Day 3661 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Corinthians 2:9 NIV

The things God has prepared

These seem the things that now define nearly every hope I have left as I live out my remaining days within the struggles against the ways won within the “wisdom” of the age in which we wage only a life upon want and wish as welcomed by all and refused by anymore so few that I feel less here today than in days now gone. And yet I welcome myself into this excitement as regarded within all that’s of yet unseen as I see inside such the scene of the not shown and unknown. And simply put, that eternity has God’s hands all over it resolves my selfish inclination to continue striving in this designing of a life that was never mine to misunderstand.

Rather life was always a violent simplicity as shown inside the very story of salvation.

For God worked in Christ something unseen and thus entirely inconceivable before the very eyes of those who counted themselves unbound by the burden that it must be to be still blind beside the very One who came to open not only forever unto all the fallen but to also usher the same into said promise via eyes that have now the opportunity to scorn their mortal inability in exchange for the chance to change into a life made new, and thus lived through eyes that can finally see through to the promise that’s always been the goal of life itself.

Just that since it’s entirely unseen as demanded due to Heaven abiding by no such limitation as all which define our life as lived here.

No, the struggle of faith is found within how neither Heaven nor He who remains the only Name that designates the only way there can neither be seen, cannot be imagined, cannot even begin to be fathomed by any who are as of now in any way still bound by any morsel or measure of human mortality and thus every inability as designed inside of such. For as much as Christ has conquered the grave and thus now reigns over death itself, so too is Heaven told to be a place with no more death or mourning or crying or pain. For by the time we’ve reached that place in which we’ll meet our Promise face-to-face, this present order of things will have passed away.

Yet still we who are alive on this side of eternity so often try to fit the other into what we know is limited by our eventual passing from here to there.

And while this is a struggle to those blind to believing anything outside of sight, it also now seems to define the last frontier of all feeling and meaning and hope and healing. Because while this world clamors on in their remaining enamored by all the advancements that are actually only leaving us further behind, I personally find that no such human intrigue or intent or invent can compare or compete against the confidence one can find when we’re not the one’s upon whom we rely. And thus nor can anything we do or convince others we’ve become the first to have done, none of it can prevent the promise that’s so equally affixed to the end of this age.

For no matter what we do or how far we may come to consider we’ve gone in any direction we’ve determined to go, nothing changes the fact that this life has an end nor then that the overarching appeal of eternity is that it doesn’t.

And I for one simply appreciate anything that offers everything unended as opposed to remaining posed upon a way of life that is pretty much only promised to be upended.

Guess I’m just weird like that.

But I can honestly say that I’d not change a thing in regard to this way of thinking that finds for me daily new ways to imagine the as here defined unimaginable. For I feel that there’s almost a challenge to that reality. Because while all of faith is basically unfathomable, to me this just seems to prove that faith is the fathoming as defined, at least in my mind, by the fact that for while we are surrounded by such immense and almost endless beauty and opportunity to imagine only up to it, so too do we seem to see within our hearts the slightest glimmer of what may or may not be the outer vicinity of eternity as we always seem to be of this curiosity as to all that more that we know we've not seen yet cannot seem to shake the wonder as to the fact that well, but me might one day.

And indeed, this seems the kind of childishness, as the world would most likely consider it, that God has asked of us. Because it’s something born in curiosity as opposed to construction. Faith is something that doesn’t concern itself with the finer details as it rather elates upon the wonder of it all as won within only our letting go of such planning and presupposition as we’ve so clearly become used to. Indeed, faith doesn’t want to see everything right now because it knows that everything seen loses its limitlessness.

And I can’t imagine a Heaven, a Savior, a salvation, a forever that can lose its limitlessness.

So I refuse to buy into the rebuffing of a world that refuses the rebuking that’s sent only to break down our doubts and discontentment. I cannot wrap my mind around the shallowness of superficiality when we’ve been called unto an eternity that is so big, so lasting, so unlike everything we’ve ever known or seen or been able to see or know or hear or even imagine while here. No, if forever is among the options for which we can believe, I simply find no reason not to.

For what do we have to lose?

Are we to anger God by believing that since we cannot imagine Heaven that we should simply wonder as to what it might be like? Can we even see the difference in there anymore? It’s one that’s measured in a matter of innocence as opposed to expectation. See, adult humans have this affinity for trying to visually understand basically everything. We love maps, directions, depictions of roadside attractions to look for along the way. And it’s been this way for all of our creation’s existence.

Yes, we are still today very much the same as those who were then but “a wicked and adulterous generation”, who still “looks for a sign” even though we know that “none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” All of which was said by Jesus who “then left them and went away.”

Because such is exactly what Christ did and still does. He makes a point and then moves on because He knows that the point isn’t the point but that rather the point is only there to point to what is the promise which is who He is. And thus everything He said and the eternally more than He’s done and is in fact still doing, that is nothing but evidence of the sign that we wicked and warped still desire if not blatantly demand.

Meaning then that still we miss the point.

For He was and is the sign of Jonah as given in what was three days in death before being finally spat back to life and thus overcoming said death and thus opening the door by tearing that veil that’s long been allowed to separate us from God as woven of our inability to perceive the impossible as anything other than, well, impossible. Which is why I find that faith is something of challenge in that He asks us into the impossible behind what He did that, to most, still seems impossible.

Indeed, for any to approach Him demands they at first believe that He is there and that He will reward said belief. Which, again, considering the options to be played on our part, seeing as how He’s said that He’s not pleased with sacrifice but rather desires mercy instead, I again find now in light of that even less basis for anything other than a life lived in belief. Because we have nothing else to give to anyone, ourselves included, should we refuse to hope.

Which is belief.

Because hope is offered unto all, but defined inside how it’s seen by none. It’s rather a matter of personal courage as counted in whether or not we embrace the uncertain or settle for assuming only inside the already seen. And so again, it appears to come down to a life lived in regard to appearances. We can either continue looking for what we know we can see, and thus never really know anything of everything it is to believe. Or we can stop stopping at such feeble attempts as imagining and simply trust that there is more possible than what’s already been proven.

Which is what I think faith is supposed to ask of us.

That we believe rather than imagine. That we wonder rather than worry. That we seek mercy instead of measurement. That we set our minds on things above where we know He is seated even though we cannot see or understand the seating arrangement. Yes, I believe that He wraps Himself in such mystery so as to inspire a kind of curiosity that doesn’t dare allow for any selfish imagining as done by all who live as if all of life must fit inside their minds or be witnessed in front of their eyes before it can ever be real.

No, if it cannot be seen, has not been heard and thus remains something that has never even begun to be imagined, then why try? Why not just rather believe? Because you see, imagining something is akin to seeing something. It’s a matter of our trying to make something fit inside of our understanding. But friends, that’s something limited if, by nothing else, time itself. That’s somewhat what we’ve been talking about over the last couple. It’s that all we are is limited by the overall design of this existence.

But the problem with continuing to then rely upon our understanding or senses of sight or hearing is that we’re only further limiting what we cannot prove is not possible. Simply because we’re asking that all that is not only possible but in fact promised to be of such limited substance that it can fit within what we know or see or hear or assume.

Does it matter if His plans are easy for us to imagine? Do we truly need to see them in order to trust in them? Must we hold a map to and through Heaven before there we begin to hope? Or is not hope more exciting than understanding? Isn't it more joyous to wait expectantly for something we cannot expect than to expect something expected? Again, why limit our excitement to what we already know was already exciting? Doesn’t that seem kind of redundant and thus not something in any way abundant like a life’s capacity for curiosity is supposed to be?

Indeed, is it not undeniably better to believe toward a promise as opposed to supposing something presumptuously that’s thus hindered by the presumption?

In fact, why presume anything when He tells us here that we cannot see, hear or even imagine what He has in store? Seems then that to presume is to prefer, and because we are a people who only believe after we see, thus life is anymore but a preference and thus utterly reliant upon our imagination. But why do that to ourselves? To so limit our lives to the looking through eyes and listening through ears and imaging in minds that cannot come close to what we do not know is already not merely underway but in fact eternally final?

Indeed, as my mom asked in response to one of these recent posts, why try to figure out what He already has? Why do we try to figure out what He already has? Seems that so much of faith, or rather what is mere human religion as undertaken within what is but our feeble attempts to try and wrap faith around our minds is just that, us trying to make faith seem reasonable, sensical, logical or safe. It’s all just our attempting to write rules that can’t right wrongs or to come up with boxes that can be checked to turn our attentions away from our fallen intentions that haven’t been checked.

It literally us trying to fit God inside the box that is us so that we’re still the ones who leverage some sense of control and thus have some sense of security in regard to the uncertain and unseen.

But that’s the question: What of all we try really matters all that much? What of it all can really at all? For God’s already finished His work on our salvation. Jesus said so himself. “It is finished.” What then are we still working on, tinkering at, toying with, trying to imagine or understand? What does it profit us to retain any attempt to make this make sense? Does such selfishness help us to believe beyond ourselves?

Or does it not obviously keep us only to some degree faithful only unto ourselves?

What is it about our pride that simply refuses to die when we claim we’ve seen the light that is a new life in which we don’t have to live as if it’s as on us as, thus freeing us from the burden of inability that is our imagining and seeing and hearing?

Does He need us to understand it? Or does not our trying to only inspire us to at times question it? Yes, is not religion merely man trying to wrangle God into something we can understand? Is not our thinking about streets of gold only our trying to hold Heaven into something we can imagine? Should it be so little? Does not salvation being contained within a cross as hung upon a wall or built atop a church still prove us seeking a sign inside something we can hold, even if only beheld by sight?

And thus, as He’s said himself that He’s not pleased by such, are we not merely refusing to meet Him for sake of these measly attempts to prove we know Him or can please Him or have found our way to Him via roads and street addresses? See, we want so badly for faith to be easy that we’ve lost sight of how easy it is. We’re fighting day and night to contain the thoughts and theories that He calls us to thinking because we’re afraid of them as they ask us beyond our imagination.

And I know this to be the case. Because faith, while easy, it’s nothing of safe. Which is why people continue to fall back upon every misunderstanding also imagined by our imaginations. We’re quite contradictory in that regard. We cannot see what is of yet unseen, and so we claim that we cannot then believe. And yet for this to be even plausible demands that we must believe that all that cannot be seen of yet cannot then ever be seen even later on. And thus we use our own logic against ourselves as we align ourselves with those who claim they can see but were blind.

Because faith that can see isn’t faith at all as faith isn’t needed in regard to what already is. No, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the confidence of things unseen. It’s knowing they’re there without trying to prove they are, even by our feeble attempts to imagine what no mind can fathom. For blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

Which is exactly what faith is. It instead asks us toward change. It insists we take chance. It begs that we choose new things at the obvious expense of things old. He tells us that He came to make all things new, and yet still we sift through everything known trying to find a way to overlay what He’s doing with what’s already done as loved for the fact that it can fit inside our minds that still try to understand in order to peacefully coexist with eyes that demand we see everything before we’ll believe anything.

All so that it feels more normal and less nuanced. All so that we can keep ourselves and our understandings up and running. All so that we risk nothing by believing only in what we can see, perceive, imagine or expect. But if all it has us doing is running around like chickens looking for our heads so that we can plop them back on and get back to using them to lead the way, then what’s the point?

Do we need everything He’s doing to truly make sense to us right now? Or is that not rather the reason for trust in the first place? Do we not need to trust in Him more than we rely on how we think or what we see or what we may refuse to hear due to it not sounding good to our habitually itching ears?

Friends, point is that He never asked us to make this make sense. He didn’t ask us to paint some mental image of how Heaven may look or what life may feel like along the way. He didn’t ask us to wrap our minds around Him. In fact, faith is kind of the opposite. Faith is wrapping Him around our minds, asking our eyes to look through Him in order to see what He sees, insisting our ears listen so closely that we come to know that He is still speaking through a Word so alive and active that it has this introvert daily writing 3,000 word essays in hopes that everyone will see them.

No, He doesn’t ask us to imagine, to understand, to comprehend, to figure it out or find the way. He just asked that we trust that He’s got it figured out and that, one day, we’d finally see in full, finally know in full as we’re then fully and finally known.

Because only then will we be fully and finally home.

And so why get so lost along the way trying to understand the way when faith says that He is the Way? And if He is the Way, what then is there to understand? No, simply put we’re here to follow Him, not our feeble attempts to continue failing to figure Him out!

Because our trying to do so is only tying our faith to the assumption that we can. And simply put, that is entirely contradictory to Scripture itself. And He doesn’t contradict Himself. And so any confusion, delusion, fear or failure that we find or feel in regard to faith, sorry folks but it’s on us. It’s all just us loving our understanding or imagination or the ease of sight and sound more than we do all that absolves us of our every such fallible responsibility as proven in our every mortal inability.

Indeed He made it easy. We just hate things being that simple.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold