Day 3869 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

James 1:26 NIV

Unto the beholder

Such is where all but all of life is all but all defined, in the eyes of the beholder. We’ve often heard this string of words spoken in regard to beauty and how what is to one beautiful thus needs not any agreement from any other as beauty is something that is to be quite a unique perspective as purchased by a single person through what are their eyes and likes alone. And while this is often something considered from an outward adornment point of view, I contend that the same can be said of that which is inward too.

For contrary to our culture’s considerings, or rather lack thereof these days, beauty is not but a skin-deep discernment.

No, beauty is a trait which plumbs fully to the core of a person.

Right to the soul.

Alas this is where we all so scarcely go in search of either what or where beauty could be. No, rather we again as people who exist upon the superficial must thus seek for such a gift as beauty and purity and morality even upon the surface of things seen and assumed. And while this makes always for quite the easy undertaking as it allows eyes and minds to meet in their middle and determine that which merely looks good, or even sounds good should the ears be awakened and allowed a say, what I fear we’re finally finding is that there’s more to us than we’ve often considered.

Perhaps even so much so that all that’s thus been always left all but unconsidered is the same as maybe even the entirety of life as lived without much if any of all this emptiness we continue to both find and, even more, feel.

But again we continue to settle for seeing what’s empty, saying what’s empty, even allowing ourselves to live lives that are themselves quite empty inside simply because the doing so is always the easier path to hold. But can any of us argue that it’s left us holding nothing but the very emptiness that easy often is?

I mean sure, easy has long been a really good friend. It’s afforded us a great deal of comfort and perhaps even wealth for that which is easy is often what wins the world. And yet while this hope of having here more to hold or more who hold what are our priorities and pursuits as themselves things of as much beauty as we try so foolishly to make them seem to those who look to and through a life merely only ever seen, nothing has changed in that gaining the world doesn’t mean a thing.

For what is there here that is worth all we must let go to make what’s here seem to be worth anything at all?

And moreover, what have we found as of yet that’s in any way proven a fine replacement for the soul we’ve had to let go into such places as assuming beauty only in faces or truth only in placation or power proven best in a six figure vocation? Have any of these truly worked as well as their ease has allowed the work? For we can find a way to agree with all the above, and quite easily at that. But my question is what all of us must we have had to lose in order to let go our hope of all that’s so undeniably more?

After all, anymore even our religion has all but dissolved into not much more than words spoken seeking the same ease and comfort that our eyes still so clearly seem to see some reason to keep looking for.

What are we looking for? And what all are we willing to do to find it?

And what all have we lost in order to find whatever this is that we’ve already found?

What I fear I’ve found is that I’ve mostly only lost my mind seeking to find this way of life spent easy, safe, comfy here inside this assumptive suggestion that life’s to be best presented in the same fashion as those who think such things as fashion can allow for such things as modesty to come in and go out of style. I’m in fact now sick to my stomach of all this endless regeneration of our nations and devotions and commotions and confusions.

I just want a simple life settled upon the substance of what truly means the most without then allowing that which means anything at all to be seasonally replaced by things that likely mean nothing whatsoever.

I mean honestly, should such things as beauty change as much as we anymore consider they might? Does that which is true get sometimes confused and start to think of even itself as maybe wrong? Are modesty and morality things to be so subjected to the subjective reality in which we anymore assume them seen? Is religion a matter made best in the moment seeking there to hope for the best in regard to whatever matters most?

Does honesty honestly argue amongst itself? Does speaking truly prove who we are? Can words define the entirety of what we have inside?

What then of lies?

See, oddly enough such dishonesty and deception are anymore things that many would consider beautiful. Not that we’d come right out and define them as such. But considering as how they’re so vastly popular and in fact these days almost all but preferred thanks to how vastly the truth still hurts, we’ve thus become quite devoted to them. We both seek them and serve them. We give part of our day to allowing our hearts to say through mouths wide open whatever it may be that we may think another wants to hear.

Because we find fear to be hideous.

We feel that speaking the truth, seen anymore as mostly offensive by most, is thus something that opens us to being ourselves considered as ugly by those who find the truth the same. Practicing our religion is something only done for others to see when we think they may agree it something beautiful, and thus hidden when we realize that it’s not something they want to see before blind eyes. We’ve even fallen to the point of thinking about how goofy we must look to those who see us praying, imagining their mocking us as they’re seeing us in a moment spent, as they believe, merely talking to ourselves.

But if we only pray when people aren’t looking, or only act pious in public so as to please those we’re trying to impress, or only wear crosses around our necks and never on our backs then of what good is any of it? Of what worth can our walk prove when it’s only something we do either in solitude seeking to not be seen as the losers and the freaks that so much of society still seems to think those who are religious really are or rather practiced in public all while keeping to the public’s preferences?

Yes, of what worth is our faith if and when it’s found kneeling before man, seeking to serve men, trying to please people or simply keep from offending the same?

What can we truly believe of the Name that is above all others when we allow the beliefs of all others to in any way impact our own?

And that of anything from beauty to belief?

You see, what I’ve come to realize is that we’re all racing so foolishly through life that we’ve not much ability to stop and think clearly. In fact I don’t know that many of us know how to think at all, at least outside of the common norms in which we’ve so clearly sought to be found. For indeed, all of us see everything as this substance apparently so worthless that we simply cannot care as to what we do with it, to it, glean from it.

Nothing means anything anymore.

Rather we seem to know only to take everything for granted. We live as if we’ve always another day coming, more words then left to say, a better chance to learn then how to pray better, walk better, believe more and serve deeper. It’s always something best done later. And that simply because we’re either too busy or too lazy to begin now. And that simply because we’ve become so much of the world that the world’s endless seeking for comfort and the violent subjection of everything to a person’s preferences has become our own pursuit for subjectivity.

There is no objectivity anymore. We’re even to the days in which truth itself is again something seen as beautiful by some and ugly by most. And so instead of humbling ourselves unto the point that we can see that we’ve even lost the ability to see the beauty of honesty, we’ve rather chosen to pursue this ideal of living our own truth. You do you. Live your best life. Look out for number one. You go girl.

Ok, that last one doesn’t really fit but I was just rolling!

And still, the point seems proven in that we’ve all these idioms and clichés that seem to mean all but the very same thing and that is that it is us who are best to remain always the beholders of everything from beauty to truth. As if a people so perfectly prone to imperfection as proven in our plethora of past mistakes can truly become those who never again mistake anything for what it isn’t through eyes that clearly know well how to see what’s not there.

And no, I’m not saying that something someone else sees as being beautiful or important or worthy then of their time and appreciation are wrong. I’m just increasingly worried that some of the things that we have deemed to be so very worthy of our time and appreciation may not be what we’ve tried so hard to make them seem.

Because honestly, if something was truly what we believed it to be, why then would we still have to be trying so hard to get others to agree?

That is why we talk so much, is it not? Is not our endless conversing something done in the attempt to make our thoughts into those thought by others? Are we not trying to plant the seeds of what we see and assume into the hearts and minds of those we talk to, hoping that they’ll there too take root and grow into an agreement in regard to what we’ve been seeing, assuming, believing?

Indeed, are we not all utterly terrified of perhaps being the only one who sees what we see, does what we do, believes what we might?

See, we’ve been coaxed into buying this idea of everything from beauty to truth that tells us that these things are matters made best, or at least best proven in quantity. That we need another to agree with what we see before we can fully believe in it ourselves. That we need to tell someone else about what we think or how we feel in order for it to be real. That we have to always keep talking so that we don’t lose ourselves in the flood of a world overfilled with ideas and suggestions and this endless input and influence that we’ve all allowed for.

That we all contribute to.

Does the world really need to know everything we think? Do people really need to hear all we feel the need to say? Do we really need people to agree with what we believe in order to validate our belief?

Or are we just finally to the point of ourselves practicing our religion for others to see?

Is that not why we’ve turned worship into a concert? Is it not why we have what are basically broadway plays put on in place of simple sermons spoken from a pulpit? Is it not why we refuse to talk about certain subjects?

Is it not why more know of John 3:16 than they do this James 1:26?

Is it not because we’re all terrified of coming to find that something we’ve fought to believe may be as empty as the hearts we likewise don’t want to consider may well be as empty as the words we so often speak? I will never be convinced that there are not those who talk just to hear themselves speak. I will never be convinced that all the talking we keep hearing is as necessary as those speaking seem to assume it might be.

I will never be convinced that religion is something best conveyed in words.

Which is weird considering how I write a couple thousand every single trying to find a way to convey the many lessons and healings that He has me finding in His Word and will.

And yet I’ll never quit because I cannot help but see the beauty in it. And I do not need anyone else to agree that it means what I daily pray it does. I don’t need anybody to validate my faith. Don’t need anyone to agree with my perception of beauty. I do not want anyone to see life the way I do because I know the life I’ve lived and the things I’ve seen as beautiful or important or special or valuable or worthy of the praise I gave them.

For I now see so much of it as worthless.

And so don’t follow me. Don’t trust me. Don’t believe me.

Rather get in the Word yourself. Think your own thoughts. Find your own faith. Live your own life.

Please!

Why?

Because this world wants to do all the above for us. This place wants to tell us what to believe, what to perceive, what to agree is beautiful and all the more that simply isn’t. But friends, that’s the problem! It’s that what this world currently considers to be beautiful mostly isn’t. And how can I dare say that? Because this world has replaced faith with religion! This world has replaced truth with deception. This world has “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.”

This world not only sees bad as good and good as bad but is in fact all but ran by those who “call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”

Why then are we still listening to them, trying to please them, seeking agreement from them, learning from them?

We are the beholder of everything from faith to beauty as both are matters of such a personal gravity that we should never seek the involvement of anyone else. Simply because giving anyone else a say could well prove a sway away from what we once believed.

That’s why so many are walking away from the faith. It’s because society’s lies seeped into their minds and there managed to convince them that the truth is a weapon that only causes pain, that it’s not nice to call things ugly, that it’s not kind to hold one another accountable, that it’s hateful to try and help someone see the healing that all of us need.

And so rather than hold tight to those truths we’ve rather exchanged them for empty words offering empty hopes placed in empty promises spoken by empty hearts that are as worthless as the fear we still feel in regard to the people we still find to be for some reason so worthy of telling us what we should agree is beautiful or important or special or elsewise worthy of our time and attention.

We’ve made a religion out of listening to people and following the same.

And yet we sit and wonder as to why the world’s circling the drain!

It’s because we’ve found worth in all that’s worthless. We’ve agreed that we see beauty where beauty isn’t. We’ve agreed to live this life speaking only lies so as to not offend those many offended by the truth. We’ve walked away from God to walk alongside the world.

Simply because we can see the world and thus think it easier to trust that they know best where we should go and who we should be and what we should think and what all we should never believe.

But friends, it doesn’t matter if every single one of our 8.2 billion people managed to agree with what God has not defined.

We are never changing His mind.

No, rather His Word will always remain truth. Modesty will always be beautiful. Humility will always be powerful. Contentment will always be the goal. Hope will always be best kept up ahead. Discipline will always be the only road that leads to better. Moderation will always be the only way to live healthier. Effort will always be important. Honesty will always be valuable. Morality will always be magnificent. Forgiveness and mercy will always be needed.

And salvation will forever remain a gift given only to those who can dare admit they need it.

And God will always be God no matter what we may do or who of us may say different.

It doesn’t matter what we say. Doesn’t even matter what we do. Truth is we’re all doomed thanks to our having found reason to go along with what the world has tried to accomplish in their endless attempts to overthrow our Father and thus usurp His power and thus erase His authority.

No, our only hope is found in admitting how worthless we are without what Christ did on our behalf. And yeah, the fullness of that truth is hard to hold.

But once we can behold the beauty within it, well then we’ll finally have something worth saying. For the truth of the Gospel is the only thing worth anything.

And again, it just doesn’t matter who says different.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold