Day 3774 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Daniel 12:2 NIV

The distance

How do we measure it when we seek for so long to deny it by our trying to ignore it? Can we truly disprove the difference? Do we even care to consider that we can’t? What if we could truly understand the definitions of the only two promises given us at the end of us? Might we finally see them as one and the same but that they’re only seen as being so very different due to the presence of hope in our lives and just how far away we insist it held?

For no, hell oughtn’t be a hope for anyone, but it seems that nearly everyone struggles to embrace the promise of Heaven in some way or another.

Mainly because it comes at us in what are both promises and warnings.

And I believe that this is because one cannot exist without the other. For as there is an equality in outcome as given in the separation between good and bad as won within the difference between right and wrong, so too then might there be a division between inputs as given to direct us unto the better of the two finish lines. Because right and wrong are merely definers of our efforts as measured against the lone standard that is the Son of God. And thus all that we do is both to be divided as having been right or wrong, and yet so too was all of it was done by us alone.

Which leaves us both predator and prey as inside every given day we do both some of those things we should whilst also failing to do many of the same. And thus we find ourselves caught somewhere in the middle as made between the violent polarities of righteousness and wickedness. And this leaves then our lives to have been lived in what is hopefully an awareness of this presence of both light and dark within our minds and hearts.

For without an awareness of the one we cannot either enjoy or detest the other.

Yet we live as if we’re always only one or the other. And I’ll give you one guess as to which we tend to think ourselves. Yeah, there’s something about life in this earth that’s left us living like dirt but somehow always unable to see the filth. And yet, again, how impossible is it for us to truly understand all we do as being so right if we haven’t the equaled understanding of what all then is wrong?

Sure, I imagine we’d still largely misunderstand the quantity of both in our many has beens and still becomings. But still, the fact is that we both cannot understand what good is without an equal comprehension of what wrong is. Because, like Heaven and hell, light and dark, left and right, good and bad simply cannot exist without the other.

Why? Because life is linear meaning that it has two ends, two directions, two outcomes, two undertakings, two pursuits, two priorities, two promises.

Otherwise life would be but a dot that never moved.

But we know we have and so we know that, because of such things as growth and change, that life itself is on something of trajectory as aimed into the as of yet unknown and that based fully upon the already understood. For you see, we all fully understand that there are good things and bad things, things that are right and things that are wrong. And even more so, we even understand, in regard to some of them, an even deeper dividing as to right ways to do good things and wrong reasons to do the same.

All because life is both incredibly complex and yet still somehow entirely simple.

For all things will be judged as having been one of two, righteous or evil. And so I contend that our seeking to continue this fight within to make all our evils seems a little less wrong is what’s caused us to fall headlong into this denial of the sheer gravity of eternity’s simplicity as measured by the difference between Heaven and hell as are to be the outcomes experienced by all.

But which?

Well, this is something we can begin to unwrap in what is another longstanding overcomplicating of what’s instead quite a simple difference. That being the distance we perceive between promises and warnings. Which, like Heaven and hell are yet but two more conjoined examples of a single concept as is seen in what are two entirely different ways depending upon what are likely a whole host of varied reasons as agreed to out of what’s probably a sheer necessity that has oddly enough become quite the blurring reality.

Indeed, how is it that can we love promises and yet loathe warnings? For are not the both matters of the same measure? Do not both measure the meaning of matters still coming? Because neither are ever fulfilled up until that day when we’re then found beyond the breaking point of whatever word was spoken that was likely what’s given some the ability to hope in a promise whereas others only the worry as won within a warning.

Yet still, both come from the same place as said within the same thing.

Just like this verse here in the early opening of Daniel chapter 12.

For it’s in truth nothing but a complex sentence structure as defined by a single line which carries multiple intentions. The overarching purpose of this deposit is to better help us to do as another part of His Word so simply asks in that verse which requests that we continue to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (perhaps another difference?). But then the secondary intention is to offer us a bit more information so as to help us arrive at the best outcome via helping us to make the best choice by giving us the promised outcome of the two options.

But only one of them seems worthy of being considered a promise.

The other is nothing but a warning.

But my question for you today is does it really make a difference? Is there really a difference between promises and warnings? Are not both aimed at inspiring a given effort or intention? Granted, one is vastly more heavy-handed in its working toward that direction, but is its purpose not still the same? For both promises and warnings are given unto those for whom they’re intended with the express intention of a general directing.

Promises inspire us to keep going. Warnings only inspire us to turn around. And so either way there’s a movement to be made along what is again a life entirely linear, only then either one aimed at a promised outcome to be won or rather one made away from an outcome that none want to win. But still, be them somewhat negative, and that only because of the issuance of an insinuation that change needs to be met and made, or rather entirely positive as posed upon the otherwise lack of that more stern leading, they’re both aimed at our arriving at what is the very best possible outcome.

Why then the hate one and love the other?

No, this seems something of a half interest in the full better. Which should be the goal for all, I mean, after all, it does seem that better is what we’re all looking for. Why then continue to settle for a life lived only expecting half of that better as such is all that can be found when we only welcome the promises which please us whilst all but completely disregarding the many warnings that we don’t really like the feel of.

For indeed, we’re fine with all the promises of good things still to come. Makes us feel good. Gives us hope. Encourages us get up and go on despite whatever weather we might face along the way to what is that promised day upon which all those promises in which we never found any struggle to elate will be made finally complete.

Yet we hate the warnings that act in what is basically the same manner toward the same measure: Something better.

And again, granted, I realize that warnings may get us there via a semblance or sensation of fear as found or felt within our worry as to what might go wrong. But friends, that’s the other half of this puzzle that is hope. For the truth is that we can hope in all the wonderful things that we want to, but it’s only when those joyful anticipations are met with a realization as to the costs to be paid should we fall short of the expectations that are always still present within promises made that we find a willingness to fight for the better that a warning reminds us we might not find despite a promise’s willingness to give.

It’s like the general idea of speed limits. They’re there to warn us as to the possibility of punishment for our failing to act in accordance with the largely-shared and thus societal aim for public safety. And this warning then has inspired and continues to inspire most of us to slow down and arrive safe, even if it’s late. And the promise then is that we’ll both arrive safe so long as we, and hopefully everyone else, obeys the law along the way toward wherever it is that all of us are headed. But too then that we’ll then also avoid speeding tickets with what are hefty fines attached.

And thus we find a widely understood everyday example of promises and warnings working perfectly together in what is the overall desire to keep everyone safe.

Which is really the only way that such things can work. For the reality is that while promises of good things should always be enough to inspire inside of us a devoted willingness to uphold the will and wants of those who want us to live and be safe and feel joy and peace and hope, the fact is that the presence of a law or expectation is unfortunately not always enough to so inspire proper action. And this we see on an eternally larger scale when it comes to faith and the promise of eternity.

For in all actuality, the promise of eternity as won within our faith is one won in one of two ways. Because, as we read here, those who are found in Christ (no matter where said finding is found) will spend eternity alive with Him where He is, which is Heaven. And yet so too those others who are found (again, no matter where physically) outside of Christ will themselves be left forever apart from Christ and thus where He isn’t.

Which is hell.

For such is the very definition which defines, describes, identifies, differentiates and delineates both the difference and thus the very distance between the two outcomes that are waiting at the end of this one life. Because Heaven is said to be a place spent forever in presence of God and all the surpassing goodness He’s long proven Himself to be. But then again, hell’s said to be a place where His goodness is no longer found by those who, oddly enough, didn’t live this life trying to find it.

Because indeed, the purpose, despite our pride having tried anyway, was never actually to find God as we can’t. Rather the purpose was always to show Him that we’re trying to anyway in what is then a blatant denial of our clear inabilities simply because we’d rather try and fail than never try and still do the same.

Yes, one of those efforts shows faith, which is but a humbled reliance upon the kindness, goodness, compassion or mercy of another. And well the other doesn’t.

And thus the promised finish line of this life, which awaits for all of us, will then find all of us being eternally separated into what are one of two outcomes. For as much as our tendency toward trying to never feel guilty may contend it unkind or unloving, the fact is that the promise of eternal life in Heaven is met with the equaled warning of eternal suffering in hell’s eternal separation from the goodness that God is.

And so there we have it again, promises and warnings working perfectly together to try and do all that can be tried to get us to where we should want to be.

So again, does it matter then the manner in which they work? Does it matter if His Word reads something of an indictment every time we read it? Does it matter if His pruning means our losing of something we thought we loved? Should not all our love have been given to Him first anyway? Is not then His working His will in whatever way He may know we need not merely the lone undertaking of He who seeks none to perish but all to find repentance?

For indeed, if we’re bettered by it in the end, then what does it matter how heavy or harsh it might seem now? The goal is still to get us home. And He’s simply willing to work in whatever way we may need to make that happen. And well, the cross proves this perfectly.

Because again, while good promises should be more than plenty to inspire us to do the good that leads toward our lives looking as if we desire the same good outcome that He so clearly did, then again, the cross was clearly necessary for a reason. And that reason is because we’re sinners who are thus known for breaking the law and there failing to do the good that He desires us to. And we know of this desire of His because His Word reads time and again of this call for our to be holy as He is the same, an effort undertaken within our humbling ourselves and turning from evildoing unto the doing of the good things which He’d prepared in advance for us to do.

Problem then, and the one which demands the warning, is that we’ve largely only ever failed to do much if any of the good things He prepared in advance for us do. No, instead we’ve mostly chosen to only do the wicked things that He never intended for us to.

And it’s because of that difference as found between a life lived for His will as opposed to the we’ve lived for mostly only our wants that we have now the promise of eternal life as met alongside the warning of eternal death.

My point being that both of them aim at the very same hope and that, as such, we shouldn’t always be so quick as we’ve become to embrace the promises that make us feel good while rejecting the warnings that are probably only there to help us see just how far we are from actually being the good that wouldn’t have to always rely on our feelings to try and make up for our many failings.

Because again when hope is the goal, well then why worry about how we get there?

No, we’ve just become convinced that our feelings matter more than they do. And we should know they don’t because of all the times they’ve led us astray and left us lost along the way. For indeed, many aspects of truth will hurt. But at the same time, well the truth shall set us free. And thus we see that pain and misery can be catalysts to the freedom we seek.

And again, if freedom is the goal, what does it matter how we may feel about whatever He might do or use to get us there?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold