all that we’ll leave. And while this is part of that for which said Christ atoned, it’s made worse in that we still do the same on this side of that scene painted in pain upon Calvary.

Did we just not get it? Not sunk in yet? Somewhat uncertain as to the meaning and thus the changing it meant to inspire? Must be some valid reason for so little being done differently. For still we desire. Still we crave. Still we hoard. Still we hold and hope for more. And in it all we’ve become so very distracted by all this detraction that we live as if we can’t see the storm coming. As if the grave stopped calling. As if the fate of all those we’ve loved and lost might pass us by somehow.

Yes, we’re of such profound foolishness that we live as if what we have matters, and indeed that it might so much that it could potentially even save.

But how my friends? How can what we have of a world that’s passing can help us when it’s passed?

Verse 20. “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’” Because it all stays. We don’t. And yet we live as if we’ll stay while everything we don’t want must go, or never come if we had our say. But we don’t. We don’t have a say in this as this life isn’t our ship and we’ve no business so stealing the wheel in what is this feeble attempt to force our will.

Our will means nothing! God’s will, well, that’s everything because there is literally nothing done outside of it. Only things done against it. And that’s my question for today: Is what we’re doing as done within how we’re living leaving us living against God’s will for all of creation? And I know we may not want to consider such a pondering, but friends, one day our lives will too be demanded from us. What then will we leave? Where then will we go? Will we have anything to say when we’ve gone where we’ll go, or will our every word have been already said as spoken within a life lived only to shout for joy over all here we’ve had or rather having screamed only over all we’ve not?

What is your life?

Fact is our life isn’t our life and so it’s time we stop living otherwise. For it doesn’t matter how good we are at pretending we’re unbothered by what we’ve become. Deep down we all know we can do better, be more, have less and maybe even live forever because of it. Less is more, and friends, our faith is the pinnacle of proof for that truth. For it all we have is faith then we have everything as Christ is the only hope we have or will ever need.

But should we have gained the whole world, what will it matter when this world is gone?

He will never leave, never forsake, never forget, only forgive. What then are we doing in all this living as if we can find something better in everything unlasting? It shouldn’t be this way my friends, our alive so asleep as to live as if He can’t see what we refuse to admit we can. We know there’s a cost to life, and an even greater one when said life needs as much forgiveness as we know ours does.

Can we afford to keep sailing away from salvation simply because it seems a storm meant to all but destroy our reliance upon everything in sight? Or would not walking rather by faith help us trust that we need every such reliance as obliterated as His kindness so contends?

In the end my friends, it’s not going to matter what we’ve made or made ourselves believe we need. All that will matter is whether or not we can admit that we know Christ as our Lord and Savior. For if we can, and He agree that He too knows us, then we’re good. If we can’t, then we’re just gone.

And with us everything that became any reason that He couldn’t say He knew us. Don’t leave so much stuff in between you and Christ that neither can you recognize Him nor He then say in truth that He knows you. For He’s told us that He will deny many at their own request. And so please consider what you’re asking for as requested within the ways in which we live this life.

For all we do is a request its own. Let us then make sure that we’re not living life in such a way that has us asking for what we cannot survive. Because the truth is that we often get so caught up looking at all our sight says we have that we forget there's more to life than what we’ve so come to only assume might matter for a moment more. For that very truth also says that what we can see can't save us from what we won't.

And so perhaps what comes next should matter more than what's only next to us.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold