Day 3655 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Ecclesiastes 2:11 NIV

In vain.

Such is both to where and in what most if not all of life is aimed anymore, in vain. And such too is why nothing is ever gained. For anymore it’s all a matter measured in whether or not we’re where or what we’ve wanted to see or show unto those who look as we upon only the surface of things. Indeed, such is vanity in that vanity is but a setting of our sights upon the scene shown of the shown and seen. It’s our looking to those things that we can see as the only matters allowed to matter all that much for only the sheer simplicity of so allowing our sight to continue stealing our life.

And indeed, to walk this time believing only our eyes has not only made matters worse in terms of the growth of vanity and vitriol, but it’s in fact perhaps even been what’s contributed most to our now commonly shared outlook within which most seem quite content to contend that nothing matters at all.

Thus the furthering of the fall.

For life was never a matter to be measured by such things as sight or even sound. And we know this because He who designed this is neither seen nor heard all that much. And that only because we’ve long stopped looking at all the evidence of His existence planted all around us and too our Bibles remain closed and thus we claim that He’s not got much to say. And yet even when He has been witnessed, it’s been but in whispers of what’s always been His better will for us.

And I say better will because our will is worthless as evidenced within our fondness for the folly of following the vanity of a fallen humanity seeking something of betterment along the way.

Yes, we’re so lost inside ourselves and our workings always done on only ourselves that we cannot seem to see the magnificent insanity inside such a life as this in which we live always expecting better but using only the superficial by which to determine whether or not we’re there. Meaning that life is anymore lived but skin deep, leaving for us thus the deeper matters of our meaning to remain unconsidered and thus perpetually unimproved. Rather we’re all but fruitless vines that stopped growing for fear of rain a long time ago.

Because we could see it coming, and our preference for the simplicity of the sunshine, which gives our skin that radiant glow, just caused us to become quite caustic to the consideration of the clouds being a more vital necessity in terms of personal growth and thus any and all improvement still waiting up ahead.

Sadly we don’t care about such things anymore, any of the many which lie beneath the surface of our entire existence. Because there’s no benefit in bettering them. There’s just no applause for personal growth coming from those many more who’ve long since stopped trying in their own lives. We will not please nor impress those who know only a life lived in vain. For all they can see is the scene shown of the shown and seen. And having been there myself, I see only no reason to ever go back.

Because I still remember entirely too well those days spent doing as the world still does, which is nothing much at all for fear of admitting we don’t like the lay of things as they look for the moment.

Indeed, it seems now that there’s been such vanity allowed into the world that God’s managed to turn it around on my head in such a way that’s helped me see that I too have crossed that line entirely too many times. Take working out for example, and in fact a truly perfect one. Years ago I looked up one day and found myself fat and lazy and looking entirely like nothing I wanted to be. The life I knew then was one in which I was tipping the scales at over 300 and eating only those foods fit for a five year old without the ability to care as to the general likelihood of their making it to 40 with all their teeth and without heart issues incoming.

And so, as to finally chase a what was by then already life-long dream, I changed the channel. I hit the gym. I determined to find a way to lose the weight so that I could look better and feel better. But as I’ve grown, in this regard by shrinking to the tune of 130 or so to where I’m down to about 185, I’ve found this shift as won within my recently having realized the gross swelling of vanity as seen upon always the surface. Such as that shown in the scene seen in every mirror. And what I’ve seen is that somewhere along the way to where I am this day today I got it all mixed up and mistaken.

It became all about the looking good, so much so that even the feeling better took a backseat to it. And yet thankfully of late God’s put it on my heart to fix that, because as I’m finally allowing myself to learn, looks were never supposed to be the point. Looks are just a byproduct of effort or rather an almost utter lack thereof. No, what matters is ability and opportunity as those things are God-given and thus to be always honored. Mostly because they’re incredible reminders of how all of this has so little to do with us that we should’ve never become of this common ability to worry only about vanity.

And so I’ve found this shift lately into where I don’t want to care so much as to how I look as instead I want to feel better and get better so that I can live better and serve better and thus better undertake this opportunity I have to live a life for a purpose other than what’s only on the surface. I want to be the best I can in all aspects of my life, and truth be told, aesthetics are but one increasingly minute aspect thereof and thus such a frail and pointless pursuit that I’ve had to realize the emptiness of continuing to chase fitness or health for that reason alone.

It’s about something deeper. And honestly, most things in life really are.

In the case of fitness or just overall health in general, it’s about such things as heart health and mental acuity and stronger muscles and denser bones and, maybe above all, unyielding resolves, none of which can be seen but all of which help us to uphold the gravity of life lived in a world dying in decay.

Which is at least part of why I believe we are called to be not of this world. It’s that, in order to do so, we have to embrace this leading us away from what we’ve been at the inspiration of what the world still is so that, along the way, we meet this realization that we need to not focus on the things people here focus on. Rather we need to concern ourselves not just somewhat with the unseen as still mixed with our affinity for the superficial, but I dare say we need to focus almost only on the unseen.

On the heart for the sake of the life it helps us keep living. On the lungs for the fact of the air we keep breathing. On the life we’ve now in which we get to live in the love of Christ as offered then from us unto all others while we’re here for however long He’s still got a plan for us in this part of forever. And even that seems to flow into the whole fact in that this faith calls us to walk not by sight, which is in and of itself clear confrontation to our culture of considering only the seen.

Because if faith is a matter walked best without sight, well then what use it is to worry always about how things look? What use it is to welcome fear whenever our situations look bad? What use it is to worry almost only about what we look like? What use is it to worry about what the world thinks of how we look or how we live or what we do or how it’s done? No, that’s one of the most incredible gifts found within this faith, and a true freedom in that.

It’s that it helps us to finally understand that there are far more important things waiting to be found below the surface of the superficial upon which so many so often exist in what is as shallow an existence as only humanly possible.

And in fact, it’s one that I dare say is even further limited and thus limiting in that vanity seems to be a uniquely adult ability. Or disability. Inability? Instability? Anyway, it’s something that feels an issue that’s almost exclusively what is a grownup’s insanity. And an incredible hindrance at that. And believe me, a hindrance it most certainly is! For it’s a mindset or a misstep or a mistake, whatever you want to call it it’s simply something that always comes along only to cause this pause in our regularly scheduled living of a life as we slow to a crawl through this entirely unnecessary considering of outward appearances.

Which is also something we’re expressly called to not concern ourselves with as God blatantly reminded us in 1 Samuel 16:7 wherein He told us that He looks not at the outward appearance but rather looks upon the heart of a person, judging the thoughts and attitudes thereof so as to reward a person according to their own unique blending of humilities and atrocities.

And so when we set our sights upon the seen, upon the shown, upon the superficial and thus entirely unchangeable, we thus too choose to all but entirely overlook the aspects that both God has said He looks at and too those what we maybe can change or improve or invest our time into trying to better without the help of such deceptions as makeup or other make believes. For indeed, nothing will change the fact that how we look on the outside cannot define anything about who we are inside.

But if all we care about are the looks seen outside, then I fear we’ll not have all that much of very much use to show from the inside.

And that’s simply sad.

And I say this because it’s become so normal that nobody really seems to care anymore. Rather we’re quite quickly becoming a culture of vultures feasting upon the festive and foolish as found within those who care not as to the better attributes of a person such as kindness or compassion. And it’s easy to see why we don’t seem to care all that much anymore about such things. For again, as with all other such improvements, such things as kindness and mercy are scarcely evidenced within the superficial as they’re rather matters of the heart.

And this world doesn’t have many anymore who choose to live their lives with their hearts on their sleeves and thus their every effort given unto the hands which hang at the end of said sleeves which aim only to honor the every opportunity that God gives us to share what He’s given us. And we can’t share our looks! But we can share our love. We can share our time. We can share our pasts and the plethora of lessons we learned within them seeking to help another hopefully avoid having to learn them the ways in which we did.

But what can we share of the wind?

What can we offer the world when our every outlook is anymore only that as shared by the rest of those who seem to see only that which is seen and shown by themselves or those around them? What benefit can we offer to anyone when our entire life’s purpose is something we’re intent upon proving within the way we look? What does it matter? After all, do we really think we’re gonna get to Heaven and that God will be pleased or impressed with how we look, you know, considering He already knows as He is the One who made us?

Or rather does He not promise to welcome those few who are to know that home to the ring of “well done, good and faithful servant”?

You see, it’s in this that I find that we’re to be faithful in all things we do, and thus that we must be faithful to the opportunities and abilities that He gives us each day. Not just those that make us look good, but more so to those given which help us begin to live good as done only in being faithful to His purpose for our lives. For God knows the good things for which we were created to do. And simply put, His purpose was never for our looks.

For He knows above all that the superficial is nothing but a concern as to matters of envy or comparison or jealousy as measured by our looking at our lives or at the looks of others and seeking ways in which we alone feel that we don’t measure up or seem as beautiful or powerful or special or useful. And this is supremely stupid as life is not a competition but rather a calling as proven in that each of us are different phones with different bones living different ways able to teach different things within the many mistakes and masterpieces made uniquely by us, in us or for us from He who made us for more than just looking for what the world looks for.

Because what this world looks for is only a continuation of what this world looks like. And we’ve all lived that life looking to supermodels to show us what we should look like or cartoon characters to show us what life should sound like or soap opera drama to teach us what love should feel like. It’s all nonsense as it’s considered only from the surface. And personally, I sit here every single day within this new way of life in which I look back over all I’ve been and done and become and I see now only the many mistakes that were made thanks to a mind mangled by the misplaced importance of vanity convincing me to focus on the seen and worry only about what I show.

And I just can’t live so empty anymore.

Because yes, I too consider all that my hands have done and the effort given unto doing it, being it, seeing it, and yet I see only that everything changes anyway. For yes, “the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.” And so why worry so much about all that can’t? Which, if you’re not sure, is all that is seen. Indeed, such is yet another freedom found and felt only within this faith in that it teaches us to just see things differently.

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

Such as the soul of a person. It’s eternal. And yet this ought to define a dire fear in our hearts and minds that turn our eyes away from living this life upon the surface of such a superficial society. Because there are only two outcomes in eternity. And yes, while some will be welcomed home to the hearing of “well done”, fact is that more will be left out which will sound like “away from me.” And friends, truth is that vanity is something that simply seems to only blind our eyes and bind our times to living as if this life is only about what we can see.

But it isn’t. Never was. Just seems that we chose to almost collectively forget that along the way to where we are today. But that’s just it! Is where we are living how we are as who we’ve become truly what, where and who we want to be? Or can we not see that there is something better as measured always by what we can’t see? For that is the audacity of every measure of hope ever met in life. Hope is always for only that which is not yet. Vanity is only hoping in that which already is.

And again, that’s just a supremely sad sort of existence.

Because the best is not yet, and thus, yes, the best is not us. And thus, we just shouldn’t spend this one life we have upon such worthlessness as making ourselves look good via the things we do as done so often anymore only to please the public. No, rather we should do all things unto God for in truth all things come from God and thus all things will too return to God. One way or another, and to one outcome or the other.

And so indeed, “therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

And thus such is the life we’re called to live.

That lived not in vain.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold