Day 3671 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Acts 17:27 NIV

How close is not far?

It seems as though that differing distance is different by the day within this way in which we live walking opposed even unto ourselves from one moment to the next. For I suppose that we suppose that such is life, this lie of such lived looking and lusting for only that which is lost and losing even more to both the sands of time and too then the hands of He who holds it. And that is in itself a quite confusing consideration to measure, that made out to matter by the moment as often bought between the minutes.

Indeed, how long is life left to be lived in what is this unknown distance between here and not far?

I for one have found myself so cast about in recent days that I myself struggle to make sense the waves of the ways in which He waves the Way that came to lead by leaving. Because there’s a clarity in that that’s simply impossible to blur or befuddle. And yet perhaps it’s just such an obviousness that’s made so ridiculous our obliviousness to it all these years. For He came to live and leave through what remains a tomb on lease to a life lived to be lost before life itself can then finally begin.

Does that mean the demise of our lives defines the distance between us and Him?

To a certain degree I find that I would agree as such is pretty much the point of a call to crosses carried. We know what they do, and thus we know why too we share this common fear of closing that gap between a life lived and one being lost in what is our share of His sacrifice as shown within a past left behind in hopes of everything better there finally being able to begin. But when? That seems my both present and alas long-standing struggle when contemplating compassion.

For the Bible tells us, in just the verse prior to this, that “from one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.” And thus He created all of man within the limit of the first as born to be more than the same became. For to become sinners was never His suggestion. No, rather a life lost in sin, as that we’ve all lived, it’s one that’s instead a contention to His intention.

Because He created man to live and we instead chose the death that it is to ignore Him despite His being so very near. Yes, it seems still to matter not that we still walk amongst the very garden of God as planted in both person and the plans that He has still for even those who are still yet to know they’re known. And it’s an amazing compassion indeed to think about such a love that would create to inhabit rather than inhibit.

Alas, with the amassing of the asinine came the necessity of the finality to our ways as won within those of the world in which we do in fact fill and experience a great many times and seasons, and boundaries as well. For logic tells that to all things there must be a limit, other than eternity I suppose. And thus to we who are on this side of that finding of wherever we’re bound to spend that forever, we’ve left but a life lived within limits. Even those seemingly limitless enough to have inspired enough of us enough to seek our plenty among the prizes people prefer.

Guess they just seem closer.

And that perhaps because we can see them, touch them, hold them, taste them, trade them even. Yes, it seems we’ve all but agreed to this exchanging of excitements as expected both of us and from us whilst still here among those living like us as we live too to look like they do. And it’s maybe this loss of our individual identity that’s become what’s become but another boundary of sorts. For it seems anymore that we’ll only aim toward those shores that seem sure to sell the stories we wish tell of a life that we let everyone else live for us.

All so that we don’t end up being the ones who got it so wrong despite it being so simple.

And it is simple, more so than I’ve ever imagined. For He daily unravels my rebellions in such a way that leaves me quite amazed at just how mangled I managed to make this maze of moments and miseries as if life but a miniseries documentary of my debating the distance in search of the substance of something to make my confusions seem commendable. Yes, we want never to make a mistake as such just deflates our arrogance. And yet to botch the beautifully easy is something so magnificently foolish that it’s not even a worry won in pride’s behalf.

No, to miss or mess up the more than easy enough is to show the whole world, and too He who holds it, just how fallen and filled with folly we’ve found reason to find ourselves. All so that we could find ourselves. But where? And how far is this where from what and why we began to be what He at first made us to be before we began to disagree upon that most simplified of directions? Have we closed the distance? Or are we just deepening it by the day?

That’s a tremendous worry within me anymore. It’s that found and felt within the findings I’ve forced to feel as if being worth the fight I’ve lost to live for more instead. I often times do my best to not imagine all the things I’ve lost along the way to whatever this is as lived so far from He who isn’t so far at all. I just can’t understand how He would continue with me into my every depravity and not at some point just wash His hands and walk away.

I’ve given Him every reason to.

Yet the Scripture hasn’t changed no matter how many times I have, and most of the lot for the worse. No, still it says that He is not far from anyone. How then do we not notice Him? How can we not feel Him? What’s happened to us that His voice we cannot hear? Do we blame it on the whispering as working against a culture so calamitous that we often can’t hear ourselves either? Is it the weather as blown behind the many whether or nots we’ve wanted and wasted within a life complacent? Do we make it so hard as it seems because of the scenes we seek to singe the senses we discount?

Did He move, or are we just trying everything we can think of to debate that we did?

Either way it seems we’ve lost it. We’ve not the curiosity anymore, the considerations of more. It’s all rather become rather diluted and we then deluded within what is this deluge of indifference as designed inside a common mind as made up for the misunderstanding the minute as opposed to appreciating the moment for the fact that it’s but one of many He’s given of which we’ve given most away. But to what? What have we gained in response to all we’ve given to get it?

Seems regret often defines the distance. Shame too sometimes. Guilt obviously part of the problem as well. Yes, such is the most common failure I fail to leave unfound knowing how well founded it’s become upon the foundation of my foolishness and folly. Indeed, I worry almost daily as to all the ways in which I let Him down or find some new way in which to miss Him in the many moments I’m given. For how can someone who’s been given so much have so little to show for it?

No, seems we’ve lost it within this self-defined distance between we and He. And that’s what seems the shame of it all. For He came to leave so as to leave the Spirit that would guide us toward where He’s gone. Died to live inside. And it doesn’t get any closer than that! Yet it feels some days as if the Spirit He sent came and went and left us just as lost as we were. Maybe it’s a graduated gift the kind that pays higher dividends the further the distance we follow it.

Doesn’t make much sense though as He’s never seemed a God of parts or portions. The ark didn’t almost float. The sea didn’t sort of part. Those walls didn’t crumble only in certain sections, and nor did the giant just get knocked unconscious. Water wasn’t turned into grape juice nor the dead raised into a long-lasting coma. He didn’t leave the grave somewhat satisfied, and yet we live our lives mostly satisfied on this side of it.

If not fully thanks to the apparent sufficiency of the selfish and satisfactory found all around.

Yes, seems we’ve made for ourselves the distance between us. Crafted it of everything from wood and metal to money and material. It’s a gap carved of gold and glory, and our thinking the latter found fatter within the first. It’s a distance divided by indifference and doubt. And all those are things inspired inside, if you can believe that. Yes, we do this all to ourselves, all this confusion and separation from the salvation of the Savior. We forge the fears that we find and feel as if reasons to not move closer to the One who could have already destroyed us if that was His plan.

It clearly isn’t then. At least not yet.

And thus I find that yet is perhaps the best way to define this distance we’ve designed between us and God. It’s yet. Yet to be closed. Yet to be considered. Yet to be measured. It’s all a matter made within the weight of the wait as determined by us alone. For He’s already made the move that made us whole again. He came in Christ to clear away our every confusion and concession and concern and complacency and commonly considered discrepancy as delighted upon by all of society.

It’s simply then left to us to decide if or when we turn from what we’ve been and then and there finally find that He’s always been so close as our turning around.

See, this way of life we live within this world is one spent on the run. We awake only to race once more into this endless lust for first place as loved for the prizes and platforms they seem to provide. And I say they because such is our lusts. It’s an endless list of those things we learn to love or live to leave. It’s all a constant competition as spent in contention for this intention of some invention that contends we’ve done it well within this same direction in which so many other things have gone wrong.

What’s wrong with us that we keep running away toward our ruin? What’s the reward in that? What does it profit a man to gain the whole world? For the world was never our prize to so prioritize. Rather our reward is one won within He who sent the Son to remind us that He is so very close to us that He literally died to live inside of us. What does this world have, or our way as walked away within, what does any of it have that is able to overcome the gift of His giving all He did to prove just how close He’s always been?

I’ll say from a truly shameful personal experience that I’ve bought into a great many ideas as to either things that would make the separation from God seem normal or ways in which to become convinced that I didn’t all but demand it be there in the first place. But I did, we all do. It’s such a common undertaking that it’s undertaken by everyone alive. We all divide ourselves away from God and live as if so many other things matter more.

But friends, what can ever matter more than mercy to those who’ve made so many mistakes as we all know we have?

And what then are we to gain by denying it? What is there to profit in our continuing to follow the very same pride that demanded this distance between us and He who created us to be more than we’ve been? And before the ego kicks in, friends, unless we can say with absolute honesty and absolutely no hint of hesitancy that there is nothing we wouldn’t have done differently, then the truth is that we didn’t do it perfectly. And thus, if there is in fact any regret or shame or guilt in us, then we’ve nothing left but to confess that we could have done better.

And if that we must confess, as in fact all will one day, then again what do we gain by continuing to walk away from the Way that came to lead us back to life?

Because He didn’t create us to become this consistently inconsistent or inconsiderate or intolerant or incoherent or illiterate or idiotic. And if we can admit that we’re any of the above, then what are we waiting for? What are we hoping for? What do we think we will find by doing nothing but all we’ve done before? You know what they say about doing the same things over and over again while expecting different results!

Look, the point is that we’ve always known but this one way of life aimed always into the certainty as only assumed of the very arrogance that assumes it. Thus we’ve always known this one way of life in which we live only leaning upon our own understanding, completely inconsiderate of any possible misunderstanding hidden within. Is that what we want out of life? Is that who we want to be? Having become that very thing, a walking and talking misunderstanding, is that what we want to remain?

Do we want to stay separated from God via whatever reason or excuse or other commonly shared insanity that this fallen society may assume can affirm such a firm folly? Or are we not rather tired of trying to prove that we’re not messing up or needing help or so stinking scared of Him that we shudder at the mere suggestion of surrender? For we all know well what we should find should we turn around. Just like the prodigal son, we know our very best expectation is to be treated as nothing but a stranger now that we’ve so squandered the very best that He gave us and made us to be.

But in reality, we have no idea what will happen until we find the faith that’s willing to find out for sure. And sure, He may crush us as in fact He’s received from our very own hands every single reason that He could have ever needed to do just that. And yet He may not. And so once again it seems to spin around yet. He may destroy, and yet He might not. He may condemn us, yet maybe not.

How much longer will we allow our fear and fallacy to find for us reasons to continue agreeing to what may not even be any distance at all? Maybe He’s not nearly as far as our fears and failures beg He be. Maybe He is really as close as our turning around and hoping for a home filled with peace and purpose as opposed to this place in which we’ve placed such a hope in both the past and present.

Either way the Bible stills reads that He is present. And thus it seems that the distance between us is but a pretense we’ve placed upon yet. For no matter what we’ve done, or what it’s cost us to do it, we have no evidence that it’s in His plans to condemn us.

At least not yet.

For the Word reads of that coming outcome as well. But that judgement day isn’t here yet only seems to say that He’s still holding out hope that we’ll turn and return to He who has in fact never left our side. We just left His as we headed off in search of what we’ve still not found. And granted, we can add a yet into that as well as if we’ve just not found whatever it is that we’re hoping to find quite yet. Or we can stop all such seeking and struggling and simply turn around and find out both how far gone we really are, and too, just how far away He never was.

All I know is that He made everything, and thus hope itself is His creation. And that we have it seems to say that He’s not taken it away.

Yet. Perhaps we turn around and close the distance before yet isn’t an option anymore. For we’ve still today the chance to reach out and find Him. And who knows but that that won’t prove anywhere near as impossible as it’s always been to find our peace or purpose in something else.

Yes, a failure simply because our peace and purpose are not in or of this place. Rather they’re waiting to be proven when we turn around and face the facts that our Father is love and that we’ve then a lot left to learn as we leave behind what’s only always kept us away from all that He did and does and plans to do for those who are His and no longer afraid or ashamed to admit it.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold