Day 3882 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Isaiah 3:9 NIV

Unmasked

There’s become a clarity to our lack of care, an obviousness to our obliviousness, a defiance unto our furthered reliance upon the substance of what we then see as seeming to then be all the reason we need to sin with such a grin that anymore to our depths there appears no end. Rather we daily dive unto a deeper darkness in these lives barely alive looking for more of the hate and horror that’s become the show we both see and sell.

Marching onward toward an impending hell, the world as almost a whole walks forward knowing so well that they know where they’ve chosen to go that they hide it not anymore.

Instead we see all the time these masks falling, being left behind. It’s the continual coming of our unbecoming the anything better we could have striven to be, driven to see, yearned to find or simply fought to keep. No, we walk within a world that wishes not to keep anything of all that wasn’t even as decent as our furthered descent has come. And while I suppose that such is a symptom of our system’s continued progression, progressing toward a funeral procession seems not the direction in which we so should delight to go.

Indeed, looking around at where we’ve come to know what life’s allowed to be anymore, I for one don’t see much in which to delight at all. For what is the outcome of our coming so far out of our minds which were at once given unto such things long since given away as, say, hope, peace, happiness and the personal if not public pursuit thereof? Of what benefit has life become in this way in which we’re so numb to how dumb we’ve become that we become it only further by all but the hour?

Truly, where have we left to go in what’s become a life in which our sin doth show upon the faces of strangers and sons alike? How much deeper must grow this night before we turn and look for some hint of light to get us right and not leave us lost? How lost have we been to have chosen so much friendship with sin that we’ve ended up not feeling remorse but rather wearing it as if a badge expecting reward?

Why do we so follow a world so encompassed by emptiness, seeking our fulfillment from what is only filled with filth and folly?

Guess we’ve not come too far after all, have we?

No, in fact I both find and feel it safe to say that all we’ve found in deeper depths all this way now removed from those themselves removed from truth is that we sin more disparagingly, counting always of littler worth the wrath to be had in our doing as we know we never should. Daily we drive into a life in which we find only a people with unveiled faces gleaming with their gaining of only more reasons to remain so recklessly rebellious.

And each hour they tell us that it’s so much fun that there’s not a fear to be found in their plummeting so devilishly unto and then into the ground seeking to hear the sound of laugher as it pours from the masters of mischief and disaster.

For that’s all we want anymore. We want to enjoy ourselves, to reward ourselves, to applaud ourselves for having approved ourselves unto the doing of all in which we’ve come to delight so deeply that we can sleep at night through nightmares turned daydreams as seen in scenes painted with such little sense that I fear we really do like it like this. That we do enjoy this way of life given unto such enjoyment that we care not to restrain it, let alone retrain it.

No, rather we remain full-power ahead unto more of this life walking as those living dead. And we do it because we see a world that too has chosen to lose it, this every chance at anything better than this. In fact we walk amongst a many who seem to see not any way in which it can get better. For it would seem that no matter the weather nor the warning of it blowing both in and then us apart, no, entirely too many will never do as asked and come apart from lives lived as it a part of this place we are.

Simply because the same many seem to assume that our being here where all can do so freely as we enjoy so clearly has defined for them the delight of a lifetime met every hour of the day.

And yet looking upon their face it’s hard to feel that they’ve found much to live for.

Because anymore all we see upon those strewn around is but this countenance of the sad clown crowned with a frown in a life coming down following a soul all but drown upon the dew of a ground so ground to nothing that they know well the same is the same something that they continue to reap from a life in which only they weep but that only when none other can see beyond or behind the masks we wear to hide our fear of finding we’ve found only a life so drown upon doubt and denial that God must be at least feeling the first if not decided already upon the latter.

I do truly believe that such is why sin has become so celebrated.

It’s not that people truly believe that it’s worth as much as they want it to be. For I know well the highs of sin and the lows of shame, and no, there is not a semblance of fairness between. For sure, the sin is fun as it makes us feel that thrill of finding for ourselves this much anticipated, albeit antiquated, sense of rebellion and its reward. But the shame felt in having done what we perhaps didn’t want to have to do to have that view of what was but a minute or two spent in pleasure is so much the disaster we knew it would be.

And we knew it then as much as we then know it even more now. And that thanks to that fruit they picked from that tree that’s given unto still you and me our share in their eyes that were then opened to see the difference between the life of good and the death of evil. And though we try as hard as we might to force ourselves to live this life for only our every depraved delight, doing wrong still doesn’t feel right.

Yet we seem to be becoming a world in which the tables have become so turned that many do indeed put right for wrong and evil for good and lie for truth and truth the enemy of all.

All because the truth still stands there unblemished in record recording that it simply doesn’t have to be this way in which we’ve so sadly gone. Rather the truth tells the story of the humble glory waiting to be given unto those who cast their caste crown to the ground and turn instead back toward the home that this empty shell was never meant to be.

Indeed, the truth tells us that we’ve done wrong. But the smiles still on so many faces seem only to say that they know nothing of such a thing.

And so we’re each cast between this overwhelming discrepancy between the danger of doing wrong and the delight that feels nothing of the same. And we’ve each in fact lived our life like that. As if doing wrong was okay to do simply because it often not only looks alright but usually feels really good too. And it’s this continuous sense of our selfishness and its seeking of pleasure that’s become unto us all the treasure we know to try for.

But looking around at what we’ve won, well, I don’t know why we’re still trying for.

Because all we see are lies and losses strewn across a street filled with unmoved crosses still lying in the lives still lying to themselves about the necessity of picking them up and heading for home.

No, for most this is home and they seem none too happy to be here, stay here in what is a leap year with even extra time within which to find more of the pleasure that is the treasure that needs no map as the map we are and the heart knows just where to look.

And if you don’t believe that we’ve found all we’ve believed we could in a life that is truly as good as our laughter makes it sound, well, just look upon our faces and you’ll both find and feel the fact that we love living this flat. Because all you see is smiles for miles amongst the childs of chaos that we’ve come to become. So much happiness and joy being had by all that all they’re doing to find and feel the same must be then clearly okay for us to so emulate.

It isn’t.

Never was.

It’s just easy to forget when all we find is that everyone around us seems to enjoy their lives spent doing wrong. And indeed, this has become a topic of conversation in our family of late in light of the general directioning of a world vacationing from such calls as that to love one another, to honor God and have no other, to do unto others as we’d have them do unto us, to leave behind treasures that rust and place no more trust in the pleasure that busts unto those feelings of shame that seem so much the betrayal to our own better that we hide them ever further behind our having more fun and funds than any other.

Yes, sin is the way to win the world. And anymore we walk alongside so many wearing so many rewards and so much renown that we’ve no reason to say we don’t know all we need in order for our to be living the same kind of supremely successful and satisfying way of life they’ve so clearly come to live. Many of them are in fact all too quick to offer us standing invitations to taste for ourselves their chosen inebriations and inhibitions whenever we’d like to finally find the kind of fun they so clearly have.

And well, what more could we want than to wear the lack of fear that so many have found?

How easy must it be to live that kind of life in which you can do whatever you want and never apparently fear finding the cost? How enjoyable might that life feel in which fun and a daily furthered freedom is all you find? How carefree could that life be in which you live caring about only what makes you feel good and look the same? Yes, how rewarding must it be to be so free from such burdens as righteousness, morality and our personal responsibility to handle the both with tenderness and severity?

For make no mistake, this life over here spent caring so much about so much is hard. It’s often in fact so heavy that we feel ourselves breaking under the weight as we wait for the day when these miseries present will become things past that have then passed away. It is in no way so easy as that other side seems to live in what seems a life filled with so much that they love that they look as if they’re glowing with a kind of life lived knowing every pleasure known to man.

And thus far finding no penalty as of yet.

I guess that makes it make some sort of sordid sense. For after all, in a place where there is no consequence, well, why not live it up and do all of the all you want? Why not take pride in living that kind of life in which you so clearly continue to find all the fun and friendship and fullness that you could ever hope to have? Why not smile as you drift another mile in what is apparently a direction without danger? Why not enjoy this place as much as you can while you can?

Why not go so far as to live as if you imagine that you might be here forever in what is all but a veritable playground of sorts?

For indeed, there are here many games to play, much fun to have, an entire limitlessness to the ongoing continuance of this culture of so much confusion that everyone seems right to have chosen to take upon themselves this daily deciding as to what is right and what more is not as based solely upon the substance of things hoped for and the ease of hoping always in only what’s undeniably near enough to see. For we know it’s near enough to find because we can see the enjoyment of life on the faces of so many around us.

As long as we squint just right and ignore all the wrongs.

Because yeah, the world we’re in makes sinning look like winning. There are so many evil things celebrated in this place that we literally do have parades for the same. Books and movies and months and even lessons taught in school planting seeds that seek to continue these kinds of things into yet another generation of what will then be an even further degeneration away from delighting ourselves in Christ alone.

No, this world knows of no such delight as the hope of Christ. Rather He’s still seen as the enemy to most. And that He’s neither here nor has yet to return is why so many daily return to their chosen way as if the Way will never come. And well, if He ain’t on the way then why not continue on our own? After all, do we not hold the hearts that are the maps to every treasure and pleasure we delight to find and feel?

Why stop going back to what makes us feel so happy and whole as that?

No, again we see a world that is enjoying so much of itself that the losers are those looking elsewhere for their treasures and storing the few they happen to find the same. Just elsewhere. Somewhere else. Something else. Someone else in fact.

And why live like that, always putting off for tomorrow what we could enjoy today? Why agree to live in wait for what we cannot see as being the better He’s promised it is? Why give away a life like this live like that? No, there’s far too much fun to be had. Too much enjoyment to experience. Too much pleasure to prioritize. Too much self to satisfy, and entirely a plentiful amount of ways to do so successfully.

Yes, it is almost impossible to fail when it comes to pleasing oneself. After all, if the self is the goal then self knows best how to check off every box.

But that’s actually all many will find they’ve found. Sure, it seems for now this rather wide-open home filled past full with every sense and semblance of success and satisfaction that a person could crave. And indeed, we walk beside many every day who are absolutely living it up down here. We see the smiles, hear the laugher, witness the adoration and all but feel the applause as it rings through the halls of these walls that people have spent their lives building between them and better.

And yeah, seeing so many find so much treasure makes one start to wonder why not just give up on the worry and waiting for something different. I mean, they’re having fun! They’re finding the successes we all seek to have. They’re the ones who look so happy as they walk so carefree through what does seem a life free from all the weight and wandering. Maybe they are onto something.

But friends, we’ve been there. And yeah, it feels great for a moment and brings a smile to our face that lasts about the same. But eventually it fades. We know this. We’ve felt this. We know it ends and that that smile lasts not. For we’ve felt the shame that sends the smiles away. We’ve known the regrets that outlast the rewards. We have ourselves seen the darkness in our own eyes looking back at us at the end of yet another night given away to some seedy bar or filthy website.

We’ve been there.

Does it feel good in the moment? Sure. But does the moment last? Does not the smile fade? Doesn’t the remorse meet us in the morning? Doesn’t the guilt come unto the crashing down of all the enjoyment we’d built it all up to be?

Haven’t that way of life we seen enough to know enough that it’s not enough?

Because what’s the point in what doesn’t last? What’s the joy in an enjoyment that ends? Where is there any lasting purpose to be won by this world’s winning of what is a life spent sinning against He who holds the keys to both sides of eternity?

I understand that it makes you look and perhaps even feel as if you’ve lost out on life when you give your life to carrying crosses rather than living it as if it doesn’t end in caskets. But friends, it will. This life will end and everything then that we’ve either found or felt within it. If it is in or of this world, it stays the same when we go away. And oddly enough, the promise is that we will all carry our crosses just the same as the promise which claims that others will carry our coffins.

The only difference is when and for how long, and that’s determined by the testimony.

Problem is that the way of life so many live is testifying against them as it shows Him that they neither mind doing wrong nor then feel any need to do any better. And while I know that the human instinct is to try to be always happy and joyful and seek then the many enjoyments that bring us the both, the truth is that we should first be heartbroke over all we see of all we’ve been and all then the wrong we’ve done because of who we’ve become.

It isn’t that those following Christ have no fun nor enjoyment in life. It’s just that it never reaches the point in which fun or fame or fortune become the goal. If we find or feel those things, fine. If we don’t, well that’s fine too. Because the ultimate goal of life isn’t defined by that with which we fill it. The goal of life is to keep on living it.

And while this world is living a life that looks so fun and free, one day it won’t be. And while we’ll have missed out on that life wearing a grin as we sinned alongside billions doing the same, we’ll not have missed the narrow gate that lay all but hidden along the way.

No, we’ll have found life because we chose to live as if the Life found us. And while His path may not always bring a smile or find us cheered on in some worldly parade, it offers us a promise that no worldly acclaim ever can.

So choose wisely my friends the life you live, for a smile now may be but one more table He turns upside down.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold