Day 3659 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

2 Corinthians 4:18 NIV

Sight forsaken.

Simply for the sake of what’s found in faith in that I cannot disprove what I as of now know I have not seen, which while that may sound weird in regard to the wondering as to how anyone is supposed to see what they can’t prove isn’t there, but in reality, such is faith, is it not? For to see is to know, but that only what the eye is assured of whereas to hope is to know further than the eye can see. And thus faith, to me, is something that simply must make more sense than the sense of sight might only ever assume, simply because of the sheer difference in distance.

Because our eyes can see a few miles at most. But our hopes, well, they’ve long seemed able to see both memories and the more we still intend to make in the days that we absolutely cannot prove we’ve still left in which to make them.

Which is the only excitement that I find I’ve left in life. It’s that felt within looking beyond what is this barricade of a life all but already lost. Because such simply is what this life is, as made clear here. It’s a scene shown of the shown and seen, meaning that we are surrounded by everything we can see is truly there, and as we’ve been talking of late, we also live thus most often as if that with which we’re surrounded is the best for which we can hope, which is thus now the same as that which has for too long now founded the very foundation of every feeling and fealty in life.

Indeed, we’ve such a love for our castles made of what is the sand of time that we cannot abide beside this most betraying truth which says that anything and everything we do or become within this place is but the face of the fading reality of life itself. For all that is here will not be much longer. How much longer? Nobody other than God knows. But what we do know is the simple comparison between average life expectancies as designed on either side of this unmoving line that we call death.

On one side our best hope is roughly somewhere around 70-80, maybe more if we take good care of our health and whatnot, less then should we not. But what then of the average life expectancy as found forever in eternity? Well, it’s eternal, which means it has no end. And so no matter would we even could live to say 500 like some of those in the Old Testament, forever is still exponentially longer. And thus it should matter more.

Alas it often doesn’t because of this continued insistence upon the substance beheld by sight.

Simply because we’ve grown to appreciate entirely too much that simplicity of our having every hope assured in the form of physical evidence. Which, seems to prove that we know next to nothing of even hope anymore as nothing’s really changed in regard to how none hope in what they already have. Because hope isn’t an evidentiary experience. It’s an expectant one. It’s an elated one. It’s an experience elating in the expecting of the simply impossible.

Because, well, why hope for anything less?

No, that isn’t a hope at all. Because if a hope can be proven so easily, well then doesn’t such kind of mean that we held our hopes a little to shallowly? And should we truly so agree to such a shallow hope as that placed within something that we can have or happen upon on this side of forever? Because so long as we’re here, well, there’s still that death in the middle. And granted, a great many seem to only assume that the seen is all they’ll ever see. And true, if this is what you truly believe, then it’s hard to blame you for seeking the best this life can offer.

Still seems eternally limited, but hey, to each, right?

Well, kind of. Because you see, though they’ll fight rather dramatically to disagree, even that commonly shared assumption of the substance of all our hopes being held within things able to be seen on this side of the tomb, well, that’s a faith too. Just a really short one. Shortened because of the sense of sight upon which it’s built. Because again, the human eye can only see so far. In fact, the human mind can only imagine so far. The human heart was designed to only keep us alive for so long. The human body’s but breath and dirt, thus not something made to last forever either.

Even our beliefs are often betrayed as we tend to fight to make them to stay behind what are barricades of our better judgement as adjudicated by the very hearts and eyes and minds that we so often look to to lead to what we can only from such a blatant reliance upon our limited abilities ever barely assume is even worth the walk.

No, we’ve very much become a people willing to do very little of any and all that asks any at all of what feels the fragility of faith. Simply because we’re so fond of evidence for all that it seems to alleviate for us. Like trust. Or effort. Or courage. Or resolve. Or resiliency. Or humility. Or curiosity. Or the otherwise lack of any sort of contingency as considered upon the chance that our chase is led to waste within that in which we’ve hoped being ours unable to have as held within the sight upon which we lean.

What I mean is this: We have so many backup plans that we’re willing to resort to or settle for should our wilder imaginations prove impossible within a given period of time as determined against the amount of effort demanded to see them assured. We set out as kids reaching for the stars, but by the time we’re 30-40, we’ve decided to settle for just buying telescopes so that we can at least see what we’ve long lost the ability to believe we might ever touch.

And thus life devolves as we decide to trust more the eye than the soul inside which likely still yearns for the years we’ve lived in which we loved trying to prove the impossible possible.

Which is too why I believe that so many struggle so mightily with faith. Because to a people who’ve grown into an almost utter reliance upon sight, our not being able to see the Ark, to walk around the Temple, to have a chat with Daniel, to ask Paul a question or two, to shake hands with Jesus himself or measure the distance between here and Heaven, our not having any of this information or ability has left us choosing between a faith that’s often a frailty or life that’s lived without that fear as found in our not knowing everything and likely seeing even less, but one also without the curiosity we once had either.

And it’s a hard choice because one side brings with it the ease of evidence as it’s built upon the substance of things seen whereas faith is literally the substance of things which have to always be hoped for because faith doesn’t offer us much if any evidence at all as such would pretty much obliterate the entire point. Because again, who has to believe in that which they can see? And thus that we can see so much is why so many choose that way of life in which they seek their reward in the here and now.

And it’s even harder then on those few who don’t as those many who do find them fools for still believing in the things we can’t any of us see right now.

But again, it’s faith either way, just a matter of how far we’re willing to imagine.

Because many have this faith that is built upon a hope held within something they know they can find. It’s a hope found within such things as career advancement or even the outward adornment that we’ve been discussing a lot lately. It’s a matter of that which is measured or at least measureable. It’s bank accounts and boat trips on weekends. It’s early retirement and trying to only then start living the life that was earlier given to getting the means to make the golden years a little more enjoyable than the entirety of those leading up to them seemed to be.

And I can’t understand that. Because it’s just too normal. It’s too well known. It’s too easy, and thus I see no reason to believe in it. It’s been proven to be possible already. And so what’s the point? My doing the same as anyone else has already done would mean to me that my life would be then but a reflection of what theirs already was. And I just don’t consider that He made me to be like anybody else. Because if that were the case, then I would have been them rather than being me.

And so I just can’t see the point in doing as the world so normally does and living this life as if the very best of it is something to be found or felt before I leave it behind. Because I can’t seem to wrap my mind around such a growing limitation to our reason for being. Maybe I’m just weird, and honestly, anymore I truly hope I am. Because I can’t do normal anymore. Not when the Bible talks so much about so many things that others have apparently seen and are seeing now.

Indeed, I’ve heard of a place with streets of gold and no more pain. And I want to see if it’s real.

Even if there’s no way for that to happen on this side of the grave.

So I’ll live for the other side. And I’ll rejoice at even the thought of how stupid this world may think me for so doing. Because if this world thinks me an idiot, well then I just think I’m on to something that most are too scared to hope for. And, while it may just be the competitive side of me, I find a humor in having to wait to see who’s right.

But I also find this inescapable reasoning behind this faith that has me living as if fleeing from the only life I know for sure that I will ever have. Yes, the hope I have is something so alive that it finds me willing to wager this entire existence upon the sheer audacity to imagine that something better waits after we leave. And that reasoning is that it’s hard. It’s challenging. It’s frustrating and narrowing and both combining into a kind of struggle that simply cannot understand.

And I just happen to have been allowed to learn along the way to where I am today that that which is meaningful is rarely that which comes easy.

No, there’s a deeper appreciation for those things in life that we fight for, that we work for, that we suffer toward. Those things, few as they may be, those things that take something from us, be it time or space or patience, those things that harass our lives are the ones that bring us the greatest rewards in the end. And so that’s where I’ll live my life looking. At the end wondering what comes then.

And I get that such isn’t normal because it’s indeed rarely easy, and yet incredibly simple. For the truth is that faith often feels a walk atop a bridge aimed into the wildly uncertain chosen for the unseen joy of the entirely unknown that’s to be known once finally home wherein we’ll finally know we were fully known despite all we never knew along the way. It’s a chase into the waste of whatever is in hopes of all that He said will forever be. A walking away from walking by sight in exchange for the chance to reach this life’s good night and awaken unto the amazing grace that led the way to the place that this one never should have compared against.

For here all is seen, and as we see here, all that’s seen is temporary. And well, that’s where I’ve simply abandoned ship apparently. Because I just always find myself wondering why settle for living for what is forever fleeting, fading, a failing feeling of finding meaning within all that was always meant to stay behind as we begin again even today what is a way that we’ve never known before. For if each day is always new, and the blessing therein ever novel too, why then weary ourselves to worry ourselves for what only the worldly sells?

Can we truly so afford to waste our wins upon what loses in the end? Shall we seek always our every reward within the seen, assuming that the safety of such outweighs the wins won within the wait along the way? I mean, if we contend that we’re already where we forever hope to be, then sure, our reward we should here seek. But as for me, no. No I’ve seen enough and it’s never been enough to prevent my wondering as to the more moving beyond the veil of everything vain within the vicinity.

Indeed, I find that I simply want better scenery, the kind we’ve long considered within all those wonders as to whether the grass is greener somewhere else. I simply want not to this life waste upon that way walked within weighing shades seeking a greener green. No, I’ll rather trust upon the One who sees all I’ve never yet, knowing that He alone knows enough to have literally laid it all on the line in order that we all might see in Him the very surface of something apparently worth dying for.

Must be pretty green where He’s gone!

Again, so green in fact that it’s even said to be paved in gold. And so my hope for any reward I will here hold. For I want not to have known only a life in which by the end I’d have already seen the very best in what was then just behind left. Rather I want to hope always within the best that’s still forever ahead. And even if this asks that I lean not upon a shallowed understanding stood upon the seen or assumed, so be it. For if this life is as hard as it gets, then it will be worth it.

But if this life is the best we ever get, then we’ll have wasted it.

And within my having done that already, I simply see now no reason in doing it anymore. And so whilst here I’ll continue to swim for that shore that none of us can see, and I’ll do my best to not be worried when I often realize that I never learned how to swim at all.

Because as far as I can see, if this trip doesn’t rely on me being able to see the way to what is as of now unseen anyway, then it seems to only make sense that it’s not on me to get myself there either. For we can’t find what we cannot see, just as much as we cannot be anything more than whatever we’ve already been before. But that I know the changes made in my life, well they seem to evidence the existence of the One who helped me overcome me in order to make them.

And if I couldn’t avoid or outrun His plans as proven within the changes I’ve seen within my life, then nor do I either expect that I can fail to be found wherever else He intends to lead me to be. No, we can’t miss what He sees for us should we allow Him to be the Way in which we walk. And granted, we can’t see Him either, but we sure can feel that hope of salvation continue to swell within every step taken into the entirely unknown.

But again, that is a choice all have to make alone. And so to each their own. I just refuse to settle any further for what I’ve owned or might like to pretend I could. Because none of us own anything in this life as all that’s here is but ours on loan. And so I’ll set my sights upon that hope of that home where we are more excited to be known than we ever could have been over what here we’ve only temporarily owned in a life that was never ours anyway.

Settle for less if you wish. I just hope you don’t because there’s so much more to life than whatever we can fit within the experience of time that ends and eyes that can only see so far. Don’t live for life to end, even if it’s undeniably easier thanks to the things that you can see being the only things in which you allow yourself to believe. No, believe bigger friends, for even if then you still fall short, you’ll have at least known more hope than those who never knew any at all.

Because after all, we know for certain that all we can see is all we won’t one day. But yet we have no reason to believe that we’ll never see what we haven’t yet, because we still might. And simply put, I’ll always find more excitement in might than won’t. So I won’t live for what I know I won’t see one day.

Rather I’ll hope in the possibility of seeing what none have ever proven we can’t.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold