Day 3619 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Isaiah 41:29 NIV

At the moment I know not a better way to describe this life of mine as thus far having been lived lost to what is a life that I, at times, hardly recognize. Yes, seems as if I’ve myself been but wind and confusion.

And what tends to amaze is the sheer number of days in which I still steal into what’s always felt my share of that air as breathed by those who neither believe nor dare not to. For that seems to define all of us in what is an almost perfectly peaceless life as lived for always wanting something else, another god of either gold sold or glory told as in tales of whales we almost caught and sicknesses we wish we’d have missed somehow.

But, alas, those somehow’s and almost did’s, they anymore amount to what is just about the outermost excitement of this nearly entire divestment from a life’s designed direction.

For I have no doubt that life wasn’t meant to go this way that we’ve so arrogantly called ours, as empty as it’s always proven to be. Weren’t meant to have spent so many hours upon what’s still not ours. For time isn’t ours to waste no matter how many hours we try or hopes we have or even however hollow the most of them will eventually prove themselves to be. Because such is our almost every hope anymore, at least the entirety of those all for which we call on what is a phone of preference and pretense, pretension and hesitation as needed by all such choice in life.

Again, apparently.

Indeed, that word ‘apparently’ has found itself amongst many of the recent post’s foundations, and thus too strewn within. For it seems that so much of what we do and what we think and what we have and think we need is all found within, fixed upon or otherwise fixated by the gravity of apparently. And this is as apparent as it so certainly is in that we all both see and feel and even many times hear the evidence of such a strangely shallow existence of our every assumption still assuming that we apparently know what we’re doing within what’s become a life of basically nothing.

How else might we describe this directionless directive to drive detective as if we’re not near as defective as we otherwise both designed and defined by all we’ve found seeking to find all we still haven’t yet? You talk about wind and confusion! Yes, we are indeed both embodied in what are still jars of clay that have no say in when or where we break nor until then for use we’ve been made. Guess such an identity as found within that God-given opportunity to live a life that’s not our own is bound to be betrayed when we’re so busy building our every worry upon what we make instead.

Yes, life has turned into what is endlessly thrown pottery in which we fit and form our every faith into what we otherwise seem all but violently intent upon forcing found within this ground upon which still we stroll through what are only stores and storms as bought and sold by our every doubt and danger as demanded of our designing a life that doesn’t care in the slightest as to the Savior who saved it nor what all we still delight to be destroyed behind.

Indeed, we’re all soldiers of what are clay armies, each following the general disconnection of some faceless general’s general directions as delighted in us for them and us in them in what is a blanket give and take, each of us giving one another only our every opinion as to how all should be living in what is a life already taken from each of us in what is a past so pitiable that today has no chance.

Except it does.

And that it does is something so clearly not our call that it’s amazing we don’t seem to care at all. Why is that, or rather how? How can we still seem to care about so very much whilst caring about absolutely none of it? And if we say we do, as done only to try and defiantly deny our dire indifference, if we say we do care, why then are we each still holding the lies?

This is the general contemplation considered within much of the 40’s of Isaiah’s book. Chapter 44 really gets into it quite heavily in that it speaks rather bluntly to the impressively brutal idiocy of our every single idolatry. Verse 9 really starts out hot and harshly! “All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame.” Reminds me of that passage in Psalm 135, verses 15-18 specifically.

“The idols of the nations are silver and gold, made by human hands. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear, nor is there breath in their mouths. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.”

“And so will all who trust in them.”

Mouths that do not speak sat below eyes that cannot see between ears that will not hear all wrapped around heads filled with air but barely any noticeable breath to be believed behind. No, anymore we are so lifeless that we’re all but competing against one another to see who can amass the most grass and trash and tarnished toils as tinted foils like those found in trophies celebrating triumphs that we literally act as if we had some hand in winning.

What have we won? Seems that all we’ve won is what we’ve done, but then there’s that, what have we done?

What’s become of life in this time in which we sift through sands and sales seeking a soul to sell as if we’ve any of it left to lose? Haven’t we yet lost enough? What more of our life as was meant to be lived by humans with eyes that do see and ears that can hear and lungs that do breathe and mouths that do speak as if they have something worthwhile to say, what of that kind of life do we have left? And yet, do we even care to consider that we’ve in fact lost so much that we couldn’t possibly know what remains?

What to make of these remains? For I fear we’re crumbling at such a calamitous clip that it won’t be long before the last ship has set sail to sink in what is a life lived well beyond the brink of what’s already broke. Do we like it this way? Do we enjoy this kind of day in which we awake only to say that, “Again today we sail away seeking higher seas of better scenes as shown of things that still we want without a single reason why!”

For what could be the reason why? What have we found that has us this convinced that finding more will be better? What of nothing is better in bigger quantity? Is not nothing still nothing no matter how much of it you may happen to have? Guess we still don’t know that part yet despite His having done so very much to try and help us open up as if a shop here to sell off all that’s sealed us in what is a life that we might, in Him, dare to imagine living again.

And sure, in Him seems to connote an idea of eternity as that seems the overall goal of the Gospel as given fully from inside what is a grave oddly empty. Yes, He laid down His to offer us a share in just how endless His always was. But, still, should not such a redo dream to do until then everything new? Or have we rather taken the idea of nothing new under the sun as something of an upside challenge in what’s become a fear of our accidentally doing something new?

Either way, guess it doesn’t really matter much as long as we live as if what we have is who we are. Because honestly, if who we are is but all we have then all we are is nothing as nothing here means anything because if it can’t see, hear, breathe or believe on our behalf, well then what good is it? If it can’t be, bring or build what is a bridge beyond our every thus far failed belief in anything better than all we’ve been, what does it matter then?

Why pour so much of our time as given in life unto things that are neither alive nor then able to offer us time? I believe that verse from Isaiah 44:9 referred to it as ignorance. Well, technically it referred to those people who trust in idols as ignorant, but point’s the same. It’s foolishness, all this fighting to keep finding reasons for remaining so irrational as to have apparently rationalized the lack of life as lived through an idol’s eyes.

So why do we keep doing it then? Seems to be either the wind part or perhaps the confusion. Then again, is not wind confusion? I mean, we talked about that a bit the other day. We don’t know much about the wind as it’s one thing that we know to exist without having ever seen it. Still though, no, still we chase it in what is a confusion anymore so close that it’s become all but personal at this point.

Indeed, we do seem to take our own unique idolatries quite personally.

It’s almost as if they’re us and we they. Guess then that we’re here to breathe for them, to see for them, to listen in and hear what they can’t which is but what we say about them in how we’re unable to live without them. And well, if there’s a clearer contemplation of how we’ve come to all but embody what seems the most pure form of insanity I don’t have the foggiest idea as to what it could be, let alone how to even begin trying to write it out.

No, I suppose that such is the fog of faith as found by eyes that, like our every idol, struggle to see. For anymore we have ears that don’t really try to hear, are barely interested in the burden that it apparently is to breathe, and well, no, we’ve not much to say either. Even though we do talk a lot! Yes, we have so much to talk about but never really seem to have much worth being said. Just filling the void that we’ve become I reckon.

And such is why the coming reckoning!

It’s because we’ve so blasphemed God that He’s left no reason to hold out patience for us much longer. Guess the question is, cross considered, how much longer we’ll continue waiting ever so patiently for our idols to prove themselves. Yes, how much longer will we wait for our goals and dreams and plans and ideals to prove that they can be what we’ve imagined they might? How much more of this one life we know we have will we just give away into the hope that perhaps something we can still come to hold will be able to hold us safely for all eternity?

Or should we not rather trade the confusion for salvation?

Granted, not the most popular trade as evidenced in just how many still consider our faith to be the pinnacle of all foolish pursuit. But consider for yourself as to which is more foolish: Doing as few do and expecting God to be as loving as the cross proves, or doing as most are and living as if He’s not there?

Which has a better feasible outcome?

Because the reality in which we walk is that we don’t know anything in regard to tomorrow. We may have our hopes, our guesses, our assumptions. We might walk alongside people who peruse their horrorscopes or seek some sign inside how the stars align. We in fact share this air with those who chase after as much of their share as can be chased here. And in that we are anymore surrounded by more idols than ever before.

But none of it can tell us what tomorrow holds or if we’ll even have one.

So how much of this moment right now will we spend worrying about or focusing on what cannot help us with anything? For again, every idol as made either by, of or for man cannot see, cannot speak, cannot hear, cannot help. So just how much hope should they have as given from us to them?

Friends, point is that if it can’t give us anything, why are we giving it anything? And sure, there can be the arguments as to worldly wealth and other such potential momentary help. Fine, whatever. Problem is that if any of that stuff still matters, then this world is still your home, and well, so long as that remains the case, I truly hope you enjoy your reward. But it breaks my heart to think that we’d be so arrogant as to choose our reward now inside what is nothing but our insisting a lifeless idol to life as done only in our giving ours to it.

Gold ain’t worth that. Glory isn’t worth that. Pride or power or profit or popularity, aren’t none of them worth it. Because our life is the one thing we’re all giving away, and it’s also the one thing that we’ll be judged by according to both what we gave it to and too how we gave it.

What are you giving your life to? And if you need some easy way to consider the sheer expanse of that question, consider its counterpart: What are you getting from life?

Because the fact of the moment is that what we give determines what we get. It’s reaping what we’ve sown. So then, is what you’re sowing worth the effort considering what you’re reaping? Friends, my point is that if we’re getting anything in life that we don’t want, it’s likely because we’re doing things in life that we shouldn’t be. That’s not to say that hard times won’t still come nor that we’ll not still face trials or challenges that seem unfair.

All I’m saying is that if we’re feeling often confused, sad, disappointed, ashamed, afraid, worried or worn, odds are we’re sowing things in our choices chased that are reaping only those harvests of hardship and hatred and chaos and confusion. And we see an entire world unraveling at the moment because of this direction. Again, we’re surrounded by people who are all but inseparably lost inside a copious amount of idolatry.

And folks all around us are finding out the hard way that their money can’t save them, their houses can’t protect them, their savings can’t help them survive the unseen, and nor then can any worldly hope hold up against things that seem so rare in this world that we’d never have any reason to expect them. Such is the harvest of every misplaced trust!

It reaps a whirlwind of worry and woe. It collapses into chaos and confusion. It delights in death and delusion. Do we though? That’s the question I’ll leave you to consider for yourselves.

Do we delight in such things as worry and confusion and hardship and hatred and this hustle culture that has us chasing after some new idol almost every single day? Or are we about tired of doing so much, wanting so much, having so much only to still feel as if we have nothing?

For the truth is that that’s all we can ever have so long as we have eyes set on things that cannot see or ears tuned to those who will not hear or a life lived looking to that which has no life to give in return. Because every single idol is nothing but a human assumption of something meaning something worth worrying about or wanting. But what will any of that matter in the end?

And if it won’t matter in the end, why let ourselves ponder into a wonder as to whether it might matter now?

Let the world enjoy the wind and confusion. As for us, we needn’t waste any more time trying to find a way to make our lives feel alive. No, we have the Way, the Truth, the Life. And if you still think you need more, then you don’t have any idea who He is nor what He did.

Please don’t leave it that way. Because friends, there is nothing here than can do what He’s already done. And that’s precisely why nothing here deserves any portion of our devotion. For He gave His life to give us ours for eternity.

What worldly idol can say that?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold