Day 3885 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Hosea 2:5 NIV

Born this way

And so we go this way. Because our way is the way of the ways that those who came and went before us went when they came to believe that they too should live only to go wherever they determined for themselves was best to be. And indeed, still do we even today live as if we ourselves know best what is both to the right and what more is wrong and thus to be left only unknown, unwelcomed, unwanted, and unwon. For to win within what is a world in which the best way is always that of another, well, we’re then bound to follow the other until we find another that looks better.

Because along this way best has always this way of somehow improving.

All while we ourselves have none of the same potential.

For rather we all live as if we’ve arrived at what is our potential’s pinnacle as purported by a pride reporting as if our lives are the stuff of both legend and lore and then best to be seen everywhere and in everything from the nightly news to the billboards strewn alongside the highway that is our way that we all but beg others to follow so they’ll know this amazing existence we’ve literally carved of ourselves. Carved as we’ve lived only to sell our wares to whomever may dare delight in the little we’ve left to offer.

This thought’s become something of a mirage within my mind of late. For days now I’ve caught sight of this stranger in the night passing so quickly by that I’ve barely the time to ask him any questions or learn of any answers. Rather he just keeps running in circles through what’s long been the racetrack inside my head as held for holding events so sporting that I myself both win and lose. And that all because I think I’ve won what sometimes feels something of wisdom, but also know of the time I’ve lost to thinking as such only to find that such never seemed enough.

And so I guess I’m left to contend that it wasn’t all wisdom after all.

Because wisdom is enough.

Alas, not for us. No, we’ve no such intention unto a contentment spent in merely learning the lay of life as lain outside the lives we’ve loved to live in lust and lore. For those are the very things that we’re living for! Every day we seek every way to be still the everything that everyone all around us wants us to be and see and give and take and believe is best or argue is worse than whatever yesterday was and tomorrow can never be but probably already is.

Indeed, some days it feels as if my way is a day or so behind as I find often that I’m feeling this reeling of fighting to keep freeing from the feeding of feelings and friendships as found and forged with those too gorged upon the gifts of gain in this world of rain and pain and problem all both evident but often denied or rejected. No, for we’ve learned to live as if we feel nothing of the shame we have, nothing of the misery we’ve met, nothing of the emptiness with which we’ve filled and nothing of the hope we’ve held but only as if a hostage.

And we’ve in fact learned to live that life in which we keep hope up at night inside an interrogation demanded of our insinuation that hope knows where to find itself and will finally break down and spill the beans if we manage to do the things that bring it the pain that it can’t withstand.

Then we ask it to stand beside us as we dive again into what largely remain lives driven to both find it more fully and yet to deny we’ve found a whole bunch of nothing.

A denial which is altogether easy these days. I mean, just look around at what all a misplaced or misshapen hope can have. Indeed, if we agree to do bad, to welcome evil, to want what’s wrong and hate the light of right then we’ll probably learn to sleep at night in what is a life in which everything’s so flipped that most hold evil for good and dark for light and wrong for right and peace for fight and flight for life and life for death, but that last one only if you dare cross the line and say something you shouldn’t.

Something like how we’re all repeat offenders breaking the same laws that we’ve broken thousands of times in what’s become a life that is itself nothing but a repeat of the past generations who brought us up to remain so brazen. We talked a bit about brazen yesterday and its brave boldness to betray goodness and mercy and salvation and the grace of forgiveness given to only those who don’t deserve it. All because to be so bold will always hold to this idea that we deserve something in light of our lives spent doing something that we feel so passionate about having done.

But only until the shame manages to catch up.

Yet then the problem is that it doesn’t seem as if shame has much of a chance anymore. For truth be told we’ve become quite the impressive runners, but alas only as those unraveled on tables upon which the hosts place all the foods upon which the guests gorge themselves. Yes, we’ve each become much the buffet from which all of they around us pull up daily a seat and set to eat whatever of us might be left from what they didn’t take just yesterday.

Guess then you could say that we’re living these lives as mere leftovers, and well, I think we all know that sometimes leftovers let you down.

And indeed, such is exactly what we’ve done. In fact, let downs are what and who we’ve become. Not unto one another, although there may still be one or two still hanging around who worry about such trivialities as being examples for a fallen humanity who hasn’t the humility to honestly care as to what anyone else is doing or why they might should consider it themselves. No, in all actuality we tend to come across quite impressively unto those pressed into themselves trying to impress the masses in classes taught in only those words that itching ears want to hear.

But those are about the only ones we can impress anymore.

And it’s because of that that I often wonder as to just how much and how often I’ve let God down.

Because He’s been always the One who’s heard everything I’ve said and seen everything I’ve ever done. He’s the only One who has given me the time and attention that I neither deserve to have been given, because I’ve only given it away to what isn’t Him, and that I’ve thus not given Him in return. No, rather much of my life has been lived in accord with the fallen around me, seeking daily their applause and approval as if bread and water.

A life spent living on the adoration of those seeking themselves the affirmation of a mankind so affable unto the gullible that the same is what we’ve all striven to be.

Just a horde of those held captive by those holding us captive by this promise to provide for us all we need if only we’ll do all they want.

Sound at all familiar?

If not, perhaps the opening part of this very verse from the trusty KJV will help:

“For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully.”

Yeah, you gotta love how some translations just come right out with it! And if you think ‘harlot’ is bad, well, you should check out what the NLT or ESV say about it. But, to save you some time, what you’d there find is “shameless prostitute” and “whore” respectively.

And indeed, those aren’t really the things of which we tend to think about the ways we’ve been taught to live by those who’ve all but been allowed to all but live our lives for us. And yet the truth is that such is pretty much exactly what we’ve done. We’ve each become so aware of the ways of this world that this world’s ways have become our own. We are in fact so very worldly that it’s all but impossible to tell us apart.

Which might make that promised separating the wheat and tares a bit of a pill upon the day promised already well on the way.

But that’s not really something we tend to think about in our way of living this life, is it? We don’t seem to really worry all that much about what may come at some point along this journey seeking mostly only our glory from what’s become a life so gory that it’s amazing we’re still here at all. No, we actually don’t seem bothered by much anymore. For there’s no words we won’t say, no stories we won’t tell, no lies we’ll leave untried, no truth we’ll not deny or debate, not a single way we won’t walk so long as someone somewhere holds something that we want.

As to why we see so many still so disinterested in eternal life, well, I’m at a loss on that one.

Because that’s the gift that Christ came to give and indeed gives still to whomever dares shed their sinful skin and step then on in toward living to please Him in the only way that such can be done. And what is that single way to please our Savior? To live as if we’ve been saved from a life in which we were born in dishonor and only raised in further depths of the same. To leave behind our old ways of living the world’s ways and do the new things that He himself said He came to do.

And do them He did!

So much so that in Him right is right again, light is light again, wrong is wrong again, and well, even when we die we can even then live life again. And indeed, there’s really nothing in any of that that sounds in any way all that bad. In fact is all seems to offer up such a simplicity to living a life decently that we almost couldn’t mess it up should we at least set our hearts to trying to do the better He created us to be and yet now has to call us to return to hoping toward.

Alas, His way is of such newness and novelty that we mostly seem mostly still unable to see any real reason to give it that try. For it’s a way of life that we know next to nothing about thanks to our having walked this far next to those who clearly want to know nothing of it. And why do so many want nothing to do with the gifts that He gives? Because we’ve got our bread as we’re daily fed upon the bounty of this world’s beliefs and betrayals. We’ve got water as poured from the pitchers that are those people to whom we look to keep leading us in the way they want us to go.

We have shelter as offered in the form of the money we make at the many jobs we hate but have to do anyway simply to afford to put food on the table, which seems quite ironic considering the bread I mentioned above (guess you can’t actually live on worldly beliefs and betrayals after all). We have a purpose as given us in place of the one we probably never knew we always had. We have a mom, a dad, a bunch of friends, some decent neighbors, a roof over our heads, a nice warm bed and a fancy car that will drive us anywhere we want to go.

But that’s my question, and one that I seem to ask all the time anymore:

Where do we want to go?

Who do we want to be? How do we want to live? What do we believe will be there waiting when we’ve left? Have we even any audacity left with which to imagine that we are leaving someday?

Are we brave enough to consider how close that someday may be?

Or are we still far too enamored by this world’s greed and gain to care all that much about much at all?

Just backing out of the rat race that’s running rampant in this place for even an hour and simply paying attention to the constant happenings will help you see quite clearly the answer. But again, to save you some time suffice to say that what you’d see is a people so woefully unraveled that there is basically no care left. And now that’s not to say that most folks don’t care about something as I’m sure everyone does. No, the problem is it’s just hard to tell what.

Because what we see unfolding around us is pretty much nothing but a continuation of the vocation of a prostitute. And before there can be any accusations of my being the first to throw that stone, trust me when I say that I throw it my way every single day. I am thankful to have the growing willingness to seek out my faults and the many failures they’ve found for me and continue to find for me. I am in many ways my very worst enemy, and if you don’t trust me, just ask my family.

They tell me all the time that I’m too hard on myself.

But friends, as far as I’m concerned, if I’m not then who will be? Because you see, the fact is that I too have lived that life of promiscuity in which I lived seeking for anything and everything with which I could fill my life. And I’ve in fact welcomed all sorts of things into my heart and head because of that. In truth, there’s not a day goes by that I don’t think back or elsewise find myself reminded of some of the many ways in which I’ve chosen to die to the better way of life that I have to say I know nothing about.

Indeed, I have no idea the many ways in which I could have done better, just know rather the many ways in which I fell in line behind the rest who themselves were blind by this idea that this world knew what best we could be, a lie with which we’ve all agreed simply because of what was being offered.

But that brings me back to wondering why so many are still so disinterested in what Christ gives.

I mean, I understand that this world has a lot to offer. We are surrounded by all sorts of glitter and glamor and it can all be ours if we’ll just sign up for this limited time offer. What’s the offer? Well, it remains basically the same as it always was:

“If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Which, let’s be honest, sounds mighty nice to a people such as we’ve become who are always starving for something from attention to applause.

“’If you are the Son of God,’ he said, throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” Again, sounds good to those who fear everything from pain to failure.

And then, most poignant of all, “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ‘All this I will give you,’ he said, ‘if you will bow down and worship me.’” Definitely the best sounding of the three offers as, well, who wouldn’t want “all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor”? How good would that look on tinder?

That’s the dating thing, right?

Anyway, “Jesus answered, ‘It is written: “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

“It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

And then, saving as always the best for last, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

But the problem is that such isn’t how the other book is written. For while all those things are definitely there to be found within Biblical Scripture, well they’re just not anywhere to be seen written in the book of social pressure or personal preference or prideful pretense or public policy or social media’s algorithms. No, those things don’t care about our denial of what is wicked and wrong. In fact, at least some of those things literally make their money on the back of what’s wicked and wrong.

And so thus it really does boil down to a simple matter of who we live to honor, or, and even more simple than that, whether or not we even care to have any honor ourselves.

And indeed, this is a hard thing for us to consider considering how we were raised. For we were born of a shameless mindset in which we grew only in the thinking that we too were here to do only as we delighted to. Our entire way of life has been lived doing only what we think is right, as always based only on what offers us the best reward, best here defined most often by that which is closest or quickest.

But friends, is that truly all we hope to get out of life? Just some quick payout or payoff? Merely some fast fun or public praise? Nothing more than just more of what we’ve already had?

Look, we’ve all experienced our share of at least some of what all this world has to offer and offers to freely give to any and all who do at least some of all it wants us to either do or at the very least turn a blind eye toward and go along with. But what has doing so left us with? Is it truly the lack of shame that we were taught it would bring?

Or are we maybe rather broken and that of heart in light of all we’ve done and just how little it ended up amounting to?

My point is that while we may have all learned to live our lives like this, this continuation of the many failures that our fathers have taught us to embrace if not enjoy, the truth is that there’s no reason for us to pay for their sins. God has made clear in His Word that children shall not pay for the sins of the parents nor parents for those failings of their children. Rather each person will pay their own debt.

Problem is we can’t pay it. And well, if we already can’t pay what we already owe, why then continue to charge against our souls even more?

No, it’s time to leave behind the wicked way of life that we’ve been taught and determine to do something different. And don’t get me wrong, such is by no means a forced issue as of yet. Rather we’re all free to continue doing as we’ve always done and will likely continue receiving from the world the payment(s) they will largely remain willing to offer in return for “services rendered”.

But friends, it’ll be hard to get paid when we’re not in this place anymore.

And well, that should be enough to inspire us to close the door to the world and start thinking about how to get ready for what’s coming.

And trust me, living like a whore isn’t the best way to so prepare.

Granted, I’m paraphrasing there, but those are His Words, not mine.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold