Day 3617 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Ecclesiastes 5:17 NIV

You’ve likely heard it said that those early to bed and similar to rise are to be found among those few both healthy and wealthy and wise.

Problem is we ain’t got time for that! In fact, within this world, one so currently confused as to the worth of time as calculated competing against the worth of what all we imagine we might afford should we run a sale on our agreeance to the substance of such socially assumed insignificance as such things as hours and minutes and moments, anymore we see, sadly, that time is only money. And it’s within this new cultural commonality that we’ve arrived into that in which we see plainly that money is considered worth more than time.

And this is evidenced even further, if such firmament is truly needed, inside such things as all-night diners and seedy dive bars and the reliability of places such as Walmart being open 24-7 for all your low-cost needs.

Or wants.

Or whatever.

They have it all there!

Apparently.

Yes, apparently the entirety of a life’s necessity is offered either within a box or upon a shelf or hanging on a clearance rack just waiting for that one person who wears that last remaining size in that nearly sold out t-shirt to come along and have their life finally fulfilled by what is but one more addition to a closet already screaming for mercy as it just can’t take no more! Guess the closets and those closest will both have to wait for their attention as again time is burning.

Meaning then that basically money is burning too in that the two are anymore seen as sadly somehow one and the same. Yes, around here time is money, but does that too make money to be time? I suppose it does, seems basically the same, and well, we’ve likely not the time to consider such close-enough similarities. Got other things to do. Plans to plan for places to be and things to see and stuff to buy and lies to live and love to lose and a whole host of other such heartbreaks as all those things are so clearly these days.

Indeed, it seems that our every hope as held heavily here, heavily in that we’ve apparently all found a way to weigh such things as hope and joy and purpose and reason, but every heavy hope is but a heartbreaking hustle to and through everything from hassle to hatred in order to reach that in which our hearts have so hopefully hoped to have before too many hours more pass away. And yet we apparently can’t see within that the similarity to life itself.

For such a passing away is in fact exactly what awaits all of us. Yes, we all die in what is one last exit from what it is to exist. But that’s where the confusion seems to continue coming to life. It’s like we’re all Mr. Hyde living this lie in which somehow Dr. Jekyll is the bad guy. All because the little weirdo embraces things such as scheduling and appointments and the proper administration of prescriptions and whatnot. He’s a doctor, I don’t know, haven’t read the book so I’m just pretty much shooting from the hip.

But doctors are busy and some supremely responsible people!

And we hate that, at least the latter. The former however, yeah, not really any problem with that. In fact we love being busy, or at least have so convinced ourselves for so long now that perhaps we can’t even tell the difference. I guess that’s what bound to happen when a life is lived in accord with the same lie for enough time. But indeed, we’re an increasingly busy people. Always running and gunning and shopping and hopping all over the place trying to pretend all of our proverbial eggs aren’t really in the same proverbial basket.

But they are.

And said basket is built of our every self-betrayal as bought in bulk within, again, everything from boxes to bargain bins. Yes, we do love a good sale, clearances and coupons and such, and so I suppose that perhaps that’s why we’ve sold off both that idea that early to bed is good for our head, and heart too I’d imagine, but also the souls that we simply had to let go in order to better hold the more of everything we never once needed but simply came to surmise we just couldn’t survive without.

Yes, we’ve lost so much of ourselves that we clearly see no qualms in also accosting our existence by assuming that time is worth somewhere in what’s an apparently relative equivalence to money. And so I guess that makes us only worth roughly the same as the truth holds that all we really have, in fact all we truly are, is but dust and patience. And well, nobody’s going to give us anything for the dust part.

Guess that just leaves us to sell off the patience, as given us from God in what is this stuff we call time as measured in days and weeks and years, sold always to the lowest possible bidder from what is this entirely blasphemous belief that we’ve plenty more where that came from.

Do we though?

Can we truly so assume that God will just keep our tab as ticked in time open so long as we insist He should? Can we continue to live as if Heaven doesn’t mind waiting for us? Can we go on going so overboard on all this worldly rust that we just keep losing sleep seeking ways to find what we all but think we can’t live without? Can we live at all within what is this lie that says we’re not here on borrowed time? What about when the bill comes due?

Will He be satisfied with the stacks of stuff that we’ve piled up? Can we buy something so priceless as salvation for the sum of things won that we may have had to do some potentially shady stuff to afford? Can we afford to spend our time on things that Heaven doesn’t deal in?

Perhaps too accustomed to the assumption of exchange rates?

Indeed, yes, indeed I believe we are. We’re anymore so accustomed to this world in which every wind that blows knows on the way to want that such is too all we seem willing to understand. Just want. Maybe some wish here or there, or a lot in both in fact, wishing for everything from here to there, wherever either are. Yes, craving and creating and carving and starving if need be just so that we can save up a bit more to better afford the stuff we still happen to want. It’s a really vicious cycle when you see it from the bird’s level.

But we don’t. Because we can’t. Because let’s just face it, we’re all so stinking weary and worn that our eyes are basically blind as they’ve been forced to work so hard all this time trying to seek and find what more we want that they’ve finally just given up and are going through the motions at this point. Which is easily enough both said and done. After all, again, we’ve been wasting away this way for what is an entire lifetime as that lived thus far.

So we know the way.

Where does it go though? Well, through what has it gone? Yes, what have we that we have as now evidence in the present tense of the reason why it’s still just best to be stressed about this idea of a life here best? Personally speaking seems now that the only thing I ever really won from running away this way was this all too common breed of wonder known to most as regret as found and felt within all the choices I didn’t make, paths I didn’t take, risks I never knew and too then what all reward they may have led to.

But I guess that’s what comes of a life lived on the run, chasing after the wind. Even if you do manage to catch it, all you’ve got is wind.

And well, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be! In fact, I think you’ve gotta be a little cracked yourself in order to keep chasing both what we can’t catch and nor then could ever keep would we could. Because we can’t. That’s the thing about wind that makes it so peculiar. It’s one of very few things that we know exists and yet we can’t see it, touch it, taste it, smell it, measure it, weigh it, nor know from where it came nor where it goes as it blows in what seems an endless spree of pure insanity.

Does the wind ever stop? Or does it merely slow down long enough to lull us into assuming a sense of calm every once in a while?

Perhaps we’ll never know as, well, again, we’re just too busy. We’ve got a list of things to get done as long as our arm. In fact, said list when combined of that ever-growing counterpart as considered of everything we really, really, really want, they’re together so long that we’re already running late tomorrow! So forget that getting to bed early. No, we gotta catch up if we’re to ever keep up!

But with what?

What are we so worried about that we’re willing to exist as we do? Or do we ever even sit with the audacity to spend a moment measuring the present state of our union to all the wrong priorities? For we are very much unequally-yoked in what seems a quite unholy matrimony to everything from money to monotony. And we’re in fact so attached that we perhaps can’t see just how bad things are anymore.

Or is it that we don’t want to because we already know?

No, I think we do know just how bad things are, and too then just how much worse they’re getting and thus could get in days to come. For when’s the last time you felt peace? How long has it been since you found a happiness that didn’t scurry off a second or two later? What about calm, a time of tranquility, a season of just sitting in the silence that anymore seems the scream of violence as we can’t bear to have to hear our thoughts telling us how rough this stuff has become?

For all we are anymore is angry. We’re sad and increasingly depressed, so much so that anti-depressant medication is now a thing! Yes, we are crumbling, caving in, falling apart at the seams, all because those seams, it seems, are stitched together with the threads of whatever tread we’ve not yet worn off working overtime in order to afford so much more of what we still don’t need.

When’s the last time you thought about something you can do without? Granted, may not make much sense to do so, but seriously, ever stop and wonder how it is that we’ve gone so far as this? Waking up early and staying out late, both being done in only what is a continued attempt to steal time from that clock that won’t cut us a break? How long before we break?

Or will we just ride this lie as far it leads?

I suppose such is a question we’ve all to answer for ourselves, but I really do think we need to mull it over before it’s too late. Because the truth is that we’ll never know when that too late will have come and gone. For that’s the terror of time, we know both that it’s finite and running out, but also, just as with the wind, we don’t know where it goes nor how long we have before it stops.

And perhaps it’s that fear that we’re running from, that worry over our leaving. Maybe that’s why we’re always so busy working. Maybe we know we don’t really have to have all this stuff we’ve come to stack. Maybe we’re just trying to keep that ticking at what feels a whisper easily enough ignored. Either way, truth is that all we’re doing is wasting our lives away for what only matters in this life. Which seems rather counter-productive doesn’t it?

Because it seems anymore that all we’re finding by the day is ourselves more and more angry and aggravated within all this doing of things the apparent way in which they’re apparently supposed to supposedly be done.

Says who?

God didn’t ask us to work ourselves weary for all these wants so worldly. He never mentioned the importance of money being worthy of similar investment as His time has been unto us. Never asked that we give ourselves, our time, our trying over to such things as things. In fact Christ told that within an abundance of such does not life consist. If anything the abundance of possessions we prioritize and pursue only steals life.

After all, can any of us say that true fulfillment is found come payday? Or are we not then just usually frustrated at how it does seem sometimes a reminder that down here it’s all just death and taxes? I mean, does the government need to take so much? The roads are horrible!

Anyway, point is that we seem to have lost sight of just how purposeful our emotions are meant to be. Bet you didn’t see this post spinning around to that outcome! But it’s true. Such things as anger and frustration and depression, they’re there to help us realize that something’s off. And on the flipside, such feelings as joy and peace and contentment, they’re all emotions that help us know that we’re headed in a better direction.

Sadly though, anymore those things are so inseparably tied to worldly concerns that we don’t know what they mean. These days we’re only happy when we’re wealthy and thus we’re sad when we’re not. But are we not also sad when we’re stuck in some job we hate working for a boss who’s a jerk just to afford a car that’s always breaking down and a house that’s falling apart? Is it not depressing to see our families so separated by the screens we owe bills to keep? How are we not more aggravated than we seem that they keep coming out with a new phone every year?

Do we truly need that?

No. And friends, I’m here to tell you that that same answer can be so easily given to nearly all of what this world has convinced us we can’t live without. We don’t need so much that we’d be amazed as just how simple life could be were we not living it so in love with losing it to this way in which we work our lives away for everything that doesn’t give us life in return. What kind of messed up deal is that? Ain’t no wonder everybody’s so angry and upset all the time!

We’re getting hosed!

And we’re doing is to ourselves. That’s the problem! We’re bringing all of this anger and frustration and disappointment on ourselves. All because we keep inviting this idea that says we need this or that or a newer version of something else. We don’t. And if we could only understand that, well then maybe such things as peace and hope and happiness wouldn’t seem so elusive.

Maybe they could even become the norm. At least for us.

Look, we can go on chasing after all this wind as won within everything under the sun and on sale. I have no doubts that just as much as such is the standard amongst most of society, such is too much of what will remain as common as it’s become. But it doesn’t have to if we don’t want it to. We don’t have to keep consigning our days over to dread and disappointment. We don’t have to keep agreeing to being angry and agitated.

There is another choice. But it demands we do things differently.

Such as not wanting all the world does. Or not working for more of what we don’t need. Or not agreeing that the newest phone is truly as life changing as the manufacturer makes it seem. No, maybe the only life changing that we need is to change how we live our lives so that anger and frustration aren’t so normal. Don’t know, but doesn’t it at least seem to sound like something worth a try?

Again, we can all keep chasing after this world’s many winds, and we’ll find plenty of people running alongside us in that venture. But we’ll never find peace or purpose or hope or happiness running that direction. No, I’m convinced that such joys are only found when we turn around and stop running the wrong way after more of those things that we never needed after all.

Because Heaven isn’t reserved for those with certain titles or an iphone74. Jesus isn’t going to be standing at those gates with a sheet of paper covered in boxes making sure we met all the required accomplishments before we left this life. In fact there’s only box to be checked if we’re to find those gates swing open. Do you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior? If so, then none of this worldly stuff will matter. If not, well, none of it will matter then either.

Guess it’s safe to say that it shouldn’t matter now.

So go to bed early and spend the extra time in prayer. For then you’ll be on the way to better health within a wiser life working for the wealth of treasure stored in Heaven. And the best part is that it’s all free as He’s already finished the hard part. All we have to worry about is growing closer to Him through prayer and petitions pursued in a humbled submission unto being here as servants of such a loving Savior tasked then only with telling the world that that same gift is free for their taking too.

Sure sounds better than trying to keep up with inflation!

No, the cost of salvation has never changed, and nor has the fact that He’s covered it in full. Why then continue to live as if our lives are so empty that we need to get up early and stay late at work working for more of what is a mindset that cost that price He paid? If it wins the wage of sin and too of anger or affliction or frustration, then what is possibly worth?

Not much life in those things, so don’t really see why we need those things which bring them in our lives.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold