Day 3770 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Thessalonians 5:4 NIV

Give or take

Christ will come to do one or the other with life itself. And make no mistake, we who were once darkness were too then darkened to the reality of the eternal difference and the beautiful distance between them. In fact the dimness of our existence was once so defined that we ourselves were defined by it as its presence came daily to present this pretense of a preference for its always being allowed in what was then a stark permanence as placed upon our every action, every thought, every single word for which we fought or bought or sought some way to say that we were okay with who we were living how we were in a place in which we thought life was going okay and thus meant to stay.

Simply because the darkness makes it harder to see the mistakes.

Indeed, it’s quite hard to read the lines of which we’d colored outside when the outside finds no sunshine allowing sight to bring its well understood clarity to something. Which is an oddity in all reality. For we’ve lived a life walking by sight seeking for such things as hope and joy within the journey as enjoyed not always for the moment as many are lived in torment but rather for the outcome as is planned to be always only outstanding.

And yet we often find ourselves standing still inside the shadows, almost choosily unwilling, unable to see the many missteps we’ve taken and thus the mistakes we were making. Not that we didn’t have some idea that they were there, no, just again that the darkness we’ve been known for living in was never really able to offer enough glow to produce a glare that would rend them as glaringly godless as sin defines them as having been all along.

Guess you could say that we just didn’t care because, well, when you think something is hidden and thus only able to ever be found by sheer accident, and thus a worry only won within the off-chance of an unplanned surprise, well then there was never really any reason to choose to stop living our lives as if everything we were doing was being seen by He who had already done all that would be needed to overcome it. No, just keep doing what you’re doing as if nobody could know and thus nothing could go wrong.

But friends, if nothing can go wrong then what can go right?

You see, I think there’s this fact that we often fail to accept in life which says that for one thing to exist, another in equal measure must be there as well. You can’t differentiate day from night if not based upon the presence of either darkness or light. You can’t measure what’s good unless you have an at least passing understanding of what all is bad. We can’t comprehend what we like until we discover what we don’t. We cannot truly live without the express appreciation of the knowledge of the flesh’s coming death.

Why?

Well, because if there is no antithesis to something then everything is theoretical at best. Everything just becomes subjective. It all devolves into a person’s valuing of something as done within the equally devaluing of something else. And this, while quite the perfect happening from a pride’s perspective, it really only steals away the very severity of life’s having been given to each of us as what is a gift given within such an express expectation that to either dilute or deny it would basically become something akin to hollowing out hope or betraying a belief.

For again, we have to take the good with the bad or else we can’t fully understand or appreciate the gravity of either.

Unfortunately we’ve become so staunch within our stance as stood mostly only upon assumptions and presumptions that I fear we’re even misunderstanding the purpose of such things as hope or joy or peace, or thus in many ways, even belief. Because, like us, as they’re a part of us, they too have had to conform to our way of life as lived inside the darkened denials of life’s greater meanings. Indeed, take belief for example. For years now one of our greater beliefs has been that nobody has ever had the ability to see all the things we’ve done of which we’re not proud.

But then this has left our ability to believe somewhat hindered by having to hope that it’s true. And this then has left us building other quite betraying beliefs to bolster that worry as to the main belief being potentially wrong.

Which feels wrong.

For what about hope? Indeed, it too has been forced to fit alongside a heart that has learned to hope in such things as selfish gain and vain glory, which honestly, though always clearly desired, haven’t yet proven things that we can either prove nor produce but are rather always stumbled upon in what are measures always lesser than what our ego would so clearly prefer. Meaning then that even our best ideas and biggest desires can only ever come in what has long been a surprise measure.

But then that actually leads perfectly to my question for today:

Does hope come by surprise?

Can hope surprise?

Because, honestly, that’s the version of what we’ve long called hope that we’ve come to know all these years. But you know, as I sit here today I must say that honestly, no, I don’t know that I’ve ever known of a hope that took me by surprise. Because that’s just not how hope works. That’s not what hope does. I mean, considering as how nobody hopes for what they have already, so too then does everybody hope for what they don’t have yet.

And thus we find that hope itself is something of person’s personal prerogatives purchasing a proposed proposition as positioned upon their present presumption of the path, pattern or payout proving something so perfectly profound that, once found, it comes at the fulfillment of a hope that’s long held out for its arrival.

Thus hope cannot therefore surprise us as it incites us unto the imagining of what we then agree to place our hope within. Indeed, we have to have an idea of what we hope to find, force, feel or face if we’re to be ever able to actually hope within it. For everything else in life is truly a surprise, but hope, no, hope can only exist if we know of at least the preference of its plausible or at least preferred existence.

And yet this seems a strange confusion as found as if a fusion within our modern approaches to faith. Because we tend still, having sinned so often, to dabble still, and often, in that same known way of life in which we’ve always lived doing whatever we wanted without any care given to the outcome. And yet how can we not care as to the outcome of some things whilst simultaneously proclaiming that we care, and that quite immensely, as to the outcome of others?

Indeed, how can we basically live throwing all caution mostly to the wind in regard to our getting our way and finding for whatever we’ve wished whilst also saying that we’re approaching the hope of Heaven with such an extreme caution that we stand daily in a fervent fear of our failing to be found welcomed there?

It makes no sense.

In fact, it’s no nonsensical that it seems something of a secondary life. And yes, all of us have lived a double life. But, as is another post already in the works for which I have notes, a double life doesn’t actually exist as it’s not even theoretically feasible. For we are alive but once within this world, and when that life has reached its end, the rest of forever then finally begins. That’s it. One life here and then maybe one somewhere else depending upon what you spend this life living believing.

And thus, again, we find our way right back to both hope and belief.

For hope is a belief in something that seems, at least to us, a matter or measure so amazing that we’re willing to do whatever it takes, for however long we might need, in order to one day see this belief either utterly fulfilled or forever failed. Yes, both hope and belief are these realities in which we’re willing to wager our everything upon them either proving true or us so wrong that we, well, we don’t even know what to imagine were we to be wrong.

Because, much like how hope doesn’t surprise, nor then does belief welcome any doubt. Because that would be entirely antithetical to its very existence. If we doubt then we don’t believe. If we have then we don’t hope. If we don’t have but desperately want to then we do hope. And if we do believe in the essence, the existence of that hope then we welcome no doubt.

Simply because our every belief just means too much to us to imagine what might happen if we’re wrong about it.

No, there should be no such room for wrong in our faith, as much as there should then be no willingness to continue doing things that will keep this coming day of Christ’s return in any way possibly able to catch us by surprise. For again, if we believe in Christ and, because of that, hope in His return, well then how could there ever enter any moment of any day without an eagerness within us for us to finally find out? To finally find Him?

Yes, if we truly have our hope placed as if treasure in Heaven, then how, or perhaps why would we, could we ever allow for a way of life as lived/defined via the choices made inside that allows any room for our being at all unready for His return?

How, why would or could we allow darkness to remain inside when His Word reads of how we who were once darkness are now referred to as the light of the world having been illuminated by the loving light of Jesus Christ? Indeed, we are a city on this hill meant to take our stand against the evil schemings of the devil. But alas we’ve known far longer, and thus quite better, to only hide all we do within the shadows of a remarkably darkened understanding of such things as hope, belief, trust, faith, life even.

Because again, none of the above should have ever had to endure what all we’ve chosen to put them through or make them go along with.

Which is why He calls us to hold fast to what is good whilst also coming unto a share of His divine hatred of all things that aren’t.

And yet here we sit somewhere within what is a mundane middle ground as found in between belief and betrayal. Because, no, His coming back shouldn’t be something taken so lightly as for our to continue doing the things that we know are wrong but still agree to do simply because of that past belief in our hope of an ability to hide what we don’t want seen.

Thus leaving us living a double life somewhere between the joy of the His light and the shadows of this night that we’ve called life.

But no, my point is that His returning to take those who are His unto their hope should thus mean enough unto the same that they strain, struggle, suffer and strive to never let a breath go by that they’re not increasingly ready to see Him finally. For anything less than a sheer desperation to be finally home in Heaven seems then only a measure of doubt as to whether or not that’s truly where this line runs out.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m as guilty of this discrepancy as anyone else. I do things daily that prove intensely that I’m not ready for His coming. But you see, that’s where hope takes over and does what only hope can do. And that’s light a fire inside of us that notices our failures to remain faithful to whatever, whomever, wherever we’ve placed our hope, our trust, our belief and refuses to allow those failures to become patterns.

Yes, such is what I believe the Word means when it reads of that call for all continuing to work out their salvation with fear and trembling. Fear of continuing to fail, trembling every time we do. Why? Because again, His promise as is being brought us upon His coming back for us should be of such supreme worth and importance to us that we grow every day to more deeply detest anything and everything that is around us or about us that doesn’t refine us.

Because let us be honest, as He is defined as consuming fire, if there’s anything remaining of the old us that’s yet to have been consumed then we’re still a work in progress.

But maybe that’s the better question: Are we progressing? And if so, toward what? And if we are progressing toward something then this means that we’re showing that it means enough to us that we’re willing to continue striving toward it. This means then that we have a hope in it, and too, a belief that one day that hope will be fulfilled. And that not by surprise.

Because hope doesn’t work like that.

And so why then continue to live as if Christ’s appearing might be able to find us as anything but entirely ready to go wherever He comes to lead?

No, for that’s the way of life we’ve all already lived. One in which our every hope was but at best a theory as poised or positioned upon a pride’s presumption in the overall importance of the preference that we alone long thought we’d had the power to prove or produce. But friends, that’s why true hope has never been allowed to even take us by surprise. Because all our lives we’ve lived as if hope was meant to be found and fulfilled within this world and our time herein.

And well, this means then that we’ve only ever known a hope meant to die. And well, if all we can ever hope in are things destined to perish, then yes, we are truly of all people most to be pitied.

Why?

Because it’s clear that we know of both the existence of hope and thus the presence of belief, and yet despite our agreeing them there, we’ve sadly only ever placed them upon this side of Heaven. Leaving them then to what is a world passing away and a flesh doing the same.

Leaving then Christ’s coming to come by surprise to what will then, if it is a surprise, prove one eternally hopeless because He told us to stay ever ready for His return. And so if He comes back only to find us doing anything but aching for His arrival, well, we’ll have only told Him that we just didn’t care enough to hope in something big enough that we fought hard enough to ensure that we didn’t miss it.

And well, considering all He did for us to have that hope of Heaven, our doing anything less than everything we can is absolutely disgusting.

No, He deserves far more than our continuing to hope in things we can have down here, and thus our continuing to fail to hope in what is the day when all will be changed. Will it be for the better or the worse? Make no mistake, the choices we make every single day align with only one of the two. Better or worse. Let us then live by a belief in a hope so astounding that we refuse to even acknowledge the sounding of any other offer.

For while we can, and sadly have, hoped in and believed for a great many things in and of this world, all of them have only then stolen our focus from Heaven and He who is the Way home. And thus everything here only leaves His coming again as what will prove a surprise to most who lived their lives willfully unready to hope in Him enough to seek Him alone.

Friends, what else can offer us the promises that He has?

And if we do believe in those promises, then why let our hope in them become a matter even possibly met by surprise? For no, hope doesn’t surprise. Thus, sadly, if Christ’s return does take us by surprise, then we just never really hoped in it to begin with. For if we did we’d have stayed ready for His return.

If for no other reason than He asked us to and we loved Him enough to do so.

Guess that’s the question: Just how much do we love Him who loved us and gave himself for us?

Enough to hope? And, if so, why then would we risk being surprised by His coming to get us?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold