Day 3778 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

James 1:12 NIV

A love deferred

And that simply because of choices asked along that harder path we’ve thus seldom seen reason in taking. Indeed, the path toward life’s been deferred with that life lived and left to the wake of 13,685 yesterdays in which our, or in this case my, main choice was to always make the choice later at some random time we had in mind when life might prove either the choice to matter more or rather us more able to make it and not mess it up like all the times before. And indeed, our tendency toward catastrophe has inspired a great deal of deferral in life.

But friends, putting something always off onto another opportunity only shows we've agreed to discount the opportunity we have in the moment.

And well, when done just long enough this pattern will prove us out of both tomorrows onto which to defer our decisions and thus too chances to do what perhaps always needed done. Which, in this case, is to both embrace what's often clearly God's will as well as to therein persevere unto the promise made at the fulfillment thereof in a choice made not to deny the path, not to defer the decisions to be made thereon, but rather to push forward despite the difficulties and dangers as are always present in any choice, challenge, change or consequence.

Yes, we can this day face the bed we've made and both admit then that we've been well asleep on it and, in light of that, choose to rouse ourselves and refuse ourselves and recuse ourselves from that slumbered way of life spent always plenty willing to lose ourselves inside of both every delight we might like and too the denial of every decision we might be asked to make at what may prove the loss of something we’d love to keep.

Such as comfort. Or peace. Or the rest as found within a life spent doing nothing but. And indeed, we’ve all spent a great deal of life doing only that. Resting. Sleeping. Seeking only the path of such little resistance that perseverance was never an issue. Yes, we love easy in life, love it so much in fact that we despise anything that’s hard. And we despise all that’s hard in life so very much that we grow to simply deny any choices or actions that are requested of us in light of a life that was never promised to be easy.

No, we just bought that lie from the mind that wants it that way.

But friends, wanting something and getting something are two very different things. And thankfully, well, God’s always been far more worried about what we need than we even have in regard to all we’ve learned to want. In fact, His very will for us is to turn and repent of our many failures to care, refusals to try, choices made to give up the fight well before the fight ever even came around. Yes, His will is for us to return to Him and there be healed of everything from our every scar to our every choice made in laziness that we never learned to see as much the same.

And believe me, or at least believe Him in that the lukewarmth of all laziness is indeed quite distasteful.

So much so that He’s every intention to leave spat from the mouth those who He returns to find neither hot nor cold but rather somewhere all but dead in the middle.

And you really do have to see His point, I mean, is there anything worse than reaching for a nice cold glass of water or maybe something like a warm cup of tea only to take a sip and find this slightly warm mundanity that is a bottle of water that’s sat in the sun just long enough to do anything but quench your thirst?

And why is that? Because it feels something of a betrayal. We wanted this drink to either bring us some relief from the heat or rather to warm us up when we’re ourselves feeling a little cold and dreary. And yet instead all we get is some sort of disappointment in either water that’s just as warm as the sun baking our skin or so tepid that it couldn’t prove warm enough to melt snow.

Yes, it’s a betrayal of our desire for this thing to persevere. To stay either hot or cold. To measure up to either our desires or our assumptions of them being worth as much to someone or something else as they always seem to us. Can you imagine then how God must feel when His desire for us to live with Him in peace forever is only met with a strange disinterest as seen inside this indifference all but always willing to defer the opportunity unto another time in which we either might better need the hope of Him or life will have proven us needing no hope at all as it’s grown easy and safe and comfortable and all the other things we prefer?

I cannot imagine offering someone the promise of eternal life as bought by Christ who brought us the promise via the very death of Himself and only watch them dance in between caring and being so unwilling to admit they do that instead they do still everything that caused His suffering without then any semblance that they care at all.

And friends, is this not what we’re saying and showing any time His path unwinds into the winds of worry and war only to find us there running for home as built inside this belief that we don’t deserve to have to endure anything hard or heavy?

How much did that cross weigh that He came to carry?

And does not the fact that none of us physically know leave us plenty willing to carry the burden of our having to take up the version only borne inside such weights as having to wait or facing down worry and refuse to run away again? Can we not offer Him that much at least? A simple willingness to endure whatever He sends to draw us closer to Him? A heart excited to persevere as is done only inside difficulty as such is what best shows us unto an opportunity to show Him that we do care and will fight for what He fought for?

Indeed, this verse, as much as it’s one clearly asking of us just such a willingness and devotion unto His design and desire, it’s also one that fits well within what we’ve been talking about lately. It’s something of both a promise, as made obvious, and yet too written in what can be seen as a warning as to what’s coming. For the promise is evident in the bestowal of the crown of life unto those who persevere. But so too then does the warning seem to suddenly rear its often seen as quite ugly head.

Persevere through what exactly?

Exactly!

See, as we touched on yesterday, we’ve somehow or somewhere gotten it in our heads that the path laid out before those who call themselves Christians is one that’s to be proven all of the sudden quite remarkably easy and safe and peaceful and comfortable. Yes, we live as if the title of Christian is something of one of those yellowish orange Get Out of Jail Free cards from Monopoly. In fact, having now said that, we actually live as if Christianity is itself some sort of monopoly on a life lived easy in what’s the obviously preferred comfort of safety and rest and the tranquility we all prefer.

Did we just miss the Gospels? Have we forgotten men like Daniel, David, Abraham even? I mean, as much as being tossed into a free night’s stay with some hungry lions or standing before a hulking giant might have been hard to do and thus quite less than anything enjoyable enough to be found on anyone’s bucket list, how hard must it have been to walk along holding the hand of this son you’d prayed for toward what was a place in which you were willing to do as the Lord had asked?

Yes, how hard must it have been to have been willing to sacrifice your child?

Hopefully we’ll come to consider that one well before we meet with the God who did just that.

Why? Because that He did send His Son to be a sacrifice who did in fact lay down His life, well, it shows us perfectly just how much He loves us who’ve rarely loved Him in return. And Christ’s perseverance through that purpose shows us further the need now for our own perseverance if we’re to be found welcomed into the promise for which He died. Yes, He’s shown us what the life of a Christian might be asked to embrace.

And never once did He run away.

He didn’t convince God to put it off for a couple of days until He was a little more ready. He didn’t take the time to try and find some other way to accomplish the same outcome. No, and that’s because He knew there was no other way and that there was never going to be another day when salvation would be more ready to matter as much as it mattered then. And so He lowered His shoulder and carried the burden of a billion lives lived as if tomorrow was the best day to try.

As if tomorrow would be a better day to decide.

As if today wasn’t the right moment for us to also lower our shoulder unto the carrying of our own crosses as covered in chaos and consequence in the wake of a life already lived putting off until tomorrow the things He asked us to face long ago. And friends, as our days continue to go into the past, this request becomes all the more dire. Why? Because we’re all dying and so we’re running out of time to turn around and show Him that we care that He cared so much for us that He chose to die for us.

And to do so by never again deferring the choices He asks us to make. Not even those that ask we take stock of who we’ve been, what we’ve done, and yes, what we’re still to face along the way home.

But friends, that’s the whole point! He’s told us so clearly of His every promise right down to describing what the streets are paved with and how beautiful the gates are. He’s made it perfectly evident that Heaven is worth dying for! How do we know this? Because He did it! He died for us to have the chance to submit that change of address here and now in what is then a life lived as if we belong in Heaven!

Alas that way of life’s lived in perseverance not merely to what may be hard or scary but in fact through every such challenge as if the lot of this life’s hardships cannot distract us from the promise.

Yes, what if we showed Him that we wanted Heaven as much as He wanted us to be there?

What if we stopped worrying so much about the trials we’ll have to go through, the testing that He seems to insist on? Indeed, what if we just trusted His plan so much that we didn’t even stop to try and differentiate between trial and triumph? What if we didn’t care as to such measurings anymore? What if we stopped living this life keeping some silly sort of selfish tally as to the hard days we have alongside a disappointment that they number always higher than those easier ones we’d prefer?

Yes, what if we stopped allowing our arrogant preferences to prevent us from the perseverance He both demands but, even before that was made necessary by our many indifferences, simply deserves?

Friends, He who died for us to live should see us then live as if we’re not afraid to die should the storms we face ask such a price. Our faith should be of the solidity that it can withstand anything! Even death! And no, we may never reach that point in which we’re so sold out for Jesus that we almost ache for a trial or hardship so as to show Him once again that we won’t give up no matter how hard this gets. But we can at least try to stop living as if persevering is something of which we don’t deserve to be asked.

Can you imagine that? That a people would be offered the gift of eternal life and unending peace and still find reasons or ways to worry along the way?

My point is that which I’ve mentioned several times in these posts. And that is that it’s not what we go through that matters but rather where we get to go to that means the most. And that’s because there will be hard days in life, we all know this full-well having endured plenty of them already. And in fact, having already faced plenty of them, we shouldn’t be so adamant that they now all be behind us. No, we know that life in this world isn’t easy, and that, considering such things as the lion’s den, the Red Sea, the walls of Jericho and the Hill of Calvary, it may not prove anything even close for those who follow Jesus.

After all, His path here ended with being beaten, mocked, spat on, laughed at and left behind.

Where then do we continue to find this idea that our journey behind Him should be easy?

No, He calls us unto perseverance because there will be things in life that we have to push through despite how hard they get. There will be trials that test us seeking to help us see our many failures and flaws. We will come against so many storms along this ride that we should, at some point, stop worrying about whether or not we have our umbrella ready and just run for it.

Yes, run for home as if your life depends on it. Because, again, considering the cross, I think it safe to say that it just might.

Friends, let us not continue ahead so afraid of all that’s hard that we either try to put it off for another time when we assume we’ll be better able to face it or simply reject it outright. For the truth is that we’ll never be fully ready to follow Christ as His path simply asks all we have to give. And so too, continuing to reject His promise simply because of all it asks is definitely not the best way to find ourselves sharing in it being fulfilled.

No, if we want to be where He is then we may well have to go through what He did. And well, considering how crosses aren’t really used for anything other than making church buildings stand apart from the crowd, I think we’re getting off easy.

No matter how hard the road becomes.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold