Day 3616 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Ecclesiastes 5:16 NIV

An undue sight, an unsure realization, a thing which shouldn’t seemingly be as it so clearly has become, a grievance against a conscience as considered opposite the reality from which we’ve so sadly stumbled into who we’ve been.

Indeed, it is a quite breathtaking heartbreaking to look around and see the sights of things assumed alongside what said assumptions have so widely inspired us all to become. Such ideas as a theoretical best life as bought by this belief that what we buy is somehow not what we become when the truth contends so clearly against such a bold-faced lie. Yes, it’s truly a grievous evil into which we’ve plunged at what is a break-neck speed in which what we seek is anymore all we speak.

Yes, we’ve found so much of the world that we’ve all but lost our word.

For what can our word mean when it means anything from everything to nothing as measured by whatever measure of matter we’re pretending might matter for the day? Following that, what can a day mean when we so give them over to the chasing after these winds of want and wish within which we seek only what we don’t yet have, forsaken then all we have and have been given? What can what we’ve been given mean when we set our sights through sleepless nights to seeking for ways to win those wants that must then mean more?

What can life mean when it’s anymore lived for only what we leave?

This has become what’s the latest contemplation within a life-long line of the same. I am indeed beyond grateful that God so asks me so continually to consider things I’ve not wanted to before. Seems as if He’s finally seeing some sort of decided dividend from what been His life-long patience as proven all while I’ve fought from having to process the pettiness of my every preference. Finally seeing in me what He always knew was there, just always waiting for me to stop chasing the air.

Alas, it’s taken the better of this 37 as we’re taught here only the contrary. That we should chase after the wind of want and win, seeing within somehow something of substance despite our none of us having ever captured a photo of that which knows only to blow. Ever seen the wind? I don’t mean as evidenced by perhaps a few leaves blowing about come autumn nor the snow which blow about when the temperature’s bottom drops out.

No, have you ever seen the wind?

Isn’t it quite interesting then that we live in a place that continues to chase what they can’t see into the uncertainty of just how long they might have it should they ever manage to catch up? Doesn’t this sound a bit like faith? A blind trust in the unknown? A humbled expectation of the experiencing of that for which we’ve long been believing? A childlike chasing after what we assume to never perceive we may never prove ourselves able to catch?

Riding bicycles off curbs trying to fly or as if rangers running down bandits slinking around our neighborhoods?

Tell me then why the Christian faith is foolish when all in this world know far more of faith than they’ve ever dared let on?

Granted, many of those most who do find all faith a foolish toast to the unknown and thus far untried, they don’t necessary seem to see any real reason to really see it that way. Perhaps that’s because their version of wind has a place in a storeroom window or a spot sat safely upon some shelf somewhere or is waiting there beyond the air that they need to breathe in order to be where this new additive to a life addictive is found to be still ready to buy.

Yes, our wind here is bought by the pound or presumption as within all of that that so many are pursuing is proven to be only all that we’re promised to one day be left losing. And yet, no, we see it not from this angle, this fallen angel flying so forcefully into our fighting to keep finding the abundance of possessions that we’re adamant to leave one day having proven could consist in life. For unto us that is life, just what we have as held without the heart to admit that we can’t hold it for long.

How long though? Well, seems that a while is worth more than the waiting for more. It must be yet another misconfiguring of our delight in time disfiguring. We’ve talked about that a bit throughout the past few, and it’s this idea that I find that I fear is more near than we’ve ever perhaps had reason to find we feel. That we’ve come so far into what is a truly grievous evil that we simply don’t recognize our hatred of time as now considered so worthless as to be so freely given unto the getting of what is eternally the same.

Just worthless.

For what can anything prove otherwise when it’s eventually unwelcome in that grave that awaits? I mean, even if we saved enough to pay the workmen to dig that hole big enough, what would it matter how much was laid to rest with us? Will we be there to want it? Will we be able to hold it? Could our legs then move or our arms then reach in order to have still the more we left without having?

Should then said having have so much of our attention?

You know, I’ve never been one to take a celebration of birth all that heavily, but this one seems to have somehow left me considering things from ways I’ve not wanted to wonder before. Is that what happens as you get older? Is this my life now? Will this become my way of thinking, this train of thought that asks that I reconsider all I’ve bought as necessitated to ensure that what I leave isn’t all I’ve loved? What is love if it’s left? I have so many of these questions anymore, and many of them already have notes for coming posts.

But for today I feel the need to embrace this opportunity to share what’s become a quite odd accompaniment, a strange friend stumbled upon along what is this sojourn so far from home, a close companion as caught within an all but constant consideration: When upon that day, when I’ve here left, when then will I have left? Yes, when it’s my time to leave, what will I have left behind?

Is it merely the worldly intrinsic? Some construct of what’s an otherwise apparently natural crave? A matter of rather mundane measure made so monotonous by all of mankind making themselves mad over it having had? Is my life as lived and left to be one which leaves only love as lost within things I’ve bought, thus stuff others can too? Am I here to only need the natural as made anymore of mostly all-natural ingredients? Gold is a natural ingredient, does it, or even say silver, do their being natural make them necessity?

Isn’t Heaven said to be a place in which gold is so known that it’s consider worthy of paving the places where His people will walk? Silver then so insignificant that it’s not even mentioned of such a hope’s design?

What then of our design? What of mine? What is your life? Been thinking on that verse still here even these two-three now removed from what was a share of some of these questions He’s got me to thinking. What is your life? What is mine? Considering that I know that, in Him, it’s neither mine nor then meant to not be then left behind, what am I leaving behind when upon that day described above I do end up in a hole quite similar to everyone else’s?

Yes, what shall I leave as evidence of what here I’ve loved with enough love to have lived and lost a life?

Does anything here have such a worth as to be worthy of seeing as that kind of wealth? Can our time be held inside the things we gave it away to get? Can my years be worth the wear for what are wares not able to redeem that which I lost to find what I’ve still to then leave behind? Is a mind so capable to consider such a loss when all of life is anymore about nothing of the sort?

We hate the idea of losing things, letting them go, leaving them behind. But is this not demanded of the very nature of our existence? Is not this truth of all life then intrinsic? For loss is “an essential nature or constitution” of this thing we call life. Even Christ considered this on our behalf and thus for our benefit in what was His parable as offered in regard to His own death. John 12:24. “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

When then, in regard to this imagery, what then am I planting as sown inside seeds of these things that I’ve sought to serve unto those who are supposed to have benefited from my being here? And no, that’s not to say that I’m here to save as such is by no means my measure. Such a gift is only His treasure to give as in fact He gave in the fulfillment of that parabolic passage posted above. But in such He redefined what we know of love.

And so is it wise then to waste my time, your time, our time upon loving things we’ll leave behind? Or shouldn’t we seek instead to sow a harvest that is then left to the reaping of hope for those who’ve heard us and seen us and known us to live as if we’ve a better home? Yet how can of we this any then know if and when how we live is but for love of what can only come as far as that aforementioned hole?

Is it truly worth a soul to live for what is only here bought and sold? Does our hope have a price tag attached? Does mercy measure small enough to fit within some attaché as carried by we who’re all but attachés? Is kindness kind enough to fit within a carry-on? And if not, as it never was, why then live for what can so fit or prove of profit or profit an apparent purpose or prove our purpose is proven in the profit of everything we cannot take with us?

For naked we came, and of little in regard to everything that we couldn’t then walk nor talk nor hold our own heads. Why then all this focus on beds and threads and tires with thicker treads and whether or not we’re eating too much bread or all these empty thoughts that anymore so fill our heads that we’re left to only consider them at the end of what has always been a road which runs in only one direction? What then upon the promised destination?

Friends, when He returns and resounds that Heavenly ‘all-aboard’, will we have lived such a kind of life that we slow down at the thought of that home long enough to ask Him how many things we can bring with us? Or is not that just about the most grievous evil imaginable? For honestly, if His promise of Heaven’s hope is to us of so little worth that we like it more with some room for our worldly wealth, then I’m afraid we’ve had our reward.

And it’s been won within everything that can’t come with us. And if it’s truly been or become just that important, then I don’t think we should then be surprised when He turns us away from what we never considered worth the wait. After all, if Heaven is just a cleaner version of all that’s here as considered alongside our apparent need for all this junk that we have here and hate then to leave behind, then I don’t imagine His kindness will force us to be where none of our worldly garbage goes.

So maybe the garbage should go. As in today. Right now. Somebody do a brother a favor and grab a bag so I can pack some of this stash for the trash so that I can try for something far better to leave behind. Yes, when I go will I leave a life that someone else has to clean up and sift through and throw away, or at best keep dusted as it continues onward only to sit too upon some shelf in their house?

Or can we somehow come to see that this isn’t as bad as our worldly imaginations have tried to imagine?

For indeed, it does often seem sad that we have to leave behind so much. So what? Maybe that’s the problem! That we do worry about what we’ll leave. That we do live as if it’s worth anything until we do skedaddle. That we are all torn up over what to do with someone else’s life’s collection not realizing that we’re hoarding just as much as all that wasn’t with them welcome aboard wherever they went from here. That’s the tragedy! It’s not what we leave behind but watching someone leave without maybe knowing if they knew where they were headed.

I can’t abide by that anymore!

Because I have. And I know this because for a long time my biggest concern was what I’ve had. Something about 37 has reminded me that what I have is nothing if I can’t take it with me. And too, that if all someone else remembers of me is what I leave behind, trinkets and trophies, then all they’ll have known is me. And I can’t help them. I can’t save them. I’m but here as if a burden to everyone so long as I live in such a way that they’re both sad and then too busy after I’m gone.

I don’t want to live a life that leaves a pile of stuff behind. I want my last check to bounce, my house to be emptied, my heart even more the same. I want only now to leave this world knowing that I left all of my every hope in the form not of things found but of faith felt. Yes, the only thing I need anyone to know from and of my life is that I lived as if my life wasn’t mine and thus wasn’t meant to be filled with what I wanted or won.

For this life is ours to lose and our every possession left. But is that all we’ll leave?

Is all I’ll have gained just stuff that isn’t allowed on that last train out? And if that’s not at all what I want to leave behind, why then work so hard for what is left? Why not work instead for what we leave? I know that it likely seems quite the same. But I mean strive for the spiritual rather than the steal-able. Fight to inspire faith instead of only fighting to have things. Worry over the welcome home for those around us rather than only for what we’ll for a while pile around us.

I want to leave a life that helped others know there’s more to life than what we leave. And I can’t do that if I join this world any longer in their chasing after the wind and the corresponding working only for said want and wish. That cannot be all there is to all of this! For that is a truly grievous evil, a sight undue, a realization unsure, a thing which so severely shouldn’t be as it’s so sadly become.

We shouldn’t be so heartbroken at the thought of a soul going home. And I don’t think we could be if we didn’t see it, in some degree, as measured in whatever they’ve then left behind.

Friends, point is that we have one shot at this thing we call life. What are we living it for, and what is all that toil pointing us toward? Is it filled with worry over what we want, as if said craving can prove it can with us forever keep staying? Or is it rather focused on contending for the faith, and that not only our own but as much if not more for those nearby?

Because one day we won’t be so near, and truth is that neither will Jesus. Indeed, let us live to call on Him while He is near and inspire those close to come and do the same. That way when we leave what’s left is hopefully then able to inspire folks further still in this faith that’s found us all. Yes, let’s not live for what we might here find but rather for He who’s found us and frees us thus from such a life so lost to what here we’ll leave.

For it is a heartbreaking sight to watch so many toil so willfully for what they can’t take with them. So tell them. Show them. Express to them, evidence for them the only true necessity in regard to eternity. For if there is no other Name, nor then should we live as if there is any other thing that could or should matter as much as the Messiah then must.

Don’t live for dust and rust. For that’s not much of a life as it is then all only left behind.

Leave rather something better. Such as your share of this message that something else matters, and that far more than everything we could ever have here combined. For there is no such grievance in all He’s given us. So let us come to live that we can rejoice when a brother or sister leaves for home rather than just feeling sad watching them work for what they leave behind.

For contrary to common conception, the grievous evil isn’t in someone departing this world. It’s knowing that when they do, all they’ve cared about is then forever behind them.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold