Day 3620 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Isaiah 44:20 NIV

or be them wood, plastic, glass or gold, truth of all manmade god is told in that if it has no life with which to sustain itself, looking then for life within is a lie as sought inside all that life none such can hold.

Alas, this seems a sight unassumed at best, utterly unwelcome at most. And by most. In fact I dare say, humbly so, that each and every one of all of us both behind and still to come, all of us have or will find reason to refuse to let lose this lie we’ve fought to bring to life inside all such lifelessness as every idolatry is. Yes, it matters not with what it’s made for the issue is that it’s made by we who too were made, meaning it is but a different dust as gathered alongside the same side of this eternal divide as designed between life and death from which we too were scooped.

Indeed, we are all but dust and patience, and both of them already returned to them from which they came.

Problem is that which is to be potentially proven upon our returning in that we may well find ourselves quite surprised as to the lack of our lives found then before our eyes. Same said of our times. All the lies and lights of this life long then lost. For such is the danger demanded of every such devotion as our every thus far given unto what can’t offer life as it has none of its own by which to even assure itself a place of permanence beyond the present. And yet anymore we seek all such presents as if their presence somehow solidifies our own in what’s an arrogantly assumed perception of such purpose.

Even that, if it has not life how can it have or hold, bring or sing, ensure or assure that our purpose is to be proven by the same lack thereof of all the above?

Or do we even have the radical audacity to question it anymore?

Sadly I fear we don’t for we’ve all become so devoted to that devoid of life itself that we know that should we confess we knew then our verdict would be done, sealed, us all then all but through. Yes, for such is the truth, that we are all through as in having no hope as held within anything we’ve held or still may hope to have. For hope, as with life, is not something so trivial as to exist within the transient and temporary. And this is right where we’ve long since lost our looking for life. It was left behind those who’ve inspired us before to follow their ways and fashion our own lies.

For again, the truth tells us that it matters not if it’s wood, or if it’s metal, if it’s money, any material. Simply because that which is made by man cannot save that which had a say in it being made. I don’t understand how we still so often fail to understand this reality. If something, as considered within this passage of Isaiah, if something can be used for lesser pursuits, why then assume it can pursue something so powerful as purpose or providence?

Does not wood help to heat a house? Is not gold used in electronics? Plastic is as purpose-laden as perhaps any other manmade production. It’s used for everything from sunglasses to trash bags, clothing hangers and those little yellow highlighters. How then do we find within any way in which these things might too be used to provide purpose or direction or meaning to a life we’re all anymore barely living? And if we say otherwise, explain the still blinded eyes.

For still we bow before every manner of man’s material. Still we serve and share all that is unable to breathe the air. Still we honor and homage that which has no such hope as that which we all need. No, still we seem to see that there is no problem found in our worshipping things that our hands have held. And again, if you see so fit to still disagree, I’ve yet another question I beg you might answer me:

What portion of your day’s hours are given unto a phone as compared to those in prayer calling home?

You see, such is the warning won within this writing as breathed, as always, for our benefit from God’s benevolence. For His having watched us all walk for, talk for, live for that which can do none of the above for any of all of us, it should have ended up by now being the end of us. But no, no, somehow as if a miracle tailor-made for each and every one of human frame, still His patience is once more proven within what is this here today.

Yes, He has shown us again His kindness within another night behind us and still a few more hours set kindly before the next comes to perhaps prove our last.

Alas, past says that we’ll perhaps do as done always prior and prefer to prioritize that which only steals our life as stolen through time as given unto attending our attention unto the intention of our contention that what we’ve made might make us better. How can this be? Can wood prove a better father? Can gold make a mother more loving? Can porcelain provide a life its purpose? Can plastic profit a person beyond the fake forms thereof as found for a moment more within pockets or purses, only there until our next purchase?

What of all we’ve bought or sought has done anything but steal our lives or blind our eyes or rob our tries of trying for something more than held in a store, or in this case a hand?

Or again, do we even know to notice such nonsense anymore?

And again I doubt we do for such is the designed demise inside a deluded heart. Indeed, such is all we seem anymore fit to remain. Just a deluded heart as a result of a diluted mind as a result of a polluted soul as a result of a poisoned perspective as a result of our having purchased our portion of that presumption of our prescription of a devotion devoid of the divine as never having been designed inside anything made by mankind of or for or from mankind.

No, nothing we make can make us as that’s one scientific impossibility that I doubt any scholar or otherwise studious pupil might oppose. The made cannot make the maker thereof. Which came first? And yet we live as if all this that’s been made can make something for us or of us as if we’re then not only the source of this idols existence but also then the only reason for it existing. Seeing yet the insanity of it all? That our picking what’s important so as to pick for ourselves what’s important only then proves us the gods that we seek to serve.

Who cares if it’s done in the form of something we’ve formed? It’s all but an image of our usurpation of a life’s creation. And since we’ve never had that power then how dare we pour such importance into the assumption that we might somehow someday prove otherwise?

No, such a delusion has left us feasting on ashes, consuming the cancerous to satiate the gods of our stomachs that lie in lust at the bottom of these throats as if open graves speaking and drinking every morsel of misery we can imagine might be worth the want or wish. Indeed, we are in every idolatry feasting upon our own death as designed inside these images of ashes that have only been insisted to seem significant at the suggestion of our own prideful assumption.

Thus these images have no life and thus can only steal ours from us as we give ours to them in order to be convinced that they’re worth said sacrifice of life as that given unto at first forming them and then still thereafter in the informing them as to what we want them to do for us. Indeed, any idol we allow to remain in our lives is but a sacrificial alter upon which we daily sacrifice ourselves through time given, attention offered, devotion stolen thus from He who is the Life.

How sad it is that we’ve come to know only to crave that from which we’ve now a need to be saved!

Such is supposed to come when such as we remain what we’ve so sadly become. We are but dead men feasting upon what brought about our own demise as designed inside these empty vessels in which we delight. Yes, delight is the death of all man, defined in that we again give our lives to making things that only steal our lives as done inside their taking our time to at first make them and then to continue making them matter as if they might then make us mean something more.

But no, every idol is only a loss of life and thus a lessening too thereof. For if it cannot bring life, it must then take the same as nothing that exists can escape the cost of said existence. That being that every life owes a life. And if God didn’t give life to these idols we’ve carved or crave, then their importance must have come from the one who made them seem to matter so much!

Does then anything in our den demand our devotion as evidence of the substance or importance of its existence? And if it does, do we not then see that anything we give to what we’ve made cannot be given unto He who made us in His image? What can any of our images as made in the image of our pillage prove when competed against the Creator of all? Is it in any way honorable to steal something of God’s creation in order to create something that then takes the place of God?

Not at all!

And yet we do.

I say this in the most unabashedly ashamed honesty that I might offer. For I know so many an idol that I myself have made of myself mostly. For again, such is all that our every idol is. It’s just an idea, an ideal, a preference, an opinion, a perspective, a purchase, a pursuit, a priority, a plan, a can of tuna for all I know. It’s our setting our eyes and ears and hearts and minds upon manifesting around us the substance of an assumption. It’s us setting up a part of ourselves as given unto making something that we serve as if it’s separate from the ideas and theories we had that inspired its creation.

Maybe it’s a cell phone as scrolled upon through hours not given unto prayer or praise. Perhaps it’s a celebrity as adored more than Christ ever was. It might be a bar scene as sought for the blind satisfaction found in a bottle emptied out. Maybe it’s lust as lost in a fake love lived for through eyes longing for lies that tell us that love is as easy as nudity and perversion. Perhaps it’s food, or drink, dancing or debating, doubting or denying.

So many things can be an idol in our eyes. All it takes is our giving them the kind of room in our lives that’s otherwise best saved for what saves.

And that’s the point. It’s that ashes can’t save us. And sure, a wooden idol doesn’t look at all like ash as it sits there found in the form into which it was carved. Set it on fire and see what becomes of it! And no, gold doesn’t look like ash either, but still it can be crushed, melted, made into something else by another who themselves sees fit to do something different than we did with it. Plastic isn’t ash, but it’s considered trash so often of such little value that it’s thrown in the place where it sits for decades in a landfill beside the other there-rotting corpses of past personal assumptions.

The issue is that of holding in the hand. For God holds us in His, and so what then does it matter what we hold in ours, especially if what we hold turns our appreciation from that we’re held in His? Of what benefit can come of what we can hold? Of what life is there found in what we hold in hands that had no hand in our living this life? Or cannot that which we hold only divide, distract, distort, dilute, delude, elude, evade, eviscerate this opportunity at life as given us from the only Author thereof? How dare we imagine ourselves into His place as maker or creator of anything!

The made cannot make then anything that matters!!

And yet we do, or at we try to. We make matters out of everything from money to monkey wrenches. We breathe life into everything from the lies we buy to the lust through we learn the worst definition of love imaginable. We’ve indeed made an idol of everything under the sun not caring to understand that everything under the sun is bound by time and space and experience as won within a life we cannot win.

No, we cannot win and so what then of all these idols we’re making? Are we not making them only to turn our attention from the fact that we’re losing both at life and a life?

Friends, is what you’re focused on worth the life given in said focus? For truth is that our every focus, every intention, every second of attention is a devotion we’re then unable to offer unto anything or anyone else. So is it worth it? Is what you’re allowing to remain important in your life inspiring you closer to the Life? Does it lead you closer to Christ? Does it refresh thoughts of holy substance and Heavenly direction? Does it beget a mind of praise offered unto God?

Or is it but an idol that steals praise away from Him as given in such things as time and attention and other such devotions?

Point is that God isn’t against our having things but is against our things having us. And while this may seem a fine line nigh impossible to notice, truth is that it’s easily enough discerned by our determining as to whether or not something is leading us closer to Christ or merely taking away time or attention that we could be giving to Him instead. Not all that hard to figure, just on us to decide that our faith is worth the fight that said discernment may often seem.

For the sad reality is that we don’t want to rid our lives or our eyes, our ears or our minds of the many idols we’ve come to adore. But if it can’t give us life by leading us closer to the Life in body, mind and/or spirit, then my friends it’s simply a lie that ain’t worth it.

Let us no longer remain among the many who make a matter of meaning out of material that’s otherwise meaningless. Wood used for starting a fire or building a bridge or giving a popsicle a mess-free experience is not then able to offer us a life-giving experience. Gold that’s lusted after by eyes that love all sparkle and shine cannot then turn said eyes to the faith that’s found not by sight. Marble and money might make a home more fancy or afford more to put within, but if it keeps us living to spend our time as if it’s worth so little as something held here, it’s a loss no matter the worth.

For a lie is worth nothing, regardless of how important it may have become or how special it may make us feel. Friends, the only thing special about us is that God made us and Christ saved us. Let us then quit this seeking of some idol to serve and instead turn and return to the One who came to serve rather than be served. For humility is the substance of life as it’s all that can finally appreciate fully that life is a gift that we’ve been given.

An idol is merely the substance of us thinking ourselves powerful enough to determine for ourselves what matters most.

And I think we’ve chased that lie long enough. If we’ve not found life in it by now, I think it’s safe to say there’s not life waiting in trying it any longer.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold