Day 3862 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Luke 18:25 NIV

To just go

Honestly, these days anymore have that becoming only more my only hope. To just go. To be found so ready to leave whenever His love says it’s time that I can just leave it all behind as if nothing is being left that either wasn’t to be lost or that won’t be coming with me before long. And yet the problem arises through the treasures of our eyes and these hearts that hold them so dear that we don’t know how to imagine a life without them, let alone believe in the one to which they can’t come. And that is such a problem that to just go is, well, something that we just can’t.

Yes, we just can’t, at least not yet.

And why?

Because unto us there remains too much to life to fit through that coming eye of that needle that we’ve all known about for long enough now to know that, no, not everything that we think means something can actually mean the something we think it means. For in order for something to mean something the meaning needs to remain at least long enough for us to know for sure. But friends, that’s just it and indeed the reason that we can’t just go.

It’s that we don’t know.

Now sure, we’ve all our theories. We’ve our many hopes and their endless quandaries. We’re all rather stuck inside that approach to life in which we live as if to live is to leave, but rather than leaving in terms of going it’s instead a matter of leaving no stone unturned, no handle untried, no door unknocked and no lock not picked. We’re quite incessant within our insistence that we’re to try the entirety of this world’s substance before we go wherever we must.

And yes, anymore most of us do in fact live as if to leave is something we must do as in have to as in not a choice we would make for ourselves but instead one that’s forced from outside of our freewill. For, well, truth be told we’d rather stay. We’re pretty well beyond okay with what’s become of this life we know. We’ve got quite a few things we like, some we love, more we’ll leave and no reasons as to why we should.

After all, who in their right mind would so gleefully gallop away from what is a world filled always with more to gain?

Who would learn to refuse the chance to perpetually continue what is the chase to what isn’t going to waste so long as it comes in waves of want and wish that seem to fit right where we want it? Indeed, anymore it seems that nearly every life has become something like that nerve-wracking game we played back in the day. That one in which you have to fit all the little yellow pieces into their perfect places before the clock ran out and they all got popped out of perfection.

Yes, it was called Perfection.

And so too is our general approach to life as is being done within what is an express expectation of our ability to locate such an ideal location as this highly hypothesized best life that so many are still somehow looking for.

Indeed, even the rich and famous are still looking for something.

Kinda scary that not even they can find it, isn’t it?

I mean they’re the ones with the best means to find a best life. They’re the ones with the bank accounts that can more easily bankroll their belief in this life of such betterment that it’s truly better than all the rest. And indeed, there are a great many here who themselves remember nothing of rest, Sabbath or otherwise, as they allow next to no sleep to their eyes as instead they need them to remain constantly affixed to their lives and how they’re planning them.

That being to be perfection as is only afforded in a pride’s pretending that both we can and that life itself is not ending so that we’ve more time to prove it.

Yes, so many things are here proven in wealth and our want always for more. In fact it could be argued that more is all we want. And that it doesn’t really even matter of what. That what we talked about just yesterday. It’s this both publicly and indeed personally preferred pursuit of profit and power and prestige and popular platforms that probably produce all the above pretty nicely.

Or so I surmise through what are eyes that still see the world alongside a growing inability to see any reason for my staying thereof.

No. I’m rapidly draining of my intent on staying either in this world, of this world or even to this world. Rather my attentions have turned elsewhere as I look not at what people want anymore, at least not as often as I know I have. And in fact I’m even learning to stop looking at what I have and the more it is that can fit through the door of where I so hope to go that I’m increasingly desperate for more of what I have to do the same.

Just go.

Because I’m finally starting to realize that at least some of what I have is only had because I had the idea that the world wanted me to have in which I only wanted to have what another either already had or wanted to have for themselves. And it’s this endless measuring of what’s been a life spent competing against everyone for everything that’s left me with things that I once thought to matter as they meant the world to another only to have since had them and realize that instead they mean nothing and matter not.

And that simply because they don’t fit.

Granted, they do here in what’s long been a life of boxes to be checked and wishes to be wanted and wants to be wished for and people all around us threatening to beat us to them and leave us then quite unfulfilled yet again. For such is the game of Perfection. No matter how many are sold they’ve all the same pieces, all the same holes, same colors, same timer, same worry over not getting it done in a hurry that would elsewise leave us filled with pride for having beaten the system.

A system we created.

Seeking perfection.

In a life we’re leaving.

Within what is then an existence in which we know the clock is ticking down and thus of time we’re running out within which to find not only all the right pieces but to manage to fit them in their just right places before it all pops again out of place and we’re left with only to face a face in the mirror who tried once more to find and feel a life of perfection only to have, once more, found only a life of plenty of pieces that just ran short on time to fit them in their places.

And it scares us to death.

Because death is coming and, well, we’re not ready. We’re not able to get ready. We’re not at all able to understand the narrowness of the needle nor the cumbersome creation that is the camel onto whom we’ve packed our every prized possession and perfectly plotted plan and meticulously played hand as long thought to have held all the cards we needed to win this game of a life’s perfected.

Yes, we’re all quite well aware that here we’re not for long as we can, when the noise dies down at night and all that’s left is us and our thoughts thanks to TVs not telling us what to think and phones not telling us we don’t have to, yeah, we can almost hear audibly the ticking.

Almost as if all of life’s a time bomb ready to explode when we least expect it.

All because we’re not the ones who set the timer nor sparked the fuse.

Rather we’re just the ones living as if all that’s here is ours to lose.

And thus we find our hurry in what’s become a culture of hustle and hassle and hatred and horror as we seem to see only reason to stay as distracted as possible from both who we’ve become and what’s to come because of it. For indeed, twas never His plans for us to so prefer our prizes in a place that’s passing. Rather it was His explicit request that we, at His express suggest, store our every such treasure as hope and that in mercy and even pleasure in a place that isn’t so given to expiry.

Can you imagine how easy it’d be to just leave if we even had only the idea of our being pleased in that place in which even peace exists?

Yet rather we still seek our treasure of pleasure in this place in which all we have are the pieces of what we think peace is without ever the ability to come anywhere near finding anything near it. Indeed, it seems that that whole running joke of beauty contestants always yapping about world peace is in every way the cliché that it must always remain.

Why?

Because there can be no peace here. Why? Because there are too many pieces. Too many prizes. Too many possessions and their possession of us rather than them. See, that’s the line that we unknowingly crossed one night in what’s been a lifelong journey taken both to and only through the shadows of such things as selfish intent and personal placation. Yes, such is both our vocation and our vacation. We live for and look to the darkness to surround us so that we can pretend we’ve more time before day comes again and we there find that we’re not ready with anything worth seeing its light.

So we live at night seeking there our every delight as is demanded for life to be anything worth living for. And yet we’ve crossed this line in our mind in which we think that what we have can make us whole. But we’ve sought this so very much and for so very long that the very things we once sought to have now have us as is done in their holding our attention and their having our intention and their getting our invention of a belief in which they matter.

Because they don’t.

Nothing here matters, not nearly as much as we’ve made ourselves believe.

But that’s now the problem. It’s that we do believe that at least some things found here do matter at least somewhat. But friends, so what? What will it matter what we think matters when we’re not here to either prove it does or hope it can? What will anything mean when we’re granted to leave what is this life in which we’ve lived as if life itself was to be found in our ability to have found enough to fill our lives that our lives thus felt full and us thus fulfilled?

Yes, toward what can we hope to go when of life we only to know to have and hold what we’ll have to leave?

And is it truly best to live as if the leaving has a have-to sort of meaning? Or would it not be better to believe in that our inevitably leaving was rather a matter of something we get to do as in a prize to pursue?

I mean, truth is we’re all leaving this life one way or the other.

Why not then live it as if our leaving it is done unto something better?

But then again, how on earth can we do that when all that we estimate as to being better is found, well, on earth?

See, that’s something that God’s waved my way in waves upon waves in the years in which I wanted what I’ve had and only ended up either selling it off to someone else who wanted what I no longer did or just simply threw it away when came the day that I realized that not only did I not want it anymore but that nobody else did either. And it’s always been a strange feeling, one in fact so strange that I scarcely remember ever feeling it all that much.

Guess I was just too busy already being too distracted by the more stuff that I was looking to find to fill the gap and satisfy the space that was being left by this matter of waste that I thus wanted not anymore.

But indeed, it is a strange thing to come to see so much that you’ve wanted to much to only come about to mean so little that it’s found worthy of a garage sale, ebay auction or a simple hefty rip-proof trash bag. Yes, I’m now alarmed at all I’ve given my life to literally having already thrown away.

Doesn’t seem now quite the amazing thing to have given my life to getting.

If only we could see it before we set our hearts and feet to finding and holding it so dear.

Alas, we don’t. Nope, we don’t have much of that sort of restraint that restricts our time as it ticks unto the finding of what we can hope in forever as opposed to just for a moment. Rather we seek almost always exclusively the exclusivity of what matters most to us in the moment in which we’re focused on most likely only what we want as wanted because, well, it seems like it will make the moment mean more should we have it.

That’s why kids freak out at the checkout line. Sure, the rest of the grocery store is cool and you can eat just about anything you see, once inside the box or bag at least. But then, right there at the end, you look up and find yourself thrust into a veritable candy shop surrounded by all the sugar your tiny heart could handle, alongside a matter of time spent waiting for the line before you to be bagged up and bid adieu for the day.

All to hear mom or dad say no, you can’t have that as if you did you’d fill up on junk and not want what they’d prepared for you to eat seeking something far more physically nourishing than nougat.

What is nougat anyway?

Anyway.

We’ve all seen them as they scream and shout and find themselves filled with doubt that their parents really love them. For if they did then they’d want them to be happy right? They’d be none too willing to buy the butterfinger or pack of gum. It’d be a no-brainer.

Much like how we expect God to react to our every request.

Yes, give us our desert now! Let us do as we please. Trust us to know what we sees to be the best that it can be. Indeed, for after all, who could possibly know better than us what’s best for us?

And thus we have all this stuff sitting around us still taking up space not only around us but in fact within us as we still give it our time and intention seeking something to do with all this literal invention of a life’s meaning and mattering made in what we still think material can mean and matter. And we still throw fits when something doesn’t fit or we elsewise find a hole left behind that’s barren and empty.

Oh how we hate feeling empty as is most often done in our missing something or missing out on something or just simply not having something.

Yes, we want all the things that this life can give, just like those kids at the checkout who are about to be driven home and given a meal that would nourish them and help them grow as they learn to know that those of more wisdom might know best that what’s best isn’t the sugar that burns off or the chocolate that tastes good or the nougat that nobody really understands what it is.

No, they know best that life is only lived when we’re fed with what ensures the proper function of life itself.

And well, we don’t need all this excess to experience that. We don’t the sugar as is seen on screens showing us the better life another is living. We don’t need the candy that seems dandy as it dangles in a jewelry shop someplace. We don’t need no nougat nor peanuts nor poptarts but rather we do need protection, provision, a personal preference for our true betterment.

And well, who knows of those better than He who knows both where we are and what all we’ll have to leave if we’re to be where He delights for us to go?

And well, how do we know that it’s this other locale that He delights for us to be?

Because He died for us to get there, literally emptying Himself so as to personally fit through that place we cannot ourselves go and survive.

Yes, Christ chose the grave as the place from which to save because that is where we will all lose all that’s here.

Question is will we end up throwing our little fits over not getting all of everything we want just long enough that all we know to want is all we’ll have to leave?

Or rather will we be found among those few who do learn to live that life looking ahead to that divine table prepared for us before our enemies from which we will eat for all eternity from the endless goodness of a God so filled with life in all its fullness that not even death has anything to say anymore?

I’m tired of what I have to say. I’m tired of what I still try to think. I’m sick to death of this life seeking death through things that mean something but only for a minute or two. No, I want something that has a matter, a meaning that doesn’t fade or just end up getting thrown away.

Because I know that it all will. And well, why then live still for what stays behind?

Especially when all this stuff that so many just love so much will only prove it harder for them to hope in the promise of Heaven?

That’s why it’s hard for a rich person to enter His kingdom. It’s not because He can’t or won’t forgive. Not because He doesn’t want us to be with Him. It’s simply because we’ve learned to love too much so much that we live as if this stuff that we have is perhaps Him. That’s the danger of all Idolatry.

It keeps us focused on what we can’t keep, and that so much that we never learn to hope in what we can’t afford to lose.

Friends, the issue isn’t found in our having things but rather in the things we have having us. We cannot risk becoming so devoted to our many ideals that we leave no time or attention given unto our planning for Heaven. Because Heaven is coming and we are leaving.

All that’s left then is for us to see whether or not we fit through that needle that determines the size of the gate and just how much doesn’t get to come.

Please don’t live your life as if you have to leave. Live it rather knowing that you get to.

For that little difference is perhaps about the same size as the eye of the needle He’s talking about.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold