Day 3746 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Proverbs 16:25 NIV

Appearances

Seems still that our believing in seeing is still prone to our being on what will be the very losing end of what was always meant to be a life in which we didn’t take the lead but rather left that tether to another from whom we can then both learn and thus come to lean upon what is their lead as lost looking into what more this other might know as opposed to our trusting still within our ability to only see so far and even that only faintly. Yes, all of life was always meant for us to look to and thus lean on another.

And yet still we live both for and by mere appearances.

Or rather mostly only the adamancy of a matter’s appearing.

For still we walk as if we can see clearly where we’re going despite all this stacking proof of our not knowing the even that easiest of differences as was already always defined for us by the same as He who designed us and demands us to stop doing the things that leave us so clearly dedicated to dying as opposed to the loving the gift of a life still worth living. And as for why we still seem so unable to see that life is a gift that is worth living both as well and for as long as we might ever happen upon, I don’t know anymore.

But the bigger issue is rapidly becoming that I don’t know how we don’t see it. Because we feel it. We hear it. I dare say we thus know it even, this difference as defined by the dividing line as drawn by the hands that both hold us and yet we slap away every chance we see. Because of appearances. Because life has largely become, obviously, a matter in which we feel as if we can freely make it up as we go, going always along for the ride our blinded eyes seek to take us on. And having felt some sense of sordid satisfaction within the traction we’ve gained within the gaining of at least a small portion of all the world, well, we seem to see reason aplenty to keep on going along.

And it seems to help us all do at least a fairly decent job of getting along too, and that both with one another as well as that other weather as blown about by our getting along just fine here inside what’s become what life’s basically always been.

Which is a path so beaten and lonely that instead of turning and seeking some sort of salvific company we’ve instead just resorted to painting portraits of both our plans and a few people who will always be there to cheer us on no matter how wrong our plans and their paths may become. It’s mostly just us in either mask or masquerade standing upon the curbs of these sidewalks that we don’t walk in really either direction anymore.

Indeed, we’ve become our very own cheering section, and yet somehow made up of plenty of voices and vices that both seem and thus sound quite different enough to have, at least plausibly, added up unto our apparent rationality behind our living so irresponsibility as to live life irreverently of the very identity that we once had. Something now all but hung on a closeout rack as if our hearts and heads only mostly department stores so filled with so many better ideas that the best of them all seem something worth moving on from.

Because it seems we have places to be and thus plans to make and thus people to please, us mostly, but too mainly those from whom we’ve gleaned the gear to learn the fear of man and pretend it not a snare that’s stolen our dare to try a life so different that we might even end up finding that narrow way that leads back toward life Himself. And that maybe even at the end of every dead end we’ve just had a feeling went somewhere worth going.

As for what life awaits at a dead end stop, again, I’ve no idea.

And I guess then nor have I any reason for the seasons in which I still chose them despite knowing in my heart there lives a deception so depraved that it’s designed what remains a date with the grave that most still assume the worst dead end of all. And why?

Because we know perfectly well that pride does indeed always precede a fall.

And well, having lived a life so filled with pride, and even that by mostly appearances, and that because of appearances, we know that the fall toward which we’d fled will not feel anything but the fatal failure to find a life that every dance with death all but delights to demand.

Again, why we so enjoy still seeking what seems to always only end in death, well, I’d say that’s something that we need to sort out. Soon. Because, well, the sooner we start trying the sooner we’ll start finding that we can’t find our way to life having become all but blind to the same. And the sooner we realize that it ain’t our name that will ever prove to know the way, having ourselves both paved and preferred the pasts we’ve lived in which we found only all those paths which found life rather than death, well, the sooner then we start finding ample reason to seek the Name of He who’s said to have overcome said death.

And thus the sooner we find that we can’t understand the things we do because we do the things that we want to without ever even pretending to think them through, the sooner we’ll start begging for the help that can only come from the One who sought to see through to the outcome of everything that He came for everyone to lead us toward that better outcome than He knew we’d all but demand.

Yes, Jesus came to help us see that despite our glaring ability to trust only mostly that lie which says that what we can see will always be what leads us to the life we want to live that, instead, those ways in which we walk only by such blinded sight are what demanded the death that, thankfully, He’s already died.

And that He died our death on our behalf leaves us then with task of living now what is a way in which we can finally start to see what life is meant to be in light of His helping us feel our way through what all life was never supposed to become. And we feel this leading through that Godly sort of sorrow that inspires repentance at the hands of regret and such, as opposed to our continuing to dance with the worldly sort which only has us feeling sorry, and that only for a second or two.

And thus not nearly anywhere near long enough to inspire us to make the kind of changes that He came to inspire by His being the first to do a new thing.

Do we still not perceive it?

Well, truth is, no, probably not. For it’s hard to see the forest that is His forgiveness when still stuck staring at the trees that are the things in which we please. Indeed, the fact will be found, and that by all, that we’ve already found the fall, or at least our part in the continuing thereof, and that, despite such feelings as shame and regret, we still seem to not see the dire necessity of at least trying to see something beyond the appearances that still look right but still lead toward only what feels wrong.

It’s like there’s a disconnect somewhere between our eyes and our mind, and thus our heart and our soul. For the first of either pair are clearly prone to seeking their proof of life whilst here in what is what life was never meant to become. Sadly, the latter of both have for so long now taken the backseat to their formers that we’ve formed an understanding that our eyes and hearts can know what best to do with a life, the eyes leading the heart to the craving of only what we see, and thus the mind never learning to believe beyond mere appearance.

And thus the soul sold to the lowest bidder that is our spiritual blindness.

But still, that shame and guilt continue to tag along, and quite close, and thus rather frequently found, such should help us sense that something is so wrong about the path we’re walking that, maybe, we should turn around and try at this thing another way. And by thing I mean life, and by another way I mean His, and by walking I mean following, and by that I’m referring to the fact that we’re all following someone or something toward somewhere that we’ve thus agreed to go.

But friends, that’s just it! Where are we going in light of what we’re both finding and feeling along the way?

Because we all know perfectly well that nothing lasts forever, right? And so, in light of that realization that we’ve hopefully all come to understand, why then continue to seek the best part in this part in which nothing lasts? Why continue to seek out only our share of what looks good to blinded eyes or sounds good to itching ears or feels good to a pleasure-pursuant flesh?

Why live this life looking to live our best life as found both by or behind only what we can see?

When we know perfectly well already that everything we’ve already enjoyed is too the same as everything we’ve already left behind!

No, such is the evidence of that path that seemed right, looked right, felt right, sounded right. Doesn’t matter now, does it? It’s over. And yet, because our purpose and passion has long been for our having of more of that fun we enjoy and much less of the stress and struggle we don’t, still we seek the same. We still seem to crave that way of life in which we only see what makes sense, only find what feels good, only know what keeps us comfortable, and thus only do the very nothing we delight to inside what’s become a life lived so complacently that we’re not even living anymore.

Because it seems that we’ve come to that part of the fade in which we’ve found this ability to let everyone else do our thinking, our cooking, our reading, our working, our planning, our walking, our talking, our everything. We’re outsourcing everything to either those around us or our share of their infatuation with being so connected to technology that we don’t anymore seem to see any danger in so doing.

All because it seems like the right thing to be doing. And that because we see everyone else doing it. And that which we can see everyone else both doing and widely enjoying will eventually become the very same as what we ourselves begin doing until we too enjoy it.

Casting completely aside that well-experienced truth that says appearances can be deceiving.

In fact, we’re so far removed from that that we delight in being deceived!

Not quite what He had in mind, at least as gleaned from that scene in which He died to our such death in order to then inspire us unto our doing the same.

And yet still we walk by sight. Still we talk just to hear the sound. Still we eat as if nourishment is something of an amusement park ride. Still we buy things that don’t satisfy. Still we do things that don’t lead to life. Still we love those things that still bring about those feelings of guilt, shame, regret, remorse, those very sorrows that lead to death as they inspire us to do absolutely nothing. All because the way of life we see is one in which saying sorry is what covers that multitude of our mistakes.

Yes, we live as if doing wrong is as easily fixed as saying we’re sorry, which has thus become a word so void of meaning that it’s chasing down love for the title of most overused and thus undervalued.

Indeed, it seems that sorry means nothing anymore. How can it? I mean, we literally live this life in such a way that we do literally anything we want with the express assumption of simply pulling out that “I’m sorry” card any time that our desires prove only disasters that we enjoy pretending we had no idea could come from what we thought was so perfectly harmless that nothing bad could ever happen at all.

Friends, nothing good is coming from a life lived as if nothing bad can happen.

Why? Because sowing in accordance with the flesh, which seeks only always the pleasing thereof, it’s something that can then only reap its harvest from the flesh’s pleasure. And, in case you didn’t know or have managed to forget, which, judging by appearances, we all have, the flesh doesn’t live forever. And thus our living to please the flesh can only ever lead to a life in which we reap our harvest of hope or happiness, joy or purpose from the very same flesh that is dying.

Where in that do we see anything but temporality?

And then, knowing the overall outcome of all humanity, why do we still live for only what we can see? We do understand that everything we can see is the very same as everything we won’t see anymore when we’re inevitably not in this place in which is found everything we can see right now.

Don’t we?

Well, we could, and because we could, well, we should. But could and should have become a couple of our best adversaries in this adventureless life in which we seek only pleasure and never purpose. And no, there is no purpose in pleasure. I mean, yeah, it feels good for a second, but friends, that’s the whole point for today. It’s only for a second. It doesn’t last. I cannot linger. It will not then ever prove able to lead us to life!

Rather our seeking for pleasure is only our decision to keep on dying. Because that’s what all flesh will do, and thus what our every pleasure will find too. Just death. And why live for that? Because we see everyone else doing it? If they jumped? Yeah, sadly most of us would too. Because we would see in the commonality an evidence of that being the right thing to do.

But friends, running away from He who is the only Way to the Life that’s lived forever, that will never be the right thing to do.

And so maybe today we start trying to do something new, and that by letting Him take the lead, and thus giving our lust-filled eyes a bit of a vacation. After all, they’ve been working overtime trying to find that best kind of life that everyone else is clearly looking for. But friends, that none have found it where they’re looking seems to prove that life isn’t something we can find by looking for it.

No, maybe life is about our finding it within our finding out that He found us in the middle of everything life isn’t so that He could lead to everything life is. And that by literally dying to what we’ve lived for.

And no, it will never look right to walk away from any way of life that’s readily able to go on being lived. And so no, it will never look right to enter the grave that is the laying down of our sinful existence. But hey, while we may not see any life in the tomb, we don’t see any of everything else He sees either. But He wouldn’t have told us of mansions and peace and rest if He didn’t know those things were waiting.

So what are we waiting for? To find them here somewhere? No, we’ve tried that, and well, we’ve all but died in the process.

Probably time then to start doing what doesn’t look right to a world living wrong.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold