Day 3722 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Proverbs 4:14-15 NIV

An avoidance.

For you’ve likely heard them say that all roads lead somewhere, and this is true. But the coming issue is that while such is true, so too does such a truth bring to birth a cousin to consider in that while all roads might lead somewhere, the fact is that there are simply some places that we don’t want to be, to go, to see. No, there are simply some things in life, some paths through it that we’ve no business believing might somehow lead us anywhere that anyone should want to end up. And the irony is that every path is marked quite well enough for us to know enough as to the finish line.

Ironic in that we’ve, in a life moronic, chosen to vastly ignore the signs for which we’ve ourselves asked and instead blasted right past any and all that may have seemed but a warned scrawl seeking to pre-save us from what became us anyway.

For wherever we go, there we are. And whomever we become along the way is too the same as they who we’ll for at least a while be. And this is the danger of the indifferent beliefs of a mankind so maniacal and mangled to have so manacled their mercy and missives unto the missing of mercy itself for the simple sake of Him showing a sign that we all both need to see and yet all know better to deny.

All because we none of us know of any perfect evidence of a life lived after life’s gone wherever it is that life goes along this way that goes both wherever the world’s chosen to be and indeed the eternal contrary as aimed into the becoming of all this place will never be.

And indeed, this leaves us all at what is a kind of crossroads. Oddly enough, these crossed roads become crossed and thus confused by a cross carried by He to whom such a burden was undue, unwarranted, unnecessary. For it is senseless to kill the innocence of any who may have any of such a gift left to share. And yet we did, we took His life thinking it ours to take as much as we think still this life something ours to make. And both only because the ways in which this world has walked have wanted for all to embrace the fall from faith into a delight for disgrace.

And yet we go along.

Just so we’re not alone.

For the woods of the world around seem a sight, sing a sound of what feels a danger in our not doing as the masses insist we might. And we’ve long known to only agree that this path, this plight is one best spent without fight, for to fight is to invite the fright of our might proving mightily unmatched for the enemy that bites, and stings, and sets to scratch what is the thatch from which we’ve hatched into what was meant to be a hope forever held.

Only to hold more near this normal fear of failing man and thus not finding the friendship that makes it easier for us to know we’re not alone.

Just easier to see them is all.

Thus the furthered fall as found and felt within all who walk or’ve walked this hollowed hall of many a shallowed hope strewn upon the substance of both things and people seen, a scene sought for the simple sake of the assurance it seems to share. For we want more than anything, even life itself somedays, we want that unblessed assurance of our life’s insurance of a purpose proven no matter what we have, what we lose, where we go or how wrong it all goes along the way.

We just want to be able to say that we were known, that we were loved, that thus we weren’t alone and then apparently not among the all others so perfectly prone to a promised praise at the end of our days from knees that may have well never known how to cower before the Creator we’ll all there meet in what is a meeting of our merit as measured then within what becomes the outcome of our forever.

Perhaps not quite the something we should have entrusted to those many who live only as if forever is neither there nor thus something to ever worry over.

And yet such is the path of public praise and people pleased that all of us have delighted to walk anyway.

Until this day.

For this day brings again a new chance to do a new thing in light of the Love of the Son of the Father who came to bring about a bettered forever than that already found by so very many that all the rest of us know only to doubt in the sprout of a life to be lived forever. For all of us are still found bound to this ground within which most seek still to find the steal of something steeled upon the assumptions of a gumption that gives us the glory to what’s long seemed a story meant only for such a wealth. Yes, we want this life to be all about us, and all others do too.

And it’s all of these unique paths that will in fact prove to lead us all somewhere. But is that somewhere somewhere we want to be?

Not if you’ve read Revelation.

No, there’s not much all that hopeful or happy to be found waiting for those already winning what is a reward that they so adore that they simply daren’t let it go. And yet such is all of us in one way or another, our own mostly as it seems mostly that we seek to stay atop this plot of preference and pride within which our every hope abides and our very lives then willing to die. For such is the gravity of a choice as chosen within this freedom to choose. Every single one of them brings to bear a consequence, a cost if you will.

Yes, there is a toll upon this road, and it’s paid within a story told of either a soul sold or one humbly returned unto those set to burn without the audacity of their Creator to come amongst them as a Savior who wished for none He created to perish but rather all to find repentance which then leads them, along a turning, into a newfound avoidance of all they’ve known, all they’ve wanted, all they’ve won within what is a world that’s promised to be passing.

Along with all the desires and delights demanded within it.

And thus a narrowing no matter what.

That’s something we’ve talked about for a couple of these posts now. It’s this idea that life isn’t to be so lived so wide as we’ve so sought to inscribe upon what are hearts anymore so hard that they barely beat to any tune other than that trying oddly enough to beat them. Yes, we love within this life this line of lies that leads us toward the loves and lusts that we’ve found within the dusted trusts of all such things as all humans have made to be their gods. From gold to glory we seek everything that seems to add anything to our story as told of us by us.

Meaning then it’s oddly still just us who walk this life despite our incessant insistence upon the substance of friendships sought so as to seem not alone but rather at home within a number’s safety as still assumed important for some reason.

Despite a tomb entered by One and left by the same.

A narrowing.

And sure, I know what you’re probably saying or thinking, or maybe even at this point to the very point of screaming at your screen all but begging for me to just get to some sort of practical point or valid input. For indeed, the idea of a narrowing is something we can all consider, meaning then that this calling is itself a something that we could, at least theoretically figure. And true, that’s all well and fine, the lifeline given unto all by which all might hear and then heed the call as still resounding from the cross. But to what cost? What consequence? What is the substance being asked of us?

A narrowing.

But how?

I got you!

It’s something that I believe won within our considering as to just how much narrowing is needed. And this is something that I believe best won within, as you guessed it, the asking of ourselves a question: What are we doing that’s being done only because the world around us inspires us to do it? Because for the simplest way to understand both the breadth of this narrowing and, maybe more importantly how to even begin at it, well, I’d say not doing what most folks are doing is probably a good place to start.

For logic seems to hold that if it’s popular around here then odds are it’ll probably prove a problem. Indeed, if something is popular, ask why. If it’s considered fun or entertaining, look for the worth that makes it worth your partaking of the same belief. If it’s normal, wonder why so many are in such agreement. If it’s easy, consider then then outcome and just how much it can be worth when the path toward asks so little.

For the truth is that as the way to life remains so narrow as to be found within still only the Name that remains above all others, so too then should there be little that is normal, common, popular as invited to stay inside our hearts, our minds, our lives as inspired there by the others who may well have chosen a path with no care as to that Name. And I do believe that any such thing that is so widespread and mainstream might in fact prove eventually a scene of something we shouldn’t have any part of being a part of.

Because there are some places that we don’t want to go.

And there is simply so little that’s popular about the Gospel that this truth, in turn, should also help us to understand that whatever is popular, whatever is common, whatever is normal probably then isn’t in line with what so many simply so clearly all but despise in what is a life in which most live to blatantly deny He who is the Narrow Gate.

And this world’s continued refusal to humble themselves and welcome then the help of their Savior has breathed to death the fact that within this life as lived within this way that is this world’s, there are so many things that are being done that are glaring oppositions to what should be done.

Indeed, a list if you’d like. Here’s to the narrowing!

Where there's lust, we should look for beauty instead. Where's the greed, we should instead be grateful for what we have. Where there's jealousy, we should approach it the same way as with greed. Where there's fear, we should hope. Where there's doubt, trust. Where there's hate, love. Where there's need, give. Where there's pain, care. Where there's denial, speak the truth. Where there's an unwillingness to endure sound doctrine, try anyway.

When the trying anyway continues to prove futile, and thus the unwillingness to endure sound teaching only itself endures, walk away.

For such is what we’re directly instructed here to do.

Do not set foot upon that wide path so vastly preferred by the prideful and perishing. Do not walk within the welcoming warmth of the wicked wanting only the winnings of a life we’re all losing within a place we’re all leaving behind someday. Do not travel upon the tryings of a tempest of people dying for what cannot bring them life. Do not give in to the temptings of a world trying to convince us all to live in agreement with a life of mere fleshly appeasement.

No, be not condemned by that which you approve.

Man I love that one!!

For this world lives to approve, affirm, applaud so many things that our God has said are abominations unto life itself. And so yes, what this fallen world walks toward is the same as what we should run from. And what this world runs from is then too the same as that toward which we should walk calmly, confidently, curiously as if approaching something of such a fragile rarity as to insist upon our not taking a chance at missing it or getting it wrong or messing it up. And too of such an eternal clarity that we fear not anymore those many who think us strange for our no longer partaking in their sinful games.

Yes, in a world that so clearly doesn’t worry as to getting things wrong or doing then the same, such only seems then to say that we should do as so many simply refuse to.

For if narrow is the road which leads to life through a Gate so very small that so many deny His Name, then so too should we few seek only to be found among the other few who do or did as the world doesn’t and then too refuse to do as the world then does.

Because He’s told us plain that this place is passing away. Why then tie our tryings to the vying for the common buying of any fallen belief that’s willing to believe in everything lesser than everything bettered? No, that He gives us the chance to so change and thus improve by what becomes a growing in His Way as won within the losing of all that is and was our own, that we have that chance to change into what we can believe is something better as someone better somewhere better, well it just proves that so much is and has always been but so much lesser.

And too that we’ve agreed to settle for such for long enough.

Let us do such no longer then. For while the world might, we can’t. What the world does, we won’t. And we simply shouldn’t want to.

Because if what He knew about Heaven made His suffering worth the misery of it all, well then friends, there’s so clearly something we’re missing so long as we’re living amongst that mindset that has so many so sat within their ways that they continue to do so much that clearly denies Him. And so no, let us then do everything we can to be or become as different as we might from a world in which sin is considered a friend simply because of the depraved delights it delivers.

For to delight in the wage that all sin wins is a really bad way to live a life. After all, what does death offer those living?

And if we do so demand to live a life, why then delight in all that caused His promise that all would die?

No, time to do something different if we truly want an outcome the same. And again, not doing then as this perishing world does seems a fairly smart place to start.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold