Day 3664 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 John 3:2 NIV

A measured hope.

Such seems all we’ve seen within this life spent trading away the better day of a life lost inside the unknowns of everything we’ve never been before for what is a way in which we waste away within want and wish for things that seem more trustworthy simply because they’re seen easy. And this lack of what ought to be a continuous chase for the uncatchable has left all of us barely hanging on to any semblance of hope at all. All because we’ve tied so tightly our every hope to every noticeable or measurable thing that we cannot now ourselves seem to separate the two.

No, rather seeing so sadly remains believing and this has left us even begrudging the beauty that it is to imagine something better as found just a little further along that often-fragile feeling of faith.

In fact, as we talk about quite a lot anymore in what is hopefully something of an encouragement to you as we few continue to fight this fight against the judgements of the jaded, faith is itself something that many may measure as meaningless, mundane, even moronic perhaps. Yes, I know that to most it’s a matter mostly considered feeble, futile, foolish and fleeting, this chasing after that which we cannot even seem to see.

But that, to me, is a great part of its beauty, this ability to believe.

Because finish lines scare me. The appeal of limits has lost me. The necessity of normality is anything but a failing formality as it finds only a fealty to feeling our way as if grasping still along a wall into what are always days in which await a life we’ve never lived before. No, that is the fear of all man, these many and remarkably vast uncertainties as seen inside the mind that misunderstands the opportunity that we’ve been given to simply let go of all that’s now for the more than isn’t yet.

And such is a gift because it almost instantly, albeit gradually, allows us to retire from trying what we could never accomplish anyway. Such as the checking of boxes that only exist in our eyes as spent looking so tirelessly for something safe to see. That’s why we love finish lines so much. They offer us a way to measure our movements and the motivations that led us to them. But that doesn’t really help us to accomplish anything other than whatever it is that’s caught our eye or intrigued our mind for what always proves only a moment at most.

Which is part of why I hate finish lines in life. It’s because I’ve crossed over so many of them and yet look back and see still so much left undone. And so I worry now any time that my mind tells me that we’ve gone far enough, done plenty enough, finally found enough. For I’m learning, again gradually, that I don’t have any idea really as to what enough even is because I don’t know how to begin counting or measuring or weighing what isn’t yet.

And so who am I to act as if it’s supposed to be my eye, my mind, my life that’s left to be lived by only my try at what I can only hope I can find as found within often only what is already? That’s where we’re missing a great measure of freedom as found and felt only within a faith placed boldly into or perhaps unto another. It’s something just waiting to be proven a little beyond that moment in which we find what I’m finally seeming to feel. And that is that I don’t want to find it anymore, for I’ve found that if I can then it can end.

And I simply can’t understand a faith or the forever it promises if either have an end to them.

For to try and mesh or mix the idea of a life lived in love with finish lines with a God who exists outside of even time, this seems something of an almost imbecilic if not utterly idiotic venturing. Because, as we just discussed a day or so ago, our trying to religionize faith is nothing but our asking God to fit or form into the feelings and fears that we find and feel to be of enough worth or worry as to welcome our asking such limitlessness as He is into what is as limited as we are right now.

And that’s right where this normal way of life seems to have lost me, left me behind.

Or maybe I lost it as I traced a place into the woods of what is a life lived looking for that which cannot be located. And maybe this does prove me loony if not that so much so that I’ve won a four-star stay in a padded room with a lovely white jacket that keeps me wrapped within the warmth of what is a self-hug of sorts. But what I find to be amazing is that I cannot seem to imagine or understand it any other way despite how crazy or confused I and my life may seem to most.

Because I’m finding a life again outside of that measured hope.

That idea comes from a NEEDTOBREATHE song that hasn’t left my mind since I first heard it years ago. It’s called Child Again, and the opening verse of the lyric says “Yeah, I know too much. I think I know my way around. Too smart to feel a heartbreak now. Too old let my safeguards down. Where'd the wonder go? Trading magic for a measured hope. Traded dreaming for a worn out home. Tired of being in control.”

Tired of being in control.

That’s something that having just now copy and pasted the words for accuracy’s sake seems to have hit me quite particularly this morning. Because that’s what or rather maybe where I fear we’re failing to find and feel as free as we could be, should be, would be would we have the audacity to believe in the presently unconceived. But that seems something that requires a great deal of undoing of all we’ve done that’s led to whatever this is that we’ve become.

What are we though that we would indeed trade the magic of meaning as met in our meeting the Messiah face-to-face for what is a measured hope of having something, holding something, knowing something here inside this still before? What are we that we would exchange the chance to change who we are for what we cannot see as of where we stand as stood in what is a land too lost to look for what more is not yet known? Who are we that we would welcome again this day this lie to say that we are or can be in control of what is a ship we’ve sunk off many a coast seeking the gold that is a pride’s control?

Tired of being in control in what is a life that I cannot anymore help but feel was made for so much more than I know I’ve settled for. And I know I’ve settled because my heart still longs for the wonders won within the ways I didn’t take and the chances I didn’t chase and the doubts I couldn’t break and the ongoing allure of what’s become the magic of what’s merely ordinary. Yes, I’ve settled for what’s become normal, and that regardless of whether or not it would be considered normal to anyone else.

I’m even tired of my own normal because it’s become something of a finish line that invites me daily back to the already seen and well enough known. And I worry now that there’s nothing more to know or see inside of that which was already. And so why settle for it anymore?

I’d venture to guess that it’s probably questions like this that would inspire many if not most to agree that my normal is actually quite far from it. But hey, who are any of us to judge what normal is considering we’ve all made it such a subjectivity so subjected to our daily dose of depravity as designed inside minds that still listen to hearts holding back hope for what’s indeed a worn out home?

Why do we so love this scene of the seen? Is it that it’s easy to see? No risk as counted in curiosity? No danger as designed or demanded in doing something differently? No growing pains as given away within what is a life that’s not grown much in recent days? No worry as won within rather wanting whatever we want as won within whatever is close enough to count on?

Should life be so easy as to consider it inside such costs as counting and comfort and complacency?

Seems the kind we’ve settled for. But I guess the question then becomes one asked of whether or not we stay.

Because the truth of time is that neither do we have to nor can we really. No, rather this life was created to move forward as if a conveyor belt continuously leading us into the looking for still more inside the days ahead. Don’t we see what that is telling us, that yearning inside that has us always longing for something more? Do we not understand that it’s hope and courage and wonder all calling us to wander away from what is toward all that isn’t yet?

Friends, that’s the excitement of life, the zeal of such, the appeal of such a gift as this grace we call faith. It’s that there is more, and not just more of what already was, no, there’s more of what has never been so far. There’s an entire eternity filled to the very limit of eternity’s limitlessness with life and love and joy and purpose and pursuit. Yes, Jesus, as we talked about yesterday, “swallowed up death in victory.” He emptied the grave with His grace as if to pave a path toward that place that is as endless as a life lived without death is.

Why then are we stopping this far short?

Because it’s scary? Is that really a valid excuse? I mean, we’ve been scared before and managed to make it out okay, at least relatively as proven within the fact that we’re still here to tell those stories of what scared us but didn’t destroy us. Or maybe it’s because it’s something uncertain and this seem stupid to even consider, considering all the certainty with which we’re surrounded. Again, is this excuse valid? After all, every single new day is one we’ve never lived through before.

But we’ve all gotten through quite a lot of those daily uncertainties. Haven’t we?

And so why do we continue to waver here within what is a worry as chosen in what is a way of life in which we try to weigh the wait waiting between what is and what isn’t yet? See, maybe that’s where our faith keeps breaking down. Maybe it’s that we look at the up ahead and see what we cannot see as something that cannot be seen, and in that maybe we conceive this lie in which we believe that says that which cannot be seen simply cannot be. Because if it could then we would. Right?

If we could see it then it would be seen. Right?

No! I cannot count the number of things that do exist that I haven’t seen for myself. Like the top of Mount Everest or the bottom of the Mariana Trench. The most remote part of the Amazon Jungle or the inside of the Great Pyramid in Egypt. I’ve never set foot on the battlefield of Gettysburg or held in my hands the Constitution that was almost ripped in half because of wars like that. I haven’t seen how a spider makes its web or what a groundhog stores within his den.

But I know all these things are there and did happen and do happen. Even if I wasn’t there or didn’t see them first-hand or haven’t had the opportunity to pick them up or play a role in within their being.

But those things don’t hinder me from believing in the magic that is a life so filled with so much more than whatever already was or is. And just to clarify, when I say magic as also said in those lines from that song shared above, I mean not the evil expression of what this world tries in an attempt to play God. No, I mean that iteration as defined as that which is “beautiful or delightful in such a way as to seem removed from everyday life.”

Because the fact is that that is what we’re missing. A removal from everyday life as made unto each of us an opportunity from He who came to not only save us and set us free from a life lived in slavery to whatever already is, but who also came to from there lead us to what all simply isn’t yet. That’s what faith does, in fact, that’s what faith is. It’s not yet. It’s still to come. It’s as of now unknown, and oddly excited about that!

How could you not be?

For what’s more exciting than everything that we’ve never seen? What is of greater possibility than all things which await beyond what’s already proven possible? Is there anything that helps us to feel more alive than the hope that says we can, in Christ, live forever? Forget cryogenics and cloning! I want His version of forever because it doesn’t ask me to play any part in it! Not even seeing it, understanding it, comprehending it, not even finding it! He rather just asks that we trust in it.

That we trust in Him.

And why not? I suppose those who don’t simply don’t because they don’t see Him. And to a people who believe only what they see, this allows them to also disbelieve in everything they cannot see. But this seems a logical fallacy in that none of us can see tomorrow and yet we all live taking today for granted as if tomorrow is guaranteed. Why not do the same on a slightly bigger scale? Why not live this life as if there is still more to come?

Can you imagine the kind of freedom felt in that? To be honest, some days I can’t. Because we are all bound to struggle inside of what is this massive shifting from a life lived looking at only all we can see into rather wondering, believing, trusting in the hope and promise of all we can’t see yet. It’s simply a kind of different that is entirely too different for us to figure out.

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe we were never supposed to figure it out. Maybe any time spent trying to figure it out is just time lost to what is a pride’s attempt to prove the impossible. And that impossible is that we cannot possibly see what isn’t confined to this life, this time, this man so often lost inside his mind. Friends, Heaven isn’t meant to fit inside of our understanding. What then makes us think we should be able to see it or He who came to lead us toward it?

Where’s the magic in that? Where’s the excitement in that? Where’s there any room for hope, for trust, for growth, for faith?

No, faith must be a matter measured in the immeasurable, otherwise it loses all meaning. That’s why He calls us to chase Him boldly into the unseen as spoken of within promises like this that say that “what we will be has not been made known”. Almost as if to say that our feeble attempts to know everything, or at least to arrogantly live as if we do, are nothing but finish lines that we draw inside our own minds, our own lives. Yes, I contend that our trying to know something is nothing but a lack of faith as given unto the knowing of what more may still await beyond some fact that we seek to understand.

Because there’s more. There’s always more, like a forever’s worth of more! And how can we measure forever? Why try to see to other side of eternity? Why waste our lives worrying about what isn’t yet when we can rather taste the freedom that it is to just believe that whatever isn’t may be someday? I’m tired of the kind of life that lives to know everything and see everything. Because, well, what is everything?

If we didn’t create it, then how are we to know what all was created?

No, I think we’d be far better off to not live this life in such expediency but rather in expectation. We’ve been running so fast trying to heap up as much of the seen as we can get our hands or eyes on. What if instead we just let life come to us as we rather reached for faith as that found in the not yet? I want to know what He knew all this led to as He hung in my place. Because I just can’t help but believe that He did all that for more than all this.

And it seems almost an injustice to try and measure it or imagine it or live this life as if I should be given the evidence of it that we all ask for before we’ll believe. No other sign will be given other than that of Jonah. Three days in and then emptied out. Where did Jesus go when He left that tomb behind? And what will we be like when we’re found like Him when He comes back to lead us there?

It’s like another song says, “I can only imagine”. And as for me, I’d rather give this life away to imagining that there’s more waiting to be found inside the not yet than to live this life for only what already is. Because it will become was when the not yet finally arrives.

And I don’t want to get it wrong anymore.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold