Day 3839 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Isaiah 59:15 NIV

The destination

And indeed, it does seem as if we have arrived and that apparently, as is always the case, right on schedule if not ahead of time having both departed from wherever it was that we started and made too good time along the way. Just perhaps not good use of such. Yes, such is sadly what I fear most often anymore. In fact it’s not even the destinations at which we arrive in life as they’re always but stopping points along a journey that doesn’t, or at least hasn’t yet.

No, my worry is won within knowing one day it will and that I will then be left so thin in regard to time itself that I’ll only be able to look back on all I did when I’d had more and wonder, regretfully I worry, why I’d not done more with what more I’d had back when I had more to give.

More to live.

Yet what is life? What defines best this place of which we have arrived in what is a life? Is it alive? Are we? Sometimes it seems, but alas those sometimes are scarce and perhaps even scared at this point. And who can blame them? Yes, who can blame the better we never seek to be for not coming where it seems to be only so unwanted? Why should improvement intercede or encroach upon our couch as made of comfort and the caution we’ve found to not betray it?

Yes, why should the better that would ask we try so invade this way of life in which we’re all pretty okay with where, what, who we are this day?

That would be unfair. It would be unkind. It would lack the love that all look for in life. And we do. We all look for either things to love or those which might dare love us in return. For I believe that such is life itself. It’s this time in which we’re here so scattered amongst God’s creations meant to bring us so much beauty to behold that we should hold nothing back in our search for it.

Indeed, I believe that He made us to marvel at so many of His mysteries and the majesty in which they were made as defined by He from whom they came.

But more on that another day.

For it would appear that we’ve become instead lost in mere appearances and must at first then address where and what we’ve been if we’re to delve into discussing where it is that we might go from here.

Because where is here? What is here? Why is here still where we consider such limitlessness as hope and pious progress to be best found? Why is it that so many of us indeed seem so able to assume that found it we have? Have we truly found our fountains of forever’s fortunes as are said to be paid in peace and praise? To what have we given our peace? What all has been by us praised in this place?

Does what we praise and appreciate have even any peace to offer?

Wouldn’t seem so.

No, for at this day unto which we’ve finally arrived it seems that all that we’ve left here to find is just more of that which we met already, more of what we’ve already become. All because such is sadly what it seems we still seem to seek. Just more of what yesterday had stored as if treasure so terrific that we feel as if it somehow best to never try and better it. Indeed, such has become the baser belief for basically all of humanity:

To be both content with what we have and where we are that we no longer have any ability to even imagine anything any better.

And yet to always retain this rejection of the same should the winds of unwanted change happen to blow something better by.

Simply because while we all may believe in better, alas it seems only that we believe better than to actually fight toward it as such a battle is bought at the expense of both what we have and even perhaps who we are. And thus, as a people who are comfortably content with the current content of our constant contention, we’ve not the inclination as to the investigation of anything actually better. Much less the invention of the intention of actually getting there.

For it’s not all that bad right here, or at least that’s what we say through words anymore mostly unspoken as we rather let our anger do the talking. And indeed, it would most days seem that such is in fact sadly what defines this destination we’ve likely returned to today. And granted, it’s 7:19 am and thus pretty early on into what may come of the day lain out ahead of us and so it may be unwise to so surmise the outcome of what hasn’t technically come out quite yet.

But friends, against it would you bet?

No, that’s foolish money to so wager away what could be retained upon what the plenty of the past has proven so perfectly repeated that we’ve not missed the mark even once.

Rather we’ve perfected the art of rejection, of negligence, of being tense in the present tense as propped always upon the pretense of pride having paved the path that will lead us always right back to the perfection we think we are and that lacking in the lives others are living. After all, if we are as amazing as our ego has so calculated, then yeah, we can probably notice pretty easily all the ways in which those around us, who aren’t us, are thus too failing to find what we’ve apparently found.

That’s why so much petty judgement all around.

And sure, some of it may be being done in what are ways which left through the gate of seeking a righteous glory unto this story that is the life we are in fact living. Alas, somewhere along the way the track got switched and the story’s glory became ours apparently, and that because we became convinced that so too the story.

Yes, all of humanity has lived as if the story of life is, as one clearly written for us to live, also then one best for us to write so that it goes just right and thus right into whatever we want and whomever we hope to eventually become.

Problem again is that we’ve apparently arrived.

But, well, is this really what we wanted? Is the world what we’d hoped to find it to be? Are even the things we do, or those we don’t, are they accomplishing for us the better that we’ve all believed was worthy of our time and attention given unto us it getting? Or did rather better get the better of us as it took from us that ability to believe in it thanks to pride having all but commandeered the wheel and driven us back home having become too drunk to drive?

We are all seemingly pretty high on life!

Or least on ourselves in such.

Yeah, we live these days, and yes, every single one of them, as if we alone hold all the answers. And you can see quite easily why one would so love it that way. I mean, that kind of thinking does wonders for who we’ve become as what are a people so prideful that we do literally live as if betterment is but a betrayal of the best we’ve already become. And in fact long been!

Yes, we’ve all been pretty much perfect for apparently most of the past. In fact there’s rarely a mistake made by any of us. At least if you asked us. No, we don’t really seem to know anything of getting anything wrong nor then doing anything the same. Wrong is simply not a word we know, at least in our lives. Rather our understanding of wrong, having always gotten everything right, it’s something we’ve managed to eke out from the weak outside of our lives.

Because there’s no weakness in our lives. No, that sort of failure is only found in others. And that best by those of us who have gotten life figured out so very well that we’ve not messed anything up.

Indeed, as the plankless, well, we feel as if we owe it to everyone else to help with their specks and such.

It’s a kindness really.

And so you should thank us.

Really.

For we do live as if we’re so amazing at basically everything that even the truth is something we ourselves hold inside as is defined, apparently, by exactly what it is that makes us look as if we’re always living it.

Ironic, isn’t it?

That those who do the wrongs are the same as they who find the way to make it seem the right thing to do? Usually only because we’ve the right to do it? Indeed, this is a scene that we’ve seen played out time and again in life. It’s even one that plays out in the Bible, Paul’s writings to be exact. It’s found in that now age-old debate between having the right to do something and whether or not that something is the right thing to do.

And, well, wouldn’t you know it but somehow the answer has become always a resounding yes. Yes, that which we feel we have the right to do, or even the ability, such is always the same as what we then contend is the right thing. And sure, sometimes we dare seek out external validation through such adoration as praise and applause, but such is done so infrequently thanks to our never really needing it anyway.

And always knowing where to find it should we feel like looking for that extra little something that sometimes a selfish pat on the back just doesn’t really offer.

Such as confidence in whatever it is that we’re doing as is what we want to do without sometimes the ability to actually convince ourselves that we’re doing it right. Again, it’s rare, and mostly only happens when and with nobody watching. But when it comes time to take our triumphant life to the streets, yeah, you can bet you’ll not see any semblance of sorrow or sadness.

Perhaps because we’ve even become unable to cry in what is a life in which the destination at which we’ve arrived is one so antithetical to God that we seek to oppose Him in any way possible.

Even refusing sorrow all so that our ego can continue to live as if we know nothing of sorry.

Simply because such is what pleases us best. It’s that estimation that we’ve again gotten nothing wrong as always needed so that we can then contend that we need nothing from nobody. Even forgiveness. And indeed, such defines the destination we’ve all reached in life.

After all, if we are truly as amazing as our arrogance says we are, and too if life is truly about nothing more than our being so pleased, both with ourselves and thus selfishly, then indeed, we can do no wrong and thus need no mercy for wrongs not done.

And thus we’ve even managed to justify denying God’s kindness and compassion thanks to an ego convinced that we look better by not needing them.

What then?

Where do we go from here in what is this place in which it’s so long been about our glory and apparent grace that we know only that normal life spent hating the idea of the grave as it comes like a thief to steal away what we’ve all but succeeded in perfecting? How dare time itself promise to run out on what is an existence so perfect that pleasure is met around every corner, and in every store, and in every alley, and in every bar, and on every screen, and in everything?

How dare God threaten to steal from us what we’ve spent a lifetime working on getting just the way we want it?

That’s not loving. That’s not kind. There’s no caring in His so doing. In fact, we’ve each come to points in life in which we lived as if what Jesus did was offensive as it stood, literally, in opposition to what we’ve learned to enjoy doing in our lives. Yes, the message of the Gospel is thus still foolish to we who are perishing in this place so filled with pride that by the same we’ve all lived and died.

All because we’ve all but forgotten that pleasure is a one-way street and that we either thus walk it right or we simply don’t. Problem is that we’ve become convinced that walking it right is only done in a life in which we’re the ones pleased and it’s our only pleasure to do so.

Indeed, we have all lived that kind of life in which all that mattered was what mattered to us.

And we’ve all ignored God in order to get there.

My friends, where does that leave us if the life we know ahead is the same as that we’ve left behind in which God was left behind while we went ahead looking for always only what looked, felt or seemed the best to us? If God is always an afterthought, well then what does that say we think about Him?

And how can that possibly please or praise Him?

No, that’s the issue with our destinations as designed inside a life in which we live as if we can, and often already have, reach them. It’s that defined inside the mind that makes no room for God as is done because we know of His Son and what He did to set us free from what we’ve likely so hidden away that we don’t even remember doing it.

A choice made then back when we did begin to hide whatever of all we have because we knew that it would only make us look bad. And to people of vanity perfected, well, that just doesn’t feel good. And since life’s apparently all about feeling good, so much so that we trample daily such things as truth and honesty so that they dare not ever again get in our way of living this life our way, thus the truth of who we are and what we’ve done is something that cannot see the light of day.

Let alone the light of the Son.

No, rather we have in fact arrived at that time in which we love the darkness and hate the light as it shows for all to see all we’ve done and how it’s not nearly as wonderful as we’ve all long let on.

Problem though is that it pleases God to do so as He is all about truth and honesty, morality and modesty. He is a God of such supreme righteousness that He is righteous. He is truth. He is life! And thus we are either His, as is defined by our doing what pleases Him, or we’re living a lie in a way of life still lived only to please us.

There is no other path as, again, pleasure is a one way road and so we either get it right or we simply don’t.

But friends, is not our fear of the light coming even a bit too near only evidence that we’re indeed aware of mistakes made and failures found and thus foolishness the same? After all, as again a people of pride, who would hide what we get right? No, we only hide what we get wrong and we only hate whatever dares bring it to light.

And so we hate the truth and anymore even make sport of those who speak it. Why? Because we don’t live it. We don’t want it. We even think we don’t need it as we’ve apparently just about perfected our very own version.

Question is will God agree?

Will He see it our way? Will He be pleased by what we’ve become? Is He truly impressed with what He already sees?

Sure, we like to think so, but friends, that cross says otherwise.

And yes, we can continue that way of life spent hating that message of the Gospel as it dares define us as sinners who are thus in need of salvation in what is life in which we’ve long lived as if we’re the saviors sent here to save others from their imperfect lives as measured always against how perfectly we’ve lived ours.

Question is can we really save ourselves?

And too, even if we could, how can we save ourselves when it’s ourselves that find all these ways to only believe that salvation is unneeded thanks to the version of freedom we’ve found?

My friends, it all boils down to this: Who does it please? Everything we do, everything we say, even all that we think, who does it seek to please, to praise, to appreciate enough to magnify and marvel at?

As for me, I’ve known that life holding high the one I saw in the mirror. And yet I also know that he used to be the kind that would mock and make fun of anyone deemed so dumb as to live their lives trying to do better. And yet as someone who is now myself trying to do better, I know that I would have been one that I’d have preyed upon back in those days in which I didn’t pray at all.

And I’m trying to do better because I didn’t like who I’d become.

And I’m thankful that I know that I’m not there yet and that thus better is something I can always be.

And not because I still believe that better is a matter pleasing to me as it’s often quite hard to aim for and fight toward. No, I simply appreciate the journey and that He’s patient enough to give me one more day in which to try to get just a little closer to whoever it is that He made me to be.

And having thought I was made only to please me, I’m finding that I finally feel alive in a life spent trying to please Him instead.

Even on those and in those things in which I know I don’t as even those failures now find for me a reason to try harder.

But that’s just me. Where are you headed?

Or are you already there?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold