Day 3878 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

2 Timothy 2:22 NIV

For or from

Such is the question sure to be asked whenever we determine to do something different in what is a world vastly cast into this common contentment of doing what’s continually amounting to a whole lot of nothing. Only our doing something will seem to those doing nothing something so strange that it might in fact so utterly shift their stall into an audacious gall to assume we’re the ones losing our minds. And this is bound to become quite the stage for what may well prove a pretty precarious difference of opinions.

Because this world clearly holds to this suggestion that we’re all best to stay lost inside the insinuation that the world itself is going in a fairly decent direction.

And those many who’ve bought that lie will mostly find that anyone who does indeed delight to leave it behind are themselves the only ones blind. For after all, who in their right mind would leave behind the way of life that everyone else is seeking to know only more of? Who would refuse themselves the luxuriant experiences of the commonest of all existences? Who would deny themselves the delights in which most are so delighted that they can’t find any harm being done?

Indeed, who would thus all but choose to harm themselves in what can only be seen as a way of life lived to lose the life that everyone else has come to love?

Who would flee from what the vast majority are fleeing for?

No, the real question, and one not ever asked for a daily increasing number of reasons, is why would you not flee from what the vast majority are falling for?

Because that’s in truth all that’s happening in terms of all these normal commonalities so cherished by our communities. In fact that’s the only real reason many find for any sense of common unity amongst those who are basically seen as mostly only enemies due to their doing the same things for the same reasons seeking the same prizes as everyone else is here. It’s simply because we all seem to understand that those who walk with those around them have this depth to safety that can always be assumed.

For it’s something that even Scripture talks about. Blessed are those who have someone to walk with as, should either of them fall, the other(s) can be there to help them back to their feet and continue then along their journey toward wherever the both of them are going.

Problem is that there aren’t all that many who are truly all that interested in where we’re going.

Rather most here are lost in this war spent fighting against the reality of where they’re going. And granted, that’s a war that does seem to make at least some sense. After all, hell sounds horrid and so it stands to reason that we’d all do all we can to convince ourselves that we’re not doing anything anywhere near horrid enough to actually end up being shown to that horror.

But in the end it’s going to come down to God’s opinion alone, and seeing as how He sent Christ to give His life in light of the many failures and faults found within our own, well, I just don’t see how that debate could go all that well.

He literally suffered so that we could be free and yet we’ve all refused to suffer because we thought we already were.

Thus we’ve each known a way of life spent denying both Christ and thus the cross.

And it’s that way of life that we’re all called to flee, for then an obvious reason why.

It’s one of what is a kind of spiritual immaturity that still seems to see nothing all that wrong being done in all that’s being done under the sun. Or at least in the eye of the beholder that is. For indeed, each of us are mostly only beholden to the way of life we’ve come to live in response to what has long been a series of choices made at the inspiration of who knows how many voices and/or vices that have each sought some sort of sway within the way that we’ve walked.

We’ve all truly followed so many paths seeking so many prizes and so much pride that there’s just no way we could get back home even if we knew where it was.

Issue is we don’t even know when we left as instead we’ve kind of all pretty much thought all along that home is wherever we are.

But should home be something that moves with us or rather that basis that calls us always back from wherever we’ve gone?

See, it’s that kind of question that has become for me a solidity in regard to my understanding that it’s probably best that it’s never again my understanding that’s allowed to lead the way. And nor then anyone else’s either. And why is that? Well, because if I’m to the point in my life in which I can see at least some of the many mistakes that I myself have made in the wake of what were once choices I chose because I thought them the right chances to chase, then I don’t have much reason to trust myself anymore.

And if I can’t trust me, then why would I ever trust anyone else, especially those many who are truly living as if they’re not doing anything wrong?

Friends, the Bible tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

We really going to waste our lives debating over how we might not be one of the all?

No, that’s what He’s here calling us to flee from. It’s that kind of spiritual immaturity that has people honestly seeming to still believe that they’re not in the wrong nor then prone to the same. But friends, truth is that we’d be amazed at just how little we get right. In fact, I think it could be justly argued that even the scant number of things we somehow don’t manage to utterly screw up are only so close to perhaps being right that it was by sheer accident.

For all of human history, our own personal stories included, they read like a manual on how now to live a life.

And yet we walk still amongst that same many who have always contended that their contentment is what makes evident that they’re doing nothing wrong. As if momentary pleasures are the kind of personal treasures that we should be seeking. As if monetary value is all that can prove of any worth in life. As if what we have matters more than who we are. As if who we are is basically only what we have. As if time is money and thus worth nothing because money is obviously worth more.

You know, because it’s far easier to understand the common fear of watching a bank account empty out than it is to assume that time is doing the same as, well, the clock always manages to keep on ticking.

So what do we have to worry about?

But you see, that’s what worries me!

How are we so often so unworried about everything? How has it become this possible to live an entire lifetime so unalarmed that we watch on as millions do nothing in regard to the biggest separation ever defined for man? Guess it’s because it wasn’t defined by man and so maybe we’re just kind of upset that He didn’t ask us for our input.

But can you blame Him?

I mean He’s watched the entirety of our lives unfold and so He knows better than anyone just how ignorant we are. Ignorant of the better He’s always had in mind. Ignorant of the better He’s always asked us to be. Ignorant of the scope of forever, which, granted, is quite the expanse that’s quite hard to measure considering our weird ability to what’s Ironically already overlook the existence of time.

But still, He’s placed eternity in the human heart as we all feel, or at least have felt, this curiosity as to what’s coming when we’ve gone wherever we go from here.

Issue is that nobody really talks about that anymore as, well, seems most folks are all but planning on staying put. And that even though we all, at least hopefully, do understand that we’re all going to die. That’s what worries me! It’s that we see so many not at all worried about what happens when we do. And sure, I get it. I understand that this life is a long time, longer for some than for others, but still, a long time. We all get a lot of time and thus plenty of experience in this place.

But friends, what is it about this place that has us so usually living in preference of its pursuits? What does this world have that we can’t do without? Having never gone without anything in the world, how do we even know whether or not we could survive? We’ve indeed become so accustomed to things like drive-thrus and grocery stores that we’d not have any idea how to even feed ourselves if they were to vanish.

What happens to us when we vanish?

That idea worries me!

And that both because I know something has to happen but also that I don’t have any idea as to what. And that because I’ve known so much of what this world thinks that most of the time I struggle to think about it too. And that because the world doesn’t think about it and calls fools those few who do. As if it’s stupid to look ahead? As if you’re an idiot to contemplate your death?

It’s the one thing we’re all promised in life!!

Why not then spend at least some time thinking it over?

If not because thinking about death is usually only allowed to amount to our thinking it’s over?

For that’s what the world seems to assume. That’s why so many are driving so hard to find their best before they leave. It’s not because they necessarily agree that whatever happens to be here is actually what they’d truly consider best. It’s just because we all know we’re all leaving and want to experience as much of life as we can before we do.

But what if our leaving is to life?

See, that’s the downside that so many seem to never see in regard to living a life all but completely unworried. It’s that maybe we’re not right. Maybe this isn’t life. Maybe we are alive but only in what amounts to a sort of trial basis to see who among us is to be found worthy of the full experience. And well, how could we be found worthy of more when the most we seek is but all we’ll leave? Does that not kind of lambast the potter?

Are we not all but mocking God by thinking that all He can do it all we can see?

Is He to be pleased by our living as if life itself can’t exist beyond this life we know?

Or do we even care about what pleases God anymore?

Looking around I think it’s incredibly safe to say that no, most truly don’t care about what pleases God. Most don’t even seem to live as if there is a God. Why then are we supposed to be so worried about keeping up with them in their doing of whatever they’re doing as is being done as if He who holds the keys to life and death isn’t watching?

Oh, that’s right, it’s because they’ll think we’re idiots for walking away from what we’re all literally leaving behind.

Yeah, we’re the weird ones because we’re getting the breakup over with and saying our goodbyes ahead of time. We’re the fools. Simply because faith is foolishness to those who are perishing as they’re often the ones who are doing all they can to remain convinced that they aren’t. And indeed, it takes no effort whatever to look at the world and what people are doing within it and realize that there is no understanding of death to be found.

Rather people are living as if they’ll be here forever.

And they mock those who live as if we won’t.

But friends, what do we stand to gain by continuing within the way in which the world is going? What benefit is brought by our buying the lies that keep us blind to anything of everything that’s better? What’s the point in our pretending that the world’s not ending nor then all of life within it? How are we to ever be bettered when we remain so tethered to a world tearing itself apart searching for what obviously isn’t here?

What do we earn by refusing to turn from the evil desires of youthful immaturity back toward a life of childlike faith?

All we stand to gain by continuing along within the worldly way is only more of whatever the world will continue to think is worth enough to remain not worried about their having no contingency plan in place in the event that they’re wrong again. I want that plan B. Why? Because I know my tendency to be mistaken. I’ve made more mistakes than I’ve meals I’ve eaten. If possible, I might have made more mistakes than breaths I’ve taken.

I’m done trusting in me to understand enough of everything to ensure that everything goes the way I think it should.

What can I know?

What can any of us know?

What more is there to know than all we think we already understand?

That’s the difference between youthful passions and childlike faith. It simply boils down to where the effort and energy are aimed. Youthful passions are placed upon this pretense of our lives lived in pretend thinking that what we see is what matters most simply because it makes us feel all warm and fuzzy to be found holding whatever everyone else either already is or really wants to as well. But a childlike faith is more concerned with believing in more than such settling for what’s mostly more than enough to most.

In fact, a childlike faith refuses to believe in something so limiting as enough.

For why so hamstring hope as to imagine it existing inside something prone to measuring?

No, hope is always best left entirely unbridled. And yet that’s the problem! It’s that this way of life the world’s taught us to live is one lost in love with all that we think hope has to be. Is hope truly something we have to see? Does hope need to have a weight we can carry? Does it need something tangible in which to prove itself? Or is not hope always better just a little further?

Friends, my point is that there are four things found in this verse that are not in any way pursuits of most, five that are all but completely ignored by all but the entire world. Righteousness, faith, love, peace, and yes, purity. Those things are anymore nothing but empty words often used as if only clichés simply because they are indeed so hard to find that most have simply given up even trying.

This world has surrendered their hope of experiencing them, and so they’ve likewise resorted to mocking those who’ve not yet agreed that they’re all just beyond reach.

Sure, they are beyond our reach from down here where we’ve fallen.

But with God nothing is impossible.

And that’s the question that each of us have to ask ourselves. Are we willing to keep on believing in the impossible? Or are we just going to agree with the rest of the world and settle for that which seems plausible?

Friends, this is the hard part of faith as it’s the part that calls us away from not only what everyone else is living to know but in fact the vast majority of what we’ve known as well. And it is hard to walk away from the safety of what you’ve known into the uncertainty of what you don’t. That’s why so many won’t. But folks, this has never been the numbers game the world’s convinced itself it should be.

There is rather only One who will determine our eternity.

Should we really do then as most are in what is a life that denies Him in every possible way?

Or should we rather do as most sadly assume impossible and spend out the rest of our days shaking the rest of the dust that’s been allowed to gather on our soles and our souls as we drift off toward the dream that is the is that promise that most around here think is foolish?

Will it really matter what they think when we’re home? And if their mocking, their hating, their persecuting and threatening won’t matter then, well then why should it matter now?

No, we’ve played that game for long enough and it’s time now for each of us to choose the direction we want to go. And yeah, odds are we’ll end up taking it quite alone as most of those around us just won’t ever be able to allow themselves to see the hope we have because it’s the opposite of the hope they seek. It’s okay. And that because Jesus showed us not only that He knows how to survive the grave, but even a life spent tired, lonely, mocked, beaten, bruised, hated and heartbroken along the way.

We can survive them all the same. And that not because we can endure them on our own, but simply because we don’t face them on our own.

Rather we get the joy of walking home with the Savior who died to set us free from a life lost in every sinful captivity. And it’s a life spent growing in every impossibility that sadly most will never know is nowhere near as unlikely as they’ve long thought them to be.

It’s actually just as close to each of us as turning around and laying down what was never a life to begin with.

Yes, that’s where eternity begins.

Right where all the many evils we’ve known have finally been introduced to their end.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold