Day 3694 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Peter 4:12 NIV

Rather rejoice.

For if we’d just listen in close enough to hear we’d perhaps know Heaven more near than our fear may find the courage to consider or count. Because we’re told that there is great rejoicing within those walls for the few who’ve the faith to face their falls and not allow them to become them but to rebuild them within the raising won within the Way by which we all might both face trials but too overcome them to the joy of He who brings us not merely to them but has in fact led the way through them and promises still to be with us while we follow fearfully behind.

Fearfully and wonderfully, for that is both how we were made and thus for what we were made as nothing is made without its creation being created for some evident purpose as prospered upon the provisional preamble of He who made all things for the things all which were made to do, be, become or behold.

It’s only that this story told is one that unfolds along what often feels a rather frightful way won into many a day in which the Way doesn’t go to or through the easier ideals that we’ve all come to idolize. Indeed, I dare say that it is our eyes alone that have found for us the fear of all we’ve seen as we’ve sought to see only always the ease and tranquility that our well-known weakness would obviously rather prefer instead of the common confusions and chaos we see far more often.

So much so that we seem to have come only to know to all but hate life for the hardships it brings. Yes, we do so loathe trial for the testing it means unto we who know far better how to fall or fail than we do to hoist the sail and scream into the scene of things unseen, the rarified confidence of all things uncertain, and that strange certainty that almost begs for the furnaces and afflictions simply for the fire and flame so sent to scorch our name that we scarcely from there allow it to matter so much.

Just a lot of us to overcome in order to reach that place in which we place our faith upon His grace as given us sometimes hidden behind the plain sight of such sights as those which sound like a life falling apart. Yes, among all of God’s mysterious ways is won this one which wins again and again the things that we’d not enjoy facing even once. No, again, we’re quite an understood folk in regard to our past misunderstandings as realized from where they’ve left us standing in what’s a truly broken-reed type of stance.

Yes, most days we cannot even pretend we know what it is to stand, much less as firm as this faith in our Father has asked us to try. Indeed, put on the whole armor so that we might, having done all, stand. How, where, when, why? There are so many questions which flood the mind and then from there blind the eye as stolen from the hunt for hope, looking for it instead inside that which might be seen.

But what do we see most often in life?

Is it not strife? Struggle? Scars and the scares by which they’re carved? None crave them. None want to create them. We even tell ourselves that “chicks dig them”. And we even seem to mind not the stories of the glories we feel in our telling of them once the wounds have healed and the pain has ceased. If only we could remember the reasons that we were afraid of what ended up being a story He gave through which glory is gained.

But whose?

Indeed, I think this is right where this car breaks down beside a train that jumped the track having watched a ship sinking off the coast of a beach flooded not by vacationers but rather vicarious prisoners who’ve pretended their pretenses not at all bars or doors or dreams already gone up in smoke even before they made their way to us who seem to, nearly every day anymore, make our way into some sort of storm or struggle that we’d rather not weather at all. Simply because we’re terrified of the rain and know to deny its need so much that we scream whenever the sky grows gray.

But rather rejoice.

Why? Why even imagine joy inside such a journey as this one so jading and jumbled? Why seek some sort of sense of safety inside a story in which every door is left wide open and none of the locks seem to work? Why assume satisfaction or assimilation unto a salvation in which sanctification is supposed to see to our growth through whatever we may not even need to realize we need? Shouldn’t salvation be enough? Can we not just speak the Name that is above even our own and just from there coast on home to what is a reward that we’ve been given but have given nothing unto getting?

Not that Heaven is ours to find nor then said failure ours to fear. It’s that we’re anymore so very afraid that it seems we even worry about winning. All because we think such only works one way. We think that victory is won within the touting of trophies as torn in triumph from the many trials and tribulations that have contributed to our shouting this story of our own glory as gained through the many days that we spent straining through training and trying to keep buying this belief that it would all by then seem brief whence we finally held high the hopes for which we’d hoped.

Does the training then mean nothing? Or is it not only because of the training that we triumph into touted titled and tarnished trophies?

For all that is won here is really nothing but that in waiting. It’s all just a memory already fading just as fast as a new car’s value once it doesn’t belong to the dealership anymore. Yes, all that we endure within this life, be them good days or hard times, it’s all but a memory meant to fade away. Now that’s obviously not to say that we don’t enjoy the retelling of tales of those times spent chasing our tails and changing our sails and starting our sales of tales told already a million times before.

No, we love regaling the world with the recounting of our every resounding victory. But over what can any be victorious enough to find this vain glory if not the same story could have been told from the part of the other party?

For in life everything has its enemy. Sun and rain. Day and night. Land and sea. Fear and peace. Joy and worry. Thankful and sorry. Passions and still them all passing. Yes, all of life is a continued contrarian to itself. And yet we live as if we’re owed only the half we like and some sort of opportunity to simply skip the 75% we don’t.

And I know that that doesn’t add up, but friends, neither does the amount of fear felt in our lives as measured against the overwhelming amount of goodness and blessing found there too.

It’s just that we seem to know better than most how to take for granted our own personal allotment of His kindness and grace. In fact, I’d say that all should say the same here in this place in which we stand with our feet to the flame screaming for some other fame to fan the fire away. All because we think of ourselves a celebrity of sorts, the sort that deserve to be driven about by a hired hand who exists to do only our own bidding. And thus in this prideful living we notice not anymore the highered hand who helps us up above whatever this is that we’ve become as a people who consider it only pure joy when we face not trials of any kind.

Because we’ve become convinced that we don’t deserve the worry of it all.

But friends, of what can improve in life if we’re never worried enough to try? And what all in life do we deny the try because we’re afraid to fail or face the flame that is our every fear as burning within us a worry already? Yes, we live as if we don’t deserve to have to endure worry, and yet our fear of it coming as it has in so many days now past is only perfect proof of our penchant for worrying about everything anyway.

Even those many fears that we’ve still failed to find!

Which is why we oughtn’t be the ones who seek to win this grand idea that says we know what fear should be, nor then that we should remain as afraid of it as we’ve so clearly become. Because we are. We’re terrified of just about anything anymore. Seems something new is found to be perfectly scary nearly every single day because within every single day is something waiting to be asked of us. Every single day is to bring something that challenges us, a choice if nothing else.

And yet it seems that we’re even to the point of being afraid of eating the wrong thing!

Or at least I know I have been.

Indeed, I’ve had my mind at times so maniacally misarranged by a fear all but fully deranged right to the point in which I paused upon eating something because I was afraid of doing something wrong. All because my life’s been this line of making choices that I didn’t know to fear, and having found myself something I never wanted to remain, so then am I now afraid of doing any of even what I’ve already done without a cost or consequence at all alarming. Or even existent!

See, we’ve become of this brand of assumption that has us always assuming the very worst in everything. Even the most ordinary and routine of things can become to us a matter measured monstrous if given enough time to worry ourselves over it. But that might be why He so chooses to help us so continuous through times and trials that leave us no time left to worry ourselves over such meaningless magnificence as our every ordinary struggle.

For we’ve never been alone in the struggle for such things as sustenance and a place to store it alongside a roof over our heads and preferably a warm bed to sleep in. No, He knows we need such things as these, and yet we’re so afraid of losing the excess we already have that we have now a reason to even doubt that He’s there at all. One only furthered into a common conclusion due to the continued delusion that tells us all that fear is a bad thing and thus the every trial that brings it nothing but the same.

But friends, how can anything that doesn’t leave us the same be truly nothing but a bad thing? I’m not saying that we have to enjoy every miserable moment in what is a life lived well within the reach of our adversary and thus around that great and growing many who are more than open to his coming into their hearts and minds and lives and reorganizing things as he sees fit. No, life within a world as wicked as we’ve chosen to make this one remain is by no means the storybook scene that we should be living to seek.

We have that in Heaven, but that we’re not there yet seems reason enough to stop looking for our understanding of perfection as paused upon the same places that even atheists and agnostics are looking for theirs.

No, there are things in this world and our lives lived within it that should worry us, but I don’t think we should be so afraid of everything as we’ve so sadly become. Why? Because if we fear God then we should realize that everything in life is unfolding in accordance with His plans for us. If we agree that something so heartbreaking as the Christ suffering innocently was endured by His choosing so as to help set us free from a life lived losing our every hope and all our meaning to the making of everything into a worry, then we should embrace the things He calls us to change or chase.

Not because it’s easy nor that it’ll always make sense because often times neither will be there to find. No, many days in life will bring about next to nothing in the way of ease or understanding. But friends, if we truly trust in God having realy sent Jesus to die in order to save us, then what do we really know about the reasoning behind anything He’s doing? For most still think that Jesus never existed. Others that there’s just no way to survive a crucifixion. Some even that nothing thus happens to us when we die.

Is human understanding really then what we want to stand upon?

No, what we claim we stand upon is the Word of God and He who is the Word who through which all things have come and to whom all things must then return. And make no mistake, nothing He says or does returns to Him empty of fulfilling the reason for which He sent it. No, rather His will will always be most perfectly accomplished, regardless of how it may look or what it will perhaps make us feel like. Because friends, I don’t mind breaking it to you, but our feelings have never really been anywhere near as important as the souls we so often set aside to serve them.

And so if He sends us into the fire or asks us out of the boat, so be it. And sure, we might feel the heat or find that our feet begin to sink beneath the waves. But if we believe that Jesus walked with those three in that fire and that He also called Peter unto the water, then we should agree too that He can truly do things that make no sense such as keeping us safe where there is no safety in sight.

Which is why we’re called to walk by faith! It’s not because we can’t see or shouldn’t try to sometimes. No, it’s because what we will see will seem nothing that we want to face. Like those put on trial and persecuted even unto being flogged for their faithful fealty. There’s no way that felt good. Not something that people would seek to experience. There is never going to be a crucifixion ride at the fair. Because it’s not fun. It’s not enjoyable.

It’s not meant to be.

Not that we can’t or won’t or shouldn’t even try to enjoy some of this life. We should. Because we’re blessed, and that beyond measure or fairness. No, it’s just that we shouldn’t continue onward assuming that this life is only for our doing only that which feels good or seems safe. Faith has no such trepidations as that time spent worrying about what we see or assume it will feel like when it gets even closer.

Nobody runs into the fire expecting to have a good time. But because of that grave, nor then should we spend this life running away.

For we’ve already done that enough, and I literally lose sleep wondering about all the beautiful blessings I’ve missed in those moments that I let fear do my walking as opposed to asking faith to lead the way.

And so I know that my will is faulty as it revolves entirely too often around my asking that life be easy and the path through safe. And so too do I know that many times it won’t be. Will those times in which it’s hard or scary be allowed to overrule my trust in He who I claim I believe came to save my soul by laying down His life? Or will I welcome my share of His sacrifice in what is a show that I understand that this part isn’t supposed to be the perfect part.

This is rather just the beginning of everything better that’s still to come. And friends, if we truly believe that that best is always still ahead, then why worry about how we get there?

Don’t wish away what God may be sending to help get you closer. Rather rejoice that He’s so willing to do what’s so needed to not leave us still this far away.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold