Day 3752 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 John 1:8 NIV

Identity crisis

And it’s not even that common kind as considered within our cultural inability to “find ourselves.” No, this crisis is rather quite the catastrophe, and one collapsing at that, and that on us, and us then the ones who have what is in every way a crisis of faith which is the very foundation of our every identity as who we are is defined by what we believe. Or even simply the widespread lack thereof of that belief, or at least our ability to admit that we all believe in something.

For even nothing is something to believe in.

Which seems, oddly enough, what most of us do choose to believe both in our lives and thus of ourselves. Yes, our every single past is riddled with riddles as written by both victim and victor, alas our always playing the both as if we’re somehow the wounded but also the unrealized wounder as won within our wanting that wander both to and through every drive-thru delight as sold at less than half-price in what remains a mind vastly trained upon the assumption that our lives are for nothing if they’re not lived for our having all we’ve longed to be found holding.

But the crisis comes in that if what we are is only to ever be what we’ve held or still hope to have, well then friends all we are is only a transparency as transient as that last breeze that’s already blown by. Why? Because there are two lives that we’ll both know and thus be known by. One is that which is filled with every treasure we’ve ever sought to tether our every hope to whereas the other is that emptied of the idea that there is such a necessity of the tether of treasure as there is such things as weather and whether and worry and war.

Yes, within the two conditional experiences of life I feel we’ll find that there really is a time to reap and a time to sow, a time to mend and one to tear, a time to hope and a time to hold, a time to give and one to gain. The problem then that which is either becoming a problem down the road or rather one upon which we’re already on the road home from. Yes, either we live as if this life in this land is where our every best is to be found, faced, forced or felt. Or we don’t.

Problem proven in that we clearly do because still we choose to do things such as this idiocy addressed within this verse for today.

For indeed, we all have claimed, perhaps still do, that we’ve not sinned, that nothing wrong have we done. Yes, we absolutely love that idea that says that we are about as guilty as the sky is green. Why? Freedom, for the moment at least. And yet that’s right where we seem to stumble upon either the issue at hand (which is ours as it’s always been our hands that have idolized the issues we have) or rather just over what is the stumbling block upon which we could fall and thereby embrace the breaking as opposed to living on as if crushing is somehow better.

We talked about that difference a long time ago. And yes, I still contend that falling upon Jesus and there being broken into what may well feel a billion pieces is by and large quite remarkably better than our being crushed by the full weight of both who He is and what that means.

Because it will always mean the same thing, just then that eternity is defined as a time to be forever separated depending upon which side of that clearly drawn line we choose within this life to walk upon.

And make no mistake, just as much as believing in nothing is believing in simply the absence of something, so too is our choosing to do nothing a choice made simply because we think we have the eternal right to avoid having to do something we don’t think we’ll enjoy.

Such as confessing our sins.

Which so clearly is the only reason why so many live and die to only deny He who is the Life. Why? Truth. He is also the Truth, and too, the Way by which we can take, and the only thereof, by which to find the Life that overcame the death that is our every delight to be continually deceived by hearts so very decayed that we literally seem to like it this way. Our being deceived, that is. Indeed, that is what, by appearances, looks to be something of even a pastime anymore.

For yes, they, often meaning we, will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

It even explains some of our fascination with the film industry. We know it’s all fake, but hey, it allows us a couple hours to not have to think about how fake we’ve been. And that seems worth the cost of the ticket!

Plus you can have popcorn and candy. A pretty sweet deal really!

Until the cavities set in, and no, much like the idea of an identity crisis, I’m not talking about those that only a dentist can help fix. No, rather I’m referring to the cavernous kind as considered within an empty hole as otherwise hidden within something that seems to be solid from the surface. Which is where we live for the most part. On the surface, in the moment, for the now, having only here our any hope of everything worth having.

Leaving us but a cave inside that’s cold, damp, jagged, claustrophobic and on the very verge of a quite risky collapse should the exterior ever give away to the hollowness in which we’ve lived.

But surely it’ll never come to that.

Because surely the truth isn’t all that adamant upon our admitting of our every emptiness as elated in by all of us for reasons that I honestly don’t think we could find could we find that audacity to admit that we’re often feeling far emptier than we are hopeful or happy or basically anything other than homesick. Yes, such is why all the hostility as shown His way in what remains an enmity against Him as won within a friendship with those many who themselves are empty but refuse to confess that all we’ve wanted is the very same as all that’s left us barren.

Inside.

For that is where hope resides, is it not? We don’t hope in what we have as once it’s had there’s no reason to hope for whatever it is anymore, is there? But friends, that’s exactly the problem because it seems that we’re all living, or have lived, a way of life in which our greatest hope is to hide. To not be seen nor thus have then seen who we are as defined by what we’ve done which are the things that we strive to hide behind lies and lusts as given still to rust and dust assuming that somehow something of either will fill the holes that we ourselves have carved inside.

And we’ve done this carving of such cravings so many times now that we’ve basically all but run out of places to dig. After all, I guess when you’ve gone those six feet in, there’s really nowhere left to go and thus no reason to keep going.

Rather anymore we just sit inside of this way of life in which we repeat the past without rinsing away the things we’ve tried that only left us so empty inside as to continue refusing to confess that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God seeking instead the glory of us.

As if we can do something with glory! Or gain. Or greed. Or gluttony. Or anything really.

Indeed, we cannot breathe unless God gives us both the ability and another opportunity. And yet still we live as if we’re so good at living that we can do it just fine without the breath of Life that He gave and keeps giving.

All because we’re so full of ourselves that we’ve left no room for another. And not because we’re so filled with happiness or hope that we can’t take anymore of either, quite the contrary really. No, rather simply because we truly can’t seem to see that continuing to live that lie that says we’re doing just fine is the same choice as will continue to ignore the voice that calls us to lose a life lost so as to find one found. All because we know the way and that it’s the Way we’ve only ever known to live against.

Leaving us on the proverbial fence of having to decide whether we live or die, or rather just when we do both.

Because both we will, live and die. Only question then is which lasts forever and why we continue to live as if this life is the one that lasts longest when we’ve seen so many people not live as long as they’d have likely liked.

Yes, why do we still deny the impending nature of the death of our sinful nature? What do we gain in such a denial of the blatantly inevitable? What have we gained from those things we’ve done of which we’re now only ashamed? That is why we hide so much, isn’t it? Afraid of it being seen, and thus us being seen as it, all because we know what we’ve done and that it’s not quite the script for our own life’s story as set to music and memories of some happily ever after?

But friends, that’s my question for today: What comes after?

When is after? Where is after? And since we don’t know when after begins as none of us know when we’re scheduled to leave, why then don’t we live as if we don’t have as much time left as we’d likely like? Why don’t we ask the questions that we’re afraid of being proven to not have an answer for? Why won’t we admit that our answers are had but they’re just really poor, pitiable, pathetic? Why can’t we agree that we’re the same? Poor in Spirit, the most of all to be pitied and only then to ever be pathetic because of the gifts we’ve missed, or simply ignored, of everything from the prophets to the very Promise toward which they pointed.

The very One we’ve continued to miss somehow.

But why? Because if we continue to contend that we have not sinned, then we’ve then no reason to reach for the salvation of the Son. And if we have no reason to reach for salvation, nor then will we find reason to imagine that Jesus did what some claim as the reason He came. And if we don’t come to believe that He did come to set free such as are sinners like you and me, then we’ll just go on thinking that we’re already walking in that very freedom that we’ve long thought we had.

Which is really nothing more than a liberty to live as liberally as our depravity so delights.

Only, “do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh.”

Meaning then that if anything we’ve done, do or seek still to has any interest in the pleasure of the flesh, then we’ve in fact used our freedom as a license to sin. Meaning then that we have sinned because, friends, the flesh has long been our main source of everything from pleasure to hope, mostly our only hope being the pleasing thereof in fact.

And thus we find in that that, yes, we have all sinned. And so, if we claim still otherwise, then no, the truth is not in us because we are lying to ourselves, deceiving ourselves, thus destroying ourselves.

Why?

Because Christ is the Way, the Truth, the Life. And so, if the Truth is not in us, then friends, nor is the Life.

And if we don’t have Him in us, then all we are is but dead men walking toward where He went with the express purpose of turning our death into a date with a new life as lived in a new way doing new things.

Such as walking in the humility that is willing to confess our continued failures so as to fight then for the faith to overcome them rather than continuing to allow them to overcome us. Which is exactly what we’ve all done. Indeed, we have settled for a way of life in which such things as fear, regret, shame, deception are all allowed to lord over us. Yes, we have all lived serving these things as is done any time that we give any time to trying to find some way to make sure they’re not seen in us.

But since He sees everything, and we’re made in His image, I think the issue then is that we see more issues in our fall than we’ve ever dared to confess.

Which, yes, is the price of admission back into the Life because the truth does set us free from a life lived in hiding both everything we’ve ever done as thus who we really are. Because we know well that we are sinners and thus so strained and stained and scarred and scared that we tremble at the mere suggestion of our being honest and truthful for once.

Which is exactly what we should do.

We should tremble. We should fear. We should be absolutely terrified of our lives coming to the light. Why? Because fear is found in punishment, and as those who’ve yet to be perfected in love, we have a lot to worry about in what is the very laying down of a way of life we’ve managed to live just fine for probably a pretty long time. It makes no sense, at least when seen from inside the many deceptions we’ve allowed to stay alive inside.

And thus, yes, we know that to live we have to die. And that’s scary.

But friends, what’s scarier, dying now in the trust that we’ll live forever or living now and hoping that we don’t end up just dying?

I know that being honest with ourselves is pretty much nothing we’ve ever been taught nor thus expected to do in this world. For it’s just not what folks enjoy doing. But friends, there’s vastly more to life than just our enjoyment. And I just feel as if it’s time that we start to consider that. Not because we’re going to enjoy it. Not because sitting with all we’ve messed up will be a fun time. Not because it’s going to feel all that great to face our every flaw, failure, fear and foolishness.

But simply because continuing ahead being filled with only those things that empty of us the joy and hope and peace we could have instead is just about the dumbest thing we could do.

For why miss out on the freedom of knowing that we will live even though we will die? See, this world has managed, like with many if not most other things too, to have gotten that one backwards. Around here we’re all living sullen and downtrodden because we believe only that we’ll die even though we’ve lived, and thus we’re supremely hesitant to welcome anything that harshens or hampers or hinders our enjoyment of the little life we’ve accepted that we’ve left to live.

Just makes sense.

But only when you think that the final act in life is dying. And well, what a truly sad thing to believe!

Especially when we could find that hope of His promise of life everlasting as found already waiting within our admitting that no, the truth hasn’t been in us as, well, we’ve just never been interested in such things as honesty merely for the humility it inspires. But friends, admitting that the truth isn’t in us is the very first step to welcoming the truth into us. And welcoming the Truth into us is the very first step taken into the Way by which life was always meant to be lived.

And taking that first step is what starts a new way of life lived with the Truth who is the Way to the Life that doesn’t have to answer to death anymore.

Why keep missing that just so we can hope to continue avoiding the very admitting that we will all embrace?

Friends, welcome the disgrace. Embrace the embarrassment. Enjoy the admitting that you’ve gotten basically everything wrong. Because that’s the only thing that can ever help us to start fighting to get things right. And friends, that’s the only way to live this life. May not be the way we’ve lived it, but since it’s the way the Way lived it, well then we’ve both time to learn as well as the very best Teacher from which to do so.

After all, while He may ask for honesty, and that may hurt, He’s also proven to offer healing.

So I guess then we can embrace as much pain as needed to find the promise of unending freedom.

Seems worth the risk if you ask me. Because He wouldn’t have died if that’s all we had to look forward to anyway. No, that He died proves that there’s more to this story than whatever this is that we’ve written for our glory. Time to read another story now.

And well, that Bible sure tells a doozy!

#LeaveNoSoulUntold