Day 3766 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Matthew 24:42 NIV

A weather eye

Which is an eye both attuned to the weather as won within the wonder of what is to come within the coming hours or days (neither of which we know) and too an eye weathered into such a wonder having weathered many a worry as came storming out of nowhere only to there catch us so completely off-guard that we daren’t let our guards be off duty so much as we’ve allowed them in the past. But alas, just because there stands the ask unto the task doesn’t always mean that it’s allowed to mean to they of whom it’s asked what it is from He who asks.

No, rather we’re a people vastly more prone to whether than weather, winning our wealth of worry within what is coming in a quicker hurry as held inside hopes held here.

Yes, seems anymore all that humanity knows to hope for or thus move toward is but the coming of tomorrow and our desire for it bring the scene of things seen as of being of such wealth or worth that we’ve come to believe only that all things gained within this world are worth enough to want. And that so many, supply and demand, seem to be of quite the same idea, well, this only inspires us in a hurry more hurried to have whatever the masses have come to crave.

Leaving us all just as lost as one another in what’s a world so lost for wonder that instead we worry about the weather rather than whether or not today might be the day that the Lord comes back.

In fact, most have become of the mind that says He isn’t as they too believe that He isn’t there at all. And well, if someone contends that Christ doesn’t exist, as many so clearly do, and sadly all so unfortunately have, well then it only stands to reason that He can’t come back from where He isn’t. And if He isn’t at all, and thus nowhere then too, then we have nothing to worry about. And in that case, yeah, spending all this time talking about the weather might not be quite the filler after all.

Indeed, maybe, if Christ isn’t there, doesn’t care, isn’t thus coming, then we can then continue to spend our time spinning our wheels through whatever worry over which we’ve chosen to weary. And make no mistake, all worrying is truly a wearying of the soul as sold unto this cautionary consideration of something that we obviously consider worth being considered. And anymore that list of considerable considerations as considered by those considering what all to do with themselves and in their lives, it’s growing almost exponentially still.

Even after all the fires we’ve started!

And such can only happen when we’ve chosen to turn a blind eye to the past, present, promised rather than a weather eye unto the horizon of all the above so as to turn then the same unto the horizon of this frame we call earth. A choice chosen because of its broad alleviation of our worries as should be won upon the Son and His coming back, not to free but this time to judge. See, I think that’s where we’ve allowed the track to jump the train.

It’s in our share of the brain that says that even if He is there that He would then only come again as He came before. And we’ve no need to fear a Lamb led to slaughter.

After all, we did it once and, well, we’re nothing if not a people known for progression through repetition.

No, we can leave unrinsed whatever we wish to repeat from what’s become a seat so lost within the bounty of all that’s unbecoming that we’ve become unable to rouse ourselves unto the rising of ourselves up out of ourselves into sails sold upon the tales of His promises and how they all point to this next time being a difference so crippling that, should we be found on the wrong side of Him this time, well, we’ll need forever to deal with the disabling of life in whole.

For that is what unending death really is, it’s but a life so entirely, eternally disabled that it cannot live and yet cannot die. It’s just something of an everlasting misery from which there is said to be no escape. Why? Because if the first time didn’t inspire us to get right then nothing else will either. I mean honestly, what could He possibly do to better get through to a people beating themselves black and blue trying to win all that they’ll only eventually lose?

Is an empty tomb still not enough to inspire us unto the looking up to see what more He has in store for those who are in Him said to have been so set free that they care only to see the clouds part and eternity start?

A weathered eye indeed!

Because it’s seen some stuff, and most of it only a scene we wish not to ever see repeat. Because it wouldn’t make much sense to so desire a continuation of what’s long been an enslavement to every matter and manner of mankind’s mischief and misunderstanding as many are still standing to prove only more possibly less problematic than ever before.

Yes, society is something of a clarity in that so many here are doing only so much of whatever they want that this world as whole has become the hole against which we can compare now the hope of the coming of a Savior against that of merely living a few more years only to hopefully savor the many delights and depravities of a mankind so broken as to believe in nothing beyond this idea that our entire life’s purpose is only for us to purchase what doesn’t ever satisfy.

Why do we live for what we can buy, believing then in a price tag or a bargain bin rather than within He who came to win what is a share of forever’s peace as opposed to the other promise we know well we fully deserve? And sure, many might quite vehemently disagree that there should be such a violent side of eternity, a side they so deny as they both know it’s the one they so truly deserve in light of past deeds done but also because agreeing to it would mean their longstanding disagreement with the hope of Heaven being just as real.

And we just don’t know what to do with being so doubly proven wrong like that.

So many just ignore the whole ordeal. They live out their days refining their ways upon these wins of whether or not they want this or need that. Yes, life here has vastly dissolved, devolved into nothing but selfish delight and spending all hours of the night not looking unto the morning’s coming sun, nor then the mourning’s coming Son, but rather seeking still for only more of what’s already failed to fulfill.

It’s quite amazing really, and indeed the very embodiment of humanity’s insanities. For how we can continue to plumb our dumb seeking ways to disprove it there, I don’t know. But sadly I do know, and from personal experience too, that such is what we’re all known to do. We awake every single day to get again lost inside of our way as wanted for whatever wins we think still hiding within. And, because we’ve managed to somehow squeeze out a delight here or there, well, such has become unto us the life we continue to look for.

Merely the one in which we weather the worries as if themselves victories that inspire us to keep going the direction we’ve been heading, but only because of the crumbs which fall from the table of fools and fiends that we call friends and foes. Yes, such is the life we know! It’s only one in which everyone is both pauper and price, kings and clowns depending solely upon the judgement of the jury that truly doesn’t really care whatever anyone else might be doing or may not be finding.

We’ve got our own lives to worry about filling.

With what? Well, depends on the day if we’re honest. For much like the weather, so too does our treasure change by the hour. One day we want world peace and the next we’re screaming at one another over the extent of free speech. One day we’re all about live and let live, the next we’re ready to kill one another for the differences discovered in our desires and directions. Some believe in Jesus and are waiting both patiently and yet eagerly for Him to come free us, whilst also then urging others to seek the same indeed kind of free, and yet others think the first fools and are growing quite tired of weathering their wearying worry as won upon the Son in which most don’t believe.

It’s all quite the tempest, this forest through which we’ve lost both the trees and the clouds. Not sure how, but yet I know why. It’s because we live to deny. We love to hate. We spend the day sat in this seat of judgement upon everything from anyone to even the weather and what all aspects of both we simply find disagreeable if not utterly detestable. Yes, we’re anymore so very worried about only what’s going on around us that we’ve all vastly quit working upon the wanderings found within us.

Rather we just let our hearts roam as if this world our home and thus our lives to be best lived looking for what we think we’d love to have or simply hate that others might before we’ve had the first crack.

Kind of like that of a thunderclap.

You know, it’s rained a lot here lately within this place my family and I live. And I’ve always loved the rain, even more the storms as they both offer this reminder of both a cleansing power as poured from somewhere above, and yet too that there must then be a someone above who is able to set in such motion all the calming commotion of a life lived atop what’s often an ocean as won within waves of things we want and worries we have.

It’s just that we’ve learned to live only worried about our wants rather than keeping that weather eye to the sky.

Which is the opposite of what the Gospel has asked of us. Which makes sense sadly. Why? It’s something of the whole ‘don’t look down’ conundrum. I mean, what’s ironically the first thing someone does when you implore them to not look below them? Yeah, they look down. It’s weird how we’ve come to work like that. We do almost always the direct opposite of what we’re either asked or implored to do by someone who thus clearly knows more than we do and is merely seeking to help us avoid the consequence of our knowing too much.

Just like how Jesus came to put the fruit back on the tree.

Because He knew that such was needed if we were to ever be again free from what’s become a life so burdened by understanding that where we’re standing is but neck-deep in regret and still sinking. Why? Because still we keep on doing all He simply asked us not to as the One who always knew the little we needed to know in order to be able to grow in faith as opposed to against the same. Yes, the more we know the less we feel the need to trust.

And as a people who’ve come to all but insist they know pretty much everything, well then we’re also a people pretty much unwilling to entertain anything in the way of external suggestion or influence.

Even when it comes to the weather.

Indeed, anymore it seems that each of us have a measure by which we try and faithfully forecast when we’ll need the umbrellas and when it’s time to break out the warmer winter clothes. Farmer’s almanac’s, animal behavior, a tree’s leaves, or simply the blind faith in technology. And I’m not saying that any of those do or don’t work as it seems that some of them work quite reliably, and you’d probably be surprised as to which.

But instead of going into any of that any further, no, my point for today is that we’ve developed a reliance upon all of these ideas and theories as to what the weather is going to do, thus proving that we do know how to keep a weather eye upon the horizon in life.

Yet for some reason we simply refuse to turn a weather eye to the horizon of life.

Rather we spend our time worried about the weather, about whether or not we’ll ever have all we hope we might, who’s doing what and what that doesn’t mean for us. Yes, we’re worried about so many things, but friends, all of them end. Because everything here does. And in fact, all that’s here will. And yes, this includes you and me.

For indeed, as we all know, and yes, as we talk about in what’s likely a frequency that is not at all to anyone’s liking, the fact is we’re dying. And yet we live life lying to ourselves about it. Might not see it that way. Don’t want to see it that way. But friends, any time that we give any time to worrying about something in or of this world as opposed to making sure we’re growing more ready for His returning, we’re losing. We’re in fact missing the entire point and purpose of this life.

Because it’s not found in things lifeless.

The meaning of life isn’t something proven in who’s right about the weather and who gets caught unready for the shower. It’s not about proving ourselves of more profit, potential or power as compared to everyone around us. No, life does not consist of any abundance of things, thoughts or theories. Life is rather a time given for us to work, weary and worry as to what is still to come. Because while we may not be there yet, the inevitability of forever is something that proves constantly that we’ll be there eventually.

Where? Well, that’s for us to decide. For such is the gravity of all free will. We get to determine what we do, where we focus, who we are. And we see this all the time anymore. For as I sit here I must confess that I am not who I once was, and that in both good ways and too plenty of which I’m in no way proud. But friends, that’s just it. It’s that life wasn’t made to sit. We’re not intended to be planted within one pattern or preference for all of time.

And we know this because we don’t have roots but rather legs which carry us in any direction our feet are aimed. And so I ask, where you headed?

Where are you going? What means most? What doesn’t matter to you at all?

You see, all of these questions are kind of aimed at the same thing, that being where our hope is held, our treasure stored. Odds are, sadly, it’s here somewhere where the weather changes and chances go untaken. It’s found or forced into this fellowship of failure to find or feel any reason to worry about what might be before long. It’s considered something common or conventional or confrontational even. For we’ve all become vastly lost within the ways of life as lived within this world.

But friends, this world isn’t all there is. Question then is what we do or don’t believe is there both beyond it and thus our time upon it. Or do we even believe in anything more at all anymore?

I mean, we seem to, but even still, I don’t know what or why. Because, again, like the weather, it’s always something different. All because our eyes have become so weathered by worldly worries that we’re all but blind to belief itself. Indeed, seems we’re terrified of having to trust, of having to hope, of having to admit that we need help because we just don’t know how to trust in hope anymore.

Just gone bad too many times before.

Which is why I don’t understand why we keep doing life this way. Why do we keep chasing things that we either fail to catch or final come to get only to find they’re not at all all that special and leave us thus still needing that something else that might fill us. How many more of those something else’s are we willing to chase after? How many more days are we willing wager upon the winning of something better as still found here? Yes, how much longer will we hold our hope hostage in a place that it shouldn’t be able to fit?

And trust me, I know why we do it. I know why we crave all these worldly things and in turn live to deny the bigger scenes. It’s because it’s both easier and thus less scarier. But friends, we should be scared. We should be absolutely horrified at the coming culmination of this life we’re living. Why? Because dying changes everything no matter what we think happens beyond it.

I just personally don’t understand the hope or joy of living as if nothing is coming after we’ve gone.

Seems too empty to me.

And so instead I guess I have to settle for the scary, for the less easy. But I would rather keep looking for my hope upon the horizon, both in and of this life, than to imagine hope or joy or peace or meaning are somehow things best, or perhaps even only proven on this side of the grave.

No, hope and joy just seem too big to me to allow them to die with me. I want instead that rare way in which they only grow brighter as this life grows thin.

And yeah, I might be wrong about Jesus. He might not be there. And thus He might not be coming back. Heaven might not be real.

But I’d rather live with the hope of believing it is, that He is, than to merely continue thinking that I have to find the best of life before I lose it all anyway. Don’t do that to yourselves. Please. Rather understand the necessity of fear as found and felt within our not knowing when He’s coming.

Because, despite how we’ve all learned to hate such worry, it’s only there to help us get ready for when He does.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold