Day 3748 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Romans 7:16 NIV

Implicated

And that by ourselves nonetheless. For if the implication of that coming inquisition has us feeling at all that the coming inquisition will prove in any way an imposition then perhaps where we're standing is but within a position in which we're presented with again the decision as demanded by all yet made mostly by few as it's found within a faith that asks we do away with the way in which we've lived to want a life that's left a wake of waste within our past as proven within the position in which we stand that seemingly understands the coming inquisition as perhaps something even direr than a mere imposition.

For an imposition is merely something that makes us move in a way we otherwise find we feel no other such reason to.

But friends, that regret continues to show through even what we still do, well, that seems more than reason enough to perhaps set to peruse a better path to pursue.

And indeed I believe that one of the questions to be asked of us at some point, either here and now or there and later, is either why we did or simply chose to continue thinking we didn’t need to. And I mean move. Why did we move away from the Way in which we were made to remain, and too, why, having felt the fall as faced in our fear of finding out just how far removed we’ve now come to move in what have been choices all our own to have always made, when and why did we stay for what will have been any period of time?

Because such are pretty much the only directions in life. We either stay or we go. We move or we don’t. We welcome change or we push it away. It’s truly as simple as that. Each and every day that we’re for some reason given is given us for a reason. And yet if we believe, or at least live as if we might, that our doing nothing different is that reason, that purpose, then I believe we’ll be surprised at just how imposing that coming imposition will prove to be.

Simply because I cannot anymore wrap my mind around living still my life around what are plans and preferences made always by the same pride that produced all the problems of my past, all the confusions of the current, and thus too, all the worries won within the wherever all of this is heading. Yes, I cannot comprehend why any of us would continuing doing the things that bring our shame, supply our guilt, gift us a furthered regret as met still even after all those times we’ve already danced within that rain.

Or rather just found ourselves quite unable to.

For we don’t know how to as such things as guilt and shame are of a weight that weigh us in such a way that we waste our days seeking any of the impossible ways by which to make it go away. Indeed, that’s actually why it can’t. Simply because we wish it would. We want so badly to be of the ability to simply wish away our every made mistake, but instead we all know that life doesn’t allow for that. And thus there must be a reason for that too.

Because if we’re given both new days and yet within them feel any of the same ways we’ve felt or faced within those now passed, well then I believe we’ve come upon the reason and purpose for both.

Indeed, the new days are given so that we can, within them, do new things as made so direly needed because of the sorrow we’re feeling within what is the wake of a life lived to mistake both why we’re here and thus who we are.

For I do not understand how we would feel so low if not because we were created to be more than we’ve become.

And indeed, I contend that we all understand that the making of mistakes never makes us feel all that great. For this is something that all of us have experienced in some way, and at many times. But I also understand that our ability to admit them made is both the one thing that we so clearly hate, but yet also the only thing that can ever truly inspire us to do better. Yes, the one thing that could help us to stop feeling so ashamed is the one thing that makes us feel the most ashamed.

Weird how that works, and in much the same way as the way the Way went.

Isn’t it?

For Christ came to face the grave, the gravest of all new things ever made. Get the worst out of the way up front and then find beyond it the betterment of the forever previously hidden behind it.

And now such is the same as is called of all who’ve fallen both in love with what’s left us all so lost, and thus away from He who came in such a way to help us find that we’ve been found out as both the failures we’ve been but, and amazingly, also somehow still amazingly within the reach of the Father’s love. It’s truly remarkable how great His mercy so clearly remains.

Yet it’s also quite tragic that we still seem so unsure as to the necessity of our embracing some sort of misery as met within the implication that where we’re standing is not only an imposition on our part, but perhaps mostly on His. For our stance within the death that sin is is why His Son came to set us free to find that same audacity to face the worst first in order to find the best forever.

But whether or not we do is what will likely define the depth of dire as defined within our date with that inquisition that’s coming for us all.

I for one am just exceedingly and yet still increasingly thankful that He is so patient as to give us these days in which we feel things that are in fact quite miserable. For misery inspires movement, doesn’t it? I mean, nothing inspires you to move your hand faster than setting it on a hot burner, am I right? Indeed, I’ve found that we find a whole new speed we never knew we’d always had when met face-to-face with something that feels bad.

And well, what feels worse than those feelings of guilt, shame, regret, remorse?

No, such things are what He designed to help us come to realize both the goodness He is and the lack thereof that we’ve been. And granted, we may never be good at it, this realizing of our many mistakes as met within the regret we feel within the hindsight that helps us see the better we should have done and thus could have been, but hey, getting better is something, isn't it?

Indeed it is, and in fact it is, at least I believe, the very point and purpose for every such walk within the pain of the rain which pours upon our preferred parades as planned by the pretense of pride and it always pretending that we’re not doing anything wrong. And yet, whenever met with that sense of regret that somehow finds us anyway, what we could see is that we have done things that are thus a testimony against us within that coming questioning as to what we did with this life that was always a gift meant for us to have done much better.

For if we can truly agree that the Law is good, as done within our regret saying we should have done the better toward which the Law was written to aim, then so too must we confess that we've not then been the same. But yet if we can admit this, then so too would we agree that there is nothing good coming from a life lived as if nothing bad can happen. Because if we can truly experience the negative impacts a life lived as lawless as we’ve loved pretending it is, something clearly done by all of us, then so too must we understand the necessity of the very consequences that we've long tried to live as if were simply impossible.

Such as the clear and obvious danger of that coming inquest coming in quest of those who are His and living like it as then to be forever separated from the many more who aren’t and thus aren’t.

And so it becomes something of a self-collapsing condemnation, all of this doing of things without embracing the shame we’ve likely found clearly within the past doing of what’s basically the same things that we keep doing in light of our hatred for the opportunity to change. Which is a weird one to be sure. For again, we hate what would make us better and thus help to alleviate at least some of the shame. But then fail to be changed because of that hate that hasn’t changed, and thus we continue to feel the evidence stacking against us.

For if we can agree that there's a better we've not been, as is what all of us are still looking to become, then so too are we both admitting that we know we could have done better (whilst obviously having chosen not to), but also that we've thus always known of the possibility of consequences as already met within such things as guilt and regret. For we'd have never felt either if we hadn't done things that our understanding of better would have never agreed to do.

Because the reality of such improvement that all better is says that better always wants what's only better, not ever then the lesser than that such things as shame and regret have obviously settled for making us feel.

And thus we find that our continuing to do what we do not want to, as defined by the feeling of things we do not want to feel, well that’s the very condemnation that all but demands that something is done to help us stop welcoming every such death as our decision has all but already proven to demand.

We may not like that sin wins the wage of death, but yet we also seem quite able to agree that living a life so burdened by shame or sorrow, regret or remorse, well, it’s not much of a life worth living.

Thus there must be a better one there to be lived. And that we’ve been given what is this one more day seems to implicate that there is one more chance at that one change that would perhaps help us to, should tomorrow come too, not feel the regret we’d face if we lived today doing any of the same things that we now regret having lived doing just yesterday.

Yes, this is why He allows us to feel shame, and too why He gives us these new days.

It’s to do our share of that new thing that He Son came to begin.

And last I checked, forever has no end.

Thus nor does this new that Christ came to do!

And what is this new? It’s a way of lived acting justly and loving mercy and thus walking humbly with He who always was and yet now is our God. Was because He is the I am and never changes. Now is only when we finally agree to see that He is truly the same today as He was yesterday, and thus has the very same requestes as made plain within every day we’ve ever lived as lived in light of the fact that we’re alive for some reason.

Guess then our meeting Him has always been just a matter of time. And I for one am just grateful that He’s given us so much of it as to finally find that the way we feel is what should force us to find that Way that is His that leads us back to life from the one we’ve lived within the death that all such things as guilt, shame and regret have always been.

For again, living to feel only so much of those such things, no, I don’t understand the point of that.

Because they are in fact quite miserable, are they not? And that we’ve thus been living in the misery that all such things have always been seems a means to help us see that we should be doing things differently. For if our guilt comes as a result of our having done something we clearly know we shouldn’t have done, then we thus must agree that there was a better we could have done. And thus we must admit that we’re the ones who made the choice to have not done the better that we have come to now realize we should have.

And while this does show that we’re learning, friends, if we’re not doing anything in light of it, then we’re not learning what we should be from the seeds of sorrow as sown in godliness and reaped as betterment.

Sure, it’s called change, and yeah, we’ve widely come to hate it. But friends, if all we’re going to keep on finding are guilt, regret, embarrassment, then what do we have to lose? After all, we’re promised that one day we will all lose all of our pretended credibility.

Why not lose it now and find in that a way of life finally lived without all the shame and regret that we’ve already found and felt?

No, that’s why Christ came. To save us, yes, but that from us. And He did it because He knew that we’ve known regret. Why then keep choosing it? He literally died to set us free from that way of life lived doing things that we didn’t want to do as realized within our finding in their aftermath those entirely too-familiar feelings of fear and sadness and thus us ashamed of having done yet again what we knew would make us feel that way.

But again, whether or not we ever come upon that place in which we place our trust in Him, well, I guess that’s either already known, perhaps still possible, or soon a chance we’ll no longer have.

Either way, seems only reasonable to at least try asking Him to help us see that narrow road that leads to that bettered life than this one we know we’ve lived so marked by so many miseries that we simply do not want to ever feel again. Or at least shouldn’t want to.

Alas, if we continue to do the things that make us feel those things, then I guess we don’t mind them all that much.

Personally, I’ve just never enjoyed feeling ashamed or carrying all the guilt I’ve found. But that’s just me.

To each their own.

For now at least.

After all, He gave us the Law to help us do better. And so if still we don’t, as confessed within our feelings of guilt or shame or felt and faced in light of what we have continued then to do as done then against the Law that was given to help us come to a way of life lived to avoid them, then we’ve missed something that was meant to help us do the better that guilt says we haven’t.

For if the Law was meant to inspire us to do better, then the Law is good. And this simply doesn’t change just because we continue to choose to do the things that break that Law and leave us feeling again ashamed of having continued to miss, mistake, refuse or just ignore what was always there to aim us in the direction that none of those weighted feelings are waiting to be found.

No, it isn’t the Law that isn’t good but rather that we’ve become so good at living against it that we even seem willing to ignore the shame that comes from our still breaking the heart of He who gave us both that gift and then that of His Son as sent to turn us around and lead us back home.

Continue to settle for doing still the same things that have always left you feeling ashamed if you want. For indeed, we have that freedom. But friends, using such freedom as nothing more than a fleeting opportunity to do as we want only to feel as we’d rather not, well, that just seems a really sad direction to go.

For again, we’ve all already been there. What more then do we expect to find in our continuing to go back?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold