Day 3870 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

James 1:27 NIV

Beholden

But alas to anymore only the god of public opinion and a fear of everything from personal responsibility to even public security as is often awarded to only those already well in line behind the billions of those blinded by such betrayals to our created calling as politics and offense. Yes, these days we bow before a horde of hopes all being held as if carrots by those intent to lead us both further into this world and its ways and thus further from the hope for better things aimed toward brighter days.

No, we seem to know nothing any longer of those blessings spent yonder beyond that line of seeing mankind as either friend or foe.

If only we could know that they’re perhaps to be for a while both, and thus too both our calling and that in contention. Indeed, I believe there ought to be something of a grating, a grinding, a finding of oneself the problem, the issue, the challenged challenger challenging the currents currently corroding our culture. There should be contention. There should be tension. There should be something that seems to say or show that we are on our way up and out of this hole that we’ve all well had our hand in digging so low.

Do we? Do we have any evidence of a waning interest in regard to this world and its ways within us? Do we have anything, be it a thought, a theory, a rehearsed answer or even a single word we can say, show, do or be that would help whomever may look be able to see that we are indeed doing as asked and coming apart from our lives lived as a part of this place in which we no longer feel the need to remain a part? Or is rather the only part we’re playing that still played by millions, billions of what are merely extras in some hollywood horror show on tour?

Sadly it seems that most days we see that circus coming so near us that it is us. We’ve all become so devoted to so much that’s destructive that we may well have no idea just how far gone we’ve gone. We may truly have no way of knowing just how little we know of what matters most thanks to our now having come to know so much of what doesn’t matter at all. We may have no idea just how unhelpful we’ve become due our having become so numb as to seek daily only further ways to plumb the dregs of those too dead in their dance with depravity’s many delights.

We may not even be able to sleep at night, or at least we shouldn’t be.

But no, no instead we see a people all but thriving on all that’s going both so wrong and once there only further off the rails that we seem to have forgotten the One who paid the bail and left our jail so we could follow behind in what then became lives lived for something other than riches, fame, friendship with a world enjoying every ounce of its every chosen enmity against the God they so clearly care so little to know.

And no, I don’t care if that comes off as a bit too judgy. I can’t care. I just can’t because we’ve already given up too much and we’ve not near as much time left as we think we might to spend our time worried over hurting feelings. There’s lives to save, and though we may not have the salvific power ourselves, we ourselves claim to be those who’ve come to see that He is good having tasted His hope and found in it our home as is held on the other side of forever.

Why then worry so fiercely about anything on this side?

For days now we’ve been talking about words and how they carry with them either life in at least some sense of fullness or merely only still the very same emptiness that we’ve all allowed inside. My question for this time though is why we continue to let it in. Why do we continue to let our time grow thin as we worry ourselves weary over only all that’s only worldly? Why are we so caught up in what’s dragging us down when the fact remains that we’re only still down here because He’s both work for us to do and a work in us for us to further realize is already done?

Alas the only semblance of something so finished that we can seem to witness around us or within us is just us being done ourselves.

We’ve quit.

We’ve stopped caring about what matters and have chosen rather to daily dive to again revive old debates and current confusions. Indeed, it seems as though we’ve grown beholden to the god of political opinion and here our only service is only that as is given unto sharing their division via the very same platforms and energy that could be, should be given unto sharing something, saying something, showing something that actually does something good.

And indeed, this idea has weighed on me in increasing gravity over the past several week’s happenings. In just a few short days we’ve seen leave some of the best of us while the rest of us only continue to show the worst of us. And there’s just something different about all of it. Something is changing, maybe not in the world and perhaps not on the large scales we so often hope to see. But still, even if it’s only in me I have to say that I do see so much so differently.

And yet so much of what I see is nothing but heartbreaking.

You know, among my many rapidly growing despairs, and I seem to find or feel a new one almost every day as I sit and watch the world and its way, is this fear that millions are going to look up one day from sharing some post or making a comment on some social media hate feed only to see a stranger parting the clouds and coming down to leave them behind.

Indeed, I am terrified of failing Him any more than I already have. But maybe even more than that, I’m terrified at watching so many people who are for now alive choose more of that life of death as they stare into the endless abyss that is politics and social media and every other mainstream lie being pumped into our minds and once there emptying our lives of any possible concern as to the scope of eternity.

No, we care only about what some celebrity said or who some athlete is dating or what some politician did or making certain that we ensure that everyone we know knows everything we think about everything that the rest of a fallen and still falling world cares about.

But you know what this world doesn’t care about?

Life.

Love.

Mercy. Healing. Hope. Joy, purpose, meaning. No, no we’ve lost all but every recollection as to the true nature of those blessings and now watch them still daily die the death of a million missed opportunities to both seek Christ and do whatever we possibly can to encourage or inspire everyone we meet do the same while we’ve got the time to try. Not that it’s on us to find Him. But rather that it is merely on us to trust that He found us.

But friends, how can we dare claim He’s snatched us from the fires we’ve started when we’ve resolved to daily devolve into continuing to treat one another like our enemies?

And you may say that we’re not doing such a thing. No, we’re loving others by trying to help them see through the corporate lies swirling in and around our lives. We’re only sharing where we stand so that they can maybe come share in our stance. We’re merely trying to make a difference by oddly enough doing nothing different from what millions of others are wasting their lives doing. Yes, we’re just trying to save them from falling prey to a life lived as a political victim, right?

Don’t we see that so long as we give this garbage any of our time or intention all we’re inventing is a continued contention against the God of all creation?

For He did not create us spend so much of our lives worried so much about political lies and social media divides. In fact I’ve lately thought back to that scene seen in 1 Samuel in which the people were asking for a king like those they’d known in that life they’d left as was lived as slaves to the same. And indeed, He tried so hard to warn them then about their request for a king. All because He knew what it would mean! Told them that these “leaders” would all but steal their sons and daughters to use for what would basically become only cannon fodder found on the front lines of fighting to retain his or her power and/or ensure the growth of their nation’s borders.

Indeed, God saw what was to come and knew just how dumb we would become in regard to our utter devotion to the very things that are keeping us numb to everything from hope to home.

And yes, still it seems as though sadly we would indeed rather live still as if we’ve a home here that we’re then to defend or fill through whatever means most may deem to be necessary. And thus we’ve come to exist in this constant conflict as waged in comment sections and all the polarized and thus polarizing polaroids we share there.

Why?

What are we accomplishing?

How are we helping? Is any of it getting in any way anyone ready for Christ to come? Or rather is not almost all of it only keeping those around us from getting to know Him before He does? Friends, what hit me last night as my family around me were recounting the latest evidence of the substance of something so unhelpful that it hurts just to hear it is that it takes the same time. It asks the same effort. It’s accomplished on the same platforms and demands we agree to seeing it as holding the same importance.

But then again, I guess it doesn’t.

For anymore who we voted for and why everyone else who didn’t is wrong is seen as far more important than eternity, than salvation, than freedom as found in forgiveness and just how much of it we’re all given by the hours that we instead continue to waste as we instead continue to chase what only robs us of our chance to grow in Christ and once there do something that actually matters.

Don’t we see that we are not by any means anything free when our daily lives revolve around a political party or some cell phone war fought in a comment section?

No, we are all part of the problem as we continue to feed the very beast that is devouring us one post at a time as is often only one more discussion about our place on a political spectrum. And all the while Jesus is readying His steed and planning His path to part the clouds and come back.

I can’t describe how it feels inside to witness so many care so much more about sharing divisiveness than they do hopefulness. And sure, maybe I’m being judgmental. Maybe I am bias. Or maybe I’m just tired of watching a world play in to the very hand that is so clearly set on dividing us, distracting us, destroying us. Yes, the devil still does as the devil’s always done. For still he comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

And yet rather than lifeless bodies lain strewn along the sidewalks we see instead his work accomplished in those agreeing to have their time stolen to worrying about what doesn’t matter in the scope of forever, those being murdered in regard to eternal life as they live and die for this life alone, those destroyed in what are lines already lining up to wage what is a war that never needed to happen this way. Because no, there is another way, a better Way.

But don’t you wait to hear all that much about Him on facebook or in some argument about politics. No, I’m becoming convinced that on that day when those clouds do part so many people will know all there is to say about Trump and Obama and Biden and whoever. They’ll know all the facts of all these figures.

And yet they’ll know nothing of Christ simply because He doesn’t wear a suit and tie or sit behind some wooden desk in some oval office.

He rather wears a robe stained by the blood He shed to set us free from sin and shame, and too a crown of glory upon His head as earned for having so saved all of us who were and perhaps still are all but entirely and eternally dead thanks to our being so entirely empty as we’re filled with a dying world instead.

But yeah, who cares about that? After all we’ve our own crowns to win, right? We’ve our own glory to achieve, don’t we? We have our own problems to solve and troubles to fix. We have plenty of lack in our own lives, and not then enough time to worry about widows, orphans, those lost living as unwitting victims to division and hatred and their corporate lack of hope. Indeed, anymore it would seem that we do have a message, that much is true, but far from being one about life it’s instead that one that brings only death.

And sure, maybe not now, perhaps not tomorrow. But one day there will be endless sorrow as seen upon the tears that stream down millions of faces of those who see that of Jesus and just don’t recognize Him. All because they thought Him unimportant as surely He couldn’t offer us the thrill of fighting over our opinions or ignoring our neighbors or hating strangers just because they wear a certain hat or drive a car with a particular bumper sticker.

Indeed, anymore it would seem that down here water it thicker and blood means nothing unless it’s that of those we hate.

All the while God looks on as we continue on being ever so polluted by a world already in ruin. And as much as it wears on me to see this world continue on this way, I can’t even begin to imagine the heartbreaks He must feel to look on us and see us more worried about how we feel about our opinions or perspectives than we do those who are suffering, hurting, lonely and so very lost. Yes, I can’t fathom how much it must hurt Him who died in our place to see us die in the place and in the ways that He died to save us from.

Can’t imagine how terrifying it will be to one day look up and see those clouds start to part and only then finally realize that time is up and we’ve got nothing to show for our life’s work except a few pointed photos we’d shared alongside the tears of an untold number of those we could have spent that very same time and energy trying to help, learning to love.

Run that risk if you want, it’s clear you’ll have plenty of company. Just know that all we do in this life does weigh upon the scales of eternity. Just seems to me that that reality is far bigger than who someone voted for or trying so hard to prove a dissenting voice as wrong as we ironically never see ourselves to be.

Make no mistake, one day we will see every ounce of our guilt as we watch the story of every missed opportunity we had to seek His glory play before us before we’re escorted away from the only hope we have. All because we chose to follow a world not following Him and too tried only then to only please those same who so clearly think that God lives in Washington DC, or is set to run in his stead in the next coming election. Yeah, go on and seek your god in a political affiliation or some sordid sense of superiority as won within some war fought on a screen.

But don’t you dare think that you’ll be so able to pretend you’ll be surprised when you only end up failing to find there they key to eternal life.

No, He’s told us where that hope is held. And well, it ain’t down here! Rather that key that will lead us home is held in our holding the hand of He who held our nails as we reach with increasing urgency unto those growing many who have so little left in which to hope. It’s in fighting to win souls to Christ, not our friends to our side of some mythical aisle. It’s in showing those around us so much love and mercy while we’re here that many think us so weird that they may well grow to wonder as to why we do what we do that is so different from what the rest of this world does.

Yes, we are called to keep ourselves from being polluted by the world and to strive to help those who need it while we’re at it. But friends, how can we claim that we’re helping anyone when we’ve so failed the former that the latter just don’t matter? How can we say we’re that kind of clean when all our everyday means is something contained in memes or our still saying things or doing things that are so very mean to those same who are widowed, orphaned, wounded by this world in some way?

Indeed, can we truly afford to be found hating those He’s called us to love?

For how will that help us to ensure we ourselves are ready to recognize Love when He comes?

To Him we shall be beholden, and too to those He said were just as hungry and hurting and lonely as He was. Not because He still is but because His people are. And well, we simply cannot help show this world the love He has for us when we treat anyone in this world as if they’re not worthy of it.

For love cares not about our many differences.

Love just asks us to be different.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold