Day 3813 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Ephesians 5:15-16 NIV

Wisdom’s wins

For wisdom wins, but only when wisdom wants what is perhaps the wading through the unwanted loss of a life left to waste as won within a walk as aimed through a world in which to lose is to laugh as that is all that most of those all around seem to know how to do when faced with the chase to waste a life that’s been now so wonderfully proven a life already wasted. Yes, wisdom is what will win the day, but friends, we can only share in the victory should we set our sights upon carrying out the call as rang from the hill upon which a life was lain.

Because only in our so doing can we begin a sharing in the wisdom won within the loss of a life that went on to win life for those however many might still come to see that story as something worth forgoing the gaining of glory for the giving of the same instead.

And simply put, that is not at all something that this world will ever understand as it’s something of a perfect blend of honesty and opportunity, humility and responsibility, destiny danced with destruction as demanded always if something is to ever be built. For indeed, even to build a mansion the ground has to at first be unsettled so as to pour foundations that act to ensure the coming structure a solidity that will prove able to withstand what’s coming.

Problem is we have no idea what’s coming.

Rather we, at best, only vaguely remember what’s already happened whilst too only faintly comprehend what’s currently going on. And this ongoing lack of understanding is what’s left us standing so often so still that it’s perfectly reasonable to ask one another if we’re still here. Are we still living, breathing, a people being made better by the breath as all taken within this life? Or are we rather only so caught up in the hope of something better to come always only later that we, like many, simply know only to take what’s here and now for granted?

As if we’ll always be granted another chance to redo later what we always fail to do in the moment in which we could have.

You know, I’m really tired of those, all those could have’s, and would have’s, and should have’s, and have had’s. It’s all become this existence in which we just act as if tour guides taking strangers on a behind-the-scenes look at this museum of our lives as if all our life’s been already lived and we’re just here focused on collecting our dividends as if deserved from all we’ve already done.

Friends, what have we done? Who have we become? Is what we’ve done that’s defined who we’ve become truly all we want to do or be? Can’t we see that today is a gift given in and for opportunity?

Or rather do we still only see our common hatred of responsibility?

Or don’t we realize that we simply cannot have one without the other as neither are mutually exclusive but are rather literally only made possible because of the presence of the other?

Indeed, we cannot have opportunity without responsibility also being present, and nor then can we fail to live responsibly and expect to be given more opportunities to do so. For what sense would that make? Why would God continue to give us days only to watch us go further into the ways of forsaking His Way, and denying His Name, and contending against His fame and pretending that it’s okay? What is okay about our continuing to live as if we deserve more opportunities, the more of them always wanted as we know well we need them because, well, we know we didn’t make the most of the ones we’ve already had?

Doesn’t that strike anyone else as the least bit odd?

That we live this version of life in which we shirk as much responsibility as humanly possible only to then find ourselves feeling always so regretful and unfulfilled that we ache for more chances to do what we could have, should have done when we had the first chance?

It’s madness!

We’re each given so many opportunities to do something that makes a difference, and a potentially eternally meaningful one at that, only to let them pass us by along our way to wishing we hadn’t done so and find then, always only later, a wishing for all of these do-over’s that a life of guilt only ever gets in the wake of making enough mistakes that we simply can’t ignore them anymore.

And yet to ignore is to breathe to this fallen humanity. It’s all we know to do. We ignore absolutely everything we don’t want to see, don’t wish to hear, don’t think we need to know. And honestly, that last one might be our biggest problem. Because looking at us and how we walk, how we talk, what we talk about as we walk alongside those who themselves have so little so say in the aftermath of a life lived hiding from their own opportunities to be responsible, you’d think we know everything.

In fact, just ask! We’ll happily tell you all about all the stuff we’ve figured out.

Just then never know what we don’t know, now do we?

Which is why we’re all still here so surrounded by what are billions of people (who are the opportunities) who are in need of the hope a few of us claim we’ve found (which is the responsibility).

Alas, we, as we’ve been talking about a bunch, we just stick to small-talk and podcasts put on by our favorite influencers, each chosen through a highly detailed and supremely selective process in which our ears listen for what we want to hear and then inspire our lives to just keep tuning back in because we like what we continue to get.

But friends, if all we’re continuing to get out of life is a whole batch of missed opportunities alongside a continued hatred of responsibility, then I’m afraid all we’ve got to show for our time here is nothing but a pair of itching ears.

Because honestly, contrary to what’s clearly common contention, intention, invention, truth is that ain’t much about life that’s about us. I mean, as of today, we’re all still but jars of clay that God has made to store His Spirit within. And yet still we somehow manage to live and walk and talk as if we’re only without the same. For still we say things we shouldn’t, only realizing it in regret. We do things we shouldn’t, only noticing it in guilt. We don’t do things we should, something only ever known in the wake of making another mistake.

And we don’t say the things we wish we would have, and that because of the fear we always manage to find in such things as humility and the failure that it seems to always make room for.

That is why we’re afraid of humility, is it not? Simply because it looks to us like failure, an outcome seen from inside a pride that refuses to lose anything?

Friends, what are we losing that our pride can’t notice is being lost?

For again, it’s no secret that we all hate the very idea of responsibility as it seems always to be nothing more than this overwhelming set of rules and expectations that combine to require this ongoing upholding that all but demands we adhere to this strict limiting of what’s elsewise always seemed quite a limitless and thus perfectly unbridled life.

A way of life we’ve all clearly gotten used to living.

We see this every single day as this world itself, though denying Scripture and thus failing to learn from it, ironically enough manages to act in just such a way that actively fulfills it if not perfectly supports it!

Because all around us people are indeed going “from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived”, each doing so in order to continue making it seem perfectly acceptable, if not utterly expected and roundly applauded to be living this kind of life in which so many are “lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power.”

A people we’re expressly told to “have nothing to do with.”

And yet we do everything both with these people, and sadly, most of it only to please these people. In fact, we’ve all tried so very hard for so very long to please people that all we know to do in life is only what other people have chosen to do. And thus we too live only to hate everything from rain to responsibility and then whine when the flowers die and opportunities continue to pass us by.

Again, don’t we understand that we can’t have opportunity without responsibility?

And indeed, why is that we love the first but yet loathe the second? And moreover, why is that we can't ever seem to see that we can't have the first without the second?

Because to take advantage of an opportunity we have to agree to the responsibility of taking the opportunity as anything other than another taken for granted. After all, in order to get the most out of an opportunity, does not one have to appreciate the opportunity for one that they perhaps shouldn’t have? And doesn’t the fact that we shouldn’t have all these opportunities help us to understand that we should approach them with the sort of personal responsibility that seeks to make the most of them?

But friends, can we make the most out of anything in life if not for some sense of personal responsibility, accountability to this opportunity we have to make the most out of this opportunity we’ve been given?

For sure, opportunities are indeed quite always exciting. And yeah, responsibility is often quite less than anywhere near as enjoyable as the kind of life we’ve come to live in which we don’t really have any responsibilities that we daily uphold, leaving us free to make as big of a mess as we might enjoy making all under the arrogant assumption that we’ll have another chance to do better later after someone (Jesus) comes along and cleans up after us.

Or at least that seems like what we seem to almost always assume.

But what if responsibility is what makes an opportunity best able to live up to its potential? I mean, can something be as great as it can be if we don’t give it everything we have in making sure it gets there to that best? Can’t we then see the responsibility we owe to every single one of life’s undeserved opportunities?

My friends, we simply can’t afford to keep taking this all so lightly. After all, is it wise to keep living that kind of life that only keeps finding either missed opportunities or the shirked responsibilities that likely caused our missing them?

Can we truly afford to continue thinking that’s in any way okay in light of how bad the world’s getting and how good we proclaim Christ to be?

There’s some sort of violent breakdown in communication that’s somehow left us actively living as if we’re going to make it to Heaven whilst also remaining willing to do so very little to seek for that same outcome for others. And indeed, as I said yesterday, at least for this life we’re living right now, the opportunity matters more than the outcome. And that’s because if all we focus on is the outcome, chances are we’re going to miss all sorts of opportunities to better ensure it comes out the way we hope.

Are we truly this willing to just hope others make it to Heaven?

Or should we be so desperate for them to know they have that chance, as known in their coming to know Christ as their Lord and Savior, that we too ache to awake to pick up that cross again and scream into the streets yelling about how horrid we’ve been but how great He is at forgiving all that we keep on finding needs such a merciful kindness?

Friends, that’s why Jesus died for us!

It wasn’t because He didn’t really have anything else going on that weekend. No! It was because He wanted us to be with Him in Heaven. Question then is why we don’t want anyone else to know about it.

And sure, I highly doubt that any of us would readily come right out and say it like that, but friends, turning a blind eye to the sin this world is living in, or even going so far as to affirm and applaud it, it’s saying the same thing!

And no matter how you slice it, that is simply entirely unacceptable.

Why?

Because Jesus died to help us see that we all need to do far better than we have. He showed us the cost of our having lived so lost in this life in which all we seem to still prove able to find is, again, reason to hate responsibility and thus take opportunity for granted.

Friends, the point is that we all have a chance to do something that has an impact, that makes a difference. And judging by the way the world’s going, different is pretty much exactly what’s needed. And we have a chance to point people at the One who can make that difference. We have a chance to tell someone about how their Father loves them so much that He went to the grave in order to get them back. We have a chance to literally turn someone around from a life aimed squarely into hell’s flames and to do so by speaking the Name that is above all others.

And yet we let all these opportunities pass us by because they can literally only ever be genuinely upheld in a life of responsibility.

Look, it’s true that nothing is forcing us to do what we don’t want to do. We all know that because we’ve all lived that way and we see the world still living that way. But friends, what opportunity can that bring? To what outcome can that lead? What’s the prize waiting to be won in a life lived so foolishly as to avoid responsibility and thus take for granted every opportunity we have to make a positive impact in someone else’s life?

Do you even realize how easy it is?

Just look around!

This world’s in such bad shape that it’s almost impossible to not do something that’s decent enough to stand out and be noticed.

Alas, seems even to do that we still have to try. And that seems to always be the exact point in which the questions start.

Is it worth it? What will they think? What might they say? Won’t they hate me? Isn’t that a little too judgy? Should I say the truth when I know that a lie will go over far more smoothly? Won’t I have another opportunity to uphold this responsibility at some time later on when I’m perhaps more ready, better prepared, more akin to living responsibly?

I think the only question that really matters is why are we still so convinced that we have all this time still to come in which we can do then what we’re afraid or unwilling to do now.

Friends, we’re living a life in a world that’s giving us the perfect canvas upon which to paint His promise. For He promises such things as peace and hope and love and life. And well, there ain’t much of those or being done with those around here these days. We have the perfect chance to stand out so easily and there make a difference that carries with it so much meaning that it can’t help but make our lives matter.

We have a golden opportunity to live out the wisdom spoken of in the Bible that seeks always to walk and talk in the humility that affords us the ability to uphold any opportunity we’re given to be what this world needs to see before they’ll believe.

What then are we showing them?

What do they see when they look at us? Just more of themselves? More of this world we’re in? A reflection of hollywood or congress? What do they hear from us? Jokes from some comedy movie or the latest talking point mentioned in some press conference? What do they see? What do they hear?

Will it make a difference?

For in the end, well, that’s why we’re still here. To both continue being made different through the process of sanctification and to show the whole world what that process is accomplishing in the way of such things as the hope and peace and love and life that this world just doesn’t have and simply cannot provide.

Again, we have the perfect opportunity to tell the world about Jesus as there is so much that He can free us from that’s still being done in this world. Friends, the days are most certainly evil, this much is made clearer by the day anymore. What are we doing about it? And if we’re not combating it, as we’re called to, then how can we ever say with any truth that we even care as to the outcome?

If we’ll not reach out and do or say whatever it takes to try and pull someone from the flames, then we just might know far less about Jesus than our mouths often say we do.

For salvation isn’t a gift won in words. Rather it’s an opportunity upheld in our realizing we shouldn’t have the chance to do so, and acting accordingly.

And yet, judging from my past, no, wisdom isn’t something I should even be able to imagine, let alone imagine I might grow to comprehend, not considering the glaring lack of any action taken toward it, let alone in it. Same goes for all of us. And yet, here we are still! Question is why are we here?

And well, if we still don’t know the answer to that then we must have missed the point of why He came.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold