Day 3966 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Psalm 51:10 NIV

What isn’t

As of now, at this very moment, that’s all that we know to be ahead in what is now a new so novel and strange that we simply cannot see what will be, what might be, what won’t be. We just don’t know. And this has for all of human existence found for us this almost insatiable fear as met within the reality that we’re not as in control as our ego and vanity would elsewise, have elsewise so often tried to pretend, assume, imagine. Rather the reality of novelty is that it comes at us daily in what’s then such a measured approach that we’re left with nothing but to welcome it the same.

In whatever measure it comes when said measurement has been made by whomever has such authority to so define reality and how it moves within the finery of its forming new every morning.

And indeed, it all seems to be a quite refined process, this purpose which we meet with, of which we’re met with here atop what is a path that we’ve not paved, not purchased, not planned or at times even really preferred if we were to be honest. For life has gone in many ways in which we’d have rathered it hadn’t. And this has left us weathered and hardened unto what is the tendency toward believing newness proving something quite known, quite normal, quite numbing even.

For such is what life seems always to be as it remains always so heavy that each day does in fact tend to prove that it has plenty trouble its own for which we’re to meet and muddle through and, as the past contends, misunderstand enough to make mistakes enough to find us wishing, praying, begging always for another chance to be met only always tomorrow morning as there we know we’ll find what is a day we’ve not so confused or lost or given away to our usual angers and doubts.

Indeed, we’re a people seeking always to be reborn inside second chances, but alas so too a people who take such so for granted that we never imagine stopping the count at only two. Rather we’ll gladly welcome, and that weathered, however many we may find that we find a reason to need here within what’s been a life in which we know only as little as our past still pretends we did back when we thought we knew better.

A moment made in a mistaken misunderstanding all its own.

For how can better ever be already known?

And yet such is the lie we’ve owned so many times that we now owe even a debt unto ourselves as is charged either via accusation or acumen, though in truth perhaps they’re not always so different. Because for any of us to embrace the accuser that our past selves have been as have been lobbying for our lives dying as is done in the wage sin’s won in a past so filled with chances to have done better than we did, well, we have to have first met with the “keenness and depth of perception, discernment, or discrimination found especially in practical matters” that is the definition of acumen.

Yes, we have to have grasped an understanding as to where we’re standing and why we don’t want to be here anymore long before we can accept the charge of conspiracy against our very growth in humility, in hope that would then allow for a corresponding growth of urgency as understood in regard to all things good and upright and upstanding.

An urgency which seems vastly lost upon a society the same.

That’s what we’ve been talking about for days. It’s the blatant reality in which we walk and of which talk, or mostly don’t, that’s easily defined by a general darkness in tone, in temper, in triumph even. For indeed, we’ve sunken so low as a people that we now consider it worthy of praise and applause to seek for and accept what is mere agreement with this selfishness innate within each of us.

We call it affirmation and it sounds like applause and we measure that to be a good thing as it seems to agree with our longstanding assumption that everything we’re doing is always right to be done. Even if for no other reason than we’ve decided to do it and wish never to do anything all that different from what we’ve done long enough to apparently warrant our choice to keep doing.

In fact we loathe change so much that we relegate it to New Year resolutions made around this time in which a calendar changing inspires inside a curiosity as to what we might could change too. Because we do like the excitement of something new. We do wonder as to what something new might mean, might bring. We are interested, perhaps even intrigued by this idea as something better being done, of our being better finally having begun.

But then that fear we mentioned up top sets in again. We realize rather quickly that something new asks always that we walk toward which isn’t yet. And, while the idea of something better coming in response to our sharing of His doing of something new, the uncertainty is always to be there as it simply has to be. And, well, this is a problem perfectly in that we find comfort only in certainty. That’s why we continue to boast this “belief” that “seeing is believing.”

We want proof positive before we’ll ever prioritize anything, prefer anything, purchase anything.

Why?

Because we know well our tendency toward such failures as giving up. Walking away. Allowing the war that is worry and want to allow us back into our hiding places in which we’ve amassed enough stuff that we needn’t be distracted by the hope of growth that only seeks to distract us from what we have, who we are, where we are. That’s one of the dangers of all idolatry. It’s that they form these blinders to betters that we could be that instead allow us to believe ourselves already good enough, strong enough, successful enough.

After all, again, just look at all our stuff!

Indeed, each of us have a veritable treasure trove of things we’ve treasured thus far. We all have a life all but completely surrounded with the sounds of praise and applause for our having so won what so many others still want. And it’s within this that we hear the sound of both our needing to do nothing different and that because we’ve already done enough apparently, so much that’s achieved so much that we oughtn’t dare risk any of it upon this largely-perceived illogical gamble on the hope that isn’t yet.

Which is sadly what all hope must always be.

Not yet.

For after all, who hopes for what is? Who dreams of what’s already done? Who needs to embrace such belief as all hope is for something that asks no belief but rather its own proof brings?

Worst of all is that we’ve come to believe that such things are not only not foolish but rather friend as they, again, ask we risk nothing of whatever it is that we already have or have always been. Because there is no risk in what we know for sure. There’s no chance to be proven wrong, to make mistakes, to color outside the lines of a page printed for us by a world that seems content to stay behind us either cheering us on in our share of their doing nothing or rather mocking as we make that way toward what they never will.

And scariest of all is that those are literally the only two choices we have up ahead.

Do something new or do nothing at all.

Because the overall reality of reality is that we’re growing or dying. We’re trying or refusing its need. We either embrace humility and therein begin to see the many ways in which we will always have room to better and improve both whatever already is and whatever we simply aren’t yet or we avoid such a thinking and instead continue our sinking into what’s only a furthered assurance that what we have, where we are, who we are is more than good enough to be good enough for a while more.

And yet this general idea of resolutions seems to at least hint at the idea that maybe we’re not quite so certain that what we know to be certain is as good as we’ve now spent another year accepting. Indeed, New Year resolutions seem to suggest that we have in fact met with the fact that says that we’ve maybe spent too much time seeking to merely accept what is at the then at least plausibly perceived expense of the better we somehow are able to imagine still.

But how can that be?

How can we both believe that what is is good enough but that so too better might be better still? Is not this an attempt to serve two masters? And, since it is, question then becomes which one we love more. Do we love more that idea that what, where, who we are as is who, what, where we’ve been is good enough to want nothing more? Or do we love better that idea that wonders as to whether or not there might be something better for us to be, see?

Again, the only choices we always have are only these.

Stay or go.

I mean, such it literally what all of life boils down to, and that literally every single day.

Why then is today seen as so different? Because of a number? Because of that number’s reminder that we’re getting older? Because of our aging always reminding that time is both our greatest opportunity and yet sometimes our biggest enemy? Because we’ve know so long that life in which we fight against even our selves’ daring to welcome the wonder as to what might be better than whatever we have, how we might be better than whatever we are?

Because we know that time bringing us again another January means that this journey called life continues, seemingly proving that we’re done yet?

And if time isn’t done marching forward toward wherever it’s going, why then are we done with our trying to keep up?

Again, I contend it’s a matter measured in fear as found and felt in all the uncertainty that all that isn’t always is. We struggle mightily with our trying to figure it all out ahead of time so as insure we’ll find up ahead only whatever is for our best. A battle which seems to suggest that we still think entirely too high of ourselves as life has always proven that we’ve not such power or authority as to determine the outcomes of the future’s reality. Rather we’ve always just found the way through the taking of one step at a time, taken always alongside the very time that we so often feel working against us.

And yet it’s time that’s leading us toward wherever our journey is supposed to go.

Question again is whether or not we go with it or if we instead join forces with those trying hard to fight against such inevitabilities.

It’s easy to see which is the more commonly sought opportunity. For such is the basis of our belief that better is a mere agreement away, and that found close enough as someone lying to us and telling us that we’re good enough as we are, a lie we buy because we know we’re not but more so that we’re afraid to try for what better we aren’t. Because we know that trying welcomes the risk of failing, of falling short, of forgetting why we started and in that finding that we’ve then no reasons to disappoint should we quit.

That’s why all these exciting resolutions will be dead by February.

It’s because new is hard and, seeing as how it’s always available, it’s something we can never really find anyway. Ever thought about that? That new is always something different as there’s always something new we could do? Always something we could change? Always something we could lose?

No, I know we don’t think very often about that as, aside from weight, well, we don’t really want for the loss of anything. And even that is something somewhat taboo to talk about because we’ve become so adverse to change and the even hinting at it possibly being of necessity that we’ve instead resorted to the widely-held offense found in “body-shaming”, something that allows for those who are what they are to believe, with social support, that it’s what they should remain.

And hey, yeah, we each have the right, the freedom to live as we see fit.

But why then do we need others to agree with it?

If not because maybe we’re not enough? Because perhaps we’re not as certain as we try to appear? Because maybe appearance can be deceiving and we can be deceived and we have been deceived into thinking, believing that there’s nothing deceiving about what is?

All because we can see what is. We can prove what is. We can’t prove that what is is truly better than whatever isn’t. But we can lean on past experience with such comforts as giving up and letting go of what betters we already never got to know because we couldn’t see them back when we could have started out for them, toward them in what could have been back then a choice we could have made that would have already proven better by today.

I think about that all the time. What might be better if I’d have started all the growths and improvements that I’m working toward now five years sooner? How much further could I have been in my walk toward better, and thus closer to the same, if I’d have had the brain to begin long before I did? What would be better by this time tomorrow, this time next year if I didn’t give again into the fear of the work it would it take, the mistakes I would make, the regret I could maybe give away if I instead chose today to give away only the excuses that form the chains keeping us living as who we already are?

More than anything I think about whether or not Jesus would have died for my to have become nothing more than whatever I know myself to already be.

And, well, no, I don’t know why He would have ever so agreed to suffer so horribly for my to only know what I already have, what I already am.

For I could have found those kinds of things without His doing anything because, well, settling for whatever already is is something we’ve all already done so many times that we need no help in learning how. We literally cannot fail in finding our way back to what we already know.

That’s why so many settle for staying put.

It’s because it’s easy. And that which is easy begs no risk, invites no fear, welcomes not a second’s worth of worry or wondering but rather knows where the path goes and thus can’t fail to get there as, well, it already is there.

Indeed, all of us are already where we have every opportunity to stay.

Are you good with that?

If your life ended today, would you be able to look back on it and regret nothing? Would you change nothing? Improve nothing? Crucify nothing?

Is there nothing in your life that couldn’t use a little renewal, a bit of hope, a hope of better?

Is our potential already proven?

Personally I can’t think of a more sad reality than believing that. Because if that’s the case then what’s the use of today? Why look forward to tomorrow if tomorrow will just be another version of today? Why give away already this new 365 to the shrugged shoulder of chalking it up to being nothing more than probably just a continuation of the year before?

Again, maybe you’re truly as good as you want to be in what’s a life that you believe is really as good as it gets. And if that’s the case, then congrats I guess.

I just can’t for the life of me see any life in believing that nothing could be better because that seems a close cousin to thinking that nothing will be better. For if nothing can improve then we must contend that nothing will improve. And while that means that we don’t have to change, it also means nothing else will change either. And, well, just in a moment spent looking around and thinking about how I’m feeling and how life is going and where I’m going and where I’ve been, who I’ve been, I just can’t seem to see anything that I want to be the end.

Because I know where I’ve been. I know who I’ve been. I know who I am and, well, he’s not always someone I wish to be. Because sometimes he’s lazy. Sometimes he’s angry without reason. Sometimes he’s selfish and impatient and thus always in a hurry for something, toward something but if better isn’t an option then I don’t know what or why. And make no mistake, I really don’t know why I’m sometimes in such a hurry. Don’t know why I get so selfish sometimes.

I don’t know why I do a lot of things I do.

But knowing that seems to ask that I keep going until I either understand why I do what I do or until I finally don’t do any longer the things I don’t want to do because they lead back toward being who I don’t want to be.

And all of this seems to say that I know the difference, or I’m at least starting to learn it, between what, where, who I am and the better that I’m not quite yet.

And yeah, I worry of the journey because I don’t know how long it will take or how many mistakes I’ll make or how many times I’ll want to quit and run back to what’s easier along the way.

But I’m not dead yet and so there must be more for me to find, to fix, to see, to be. Because life is a journey and it’s one in which we’re given the chance to change every morning, be it marked by a new year or not. God’s mercies are still new every morning.

Will today be the day that we finally dare to see that He gives them so constantly, so continually because He believes we grow and just need a little more time see the same for ourselves?

Friends, we’ve talked a lot of late about who we are as a people and how it’s marked mostly by such things as doubt, denial, dishonesty. And maybe you don’t agree with me in that. But if you do, then again I ask, is that who you want to be? Or are you rather of that rarer audacity to believe that all things being made new was done in order to prove that what was wasn’t actually good enough?

Do you have the courage to consider that what is isn’t good enough?

Do you have the boldness to push forward tracking down your belief in something better amongst a world that will only hold to such a hope so long as an easy road there holds out?

Will you hold out for what you can’t see, for the better you can be but not yet?

Will you embrace the journey into renewal’s daily renewal?

Yeah, it will be hard and prove then scary as we can’t see where we’re going, don’t even know how long we’ve left of the journey. But friends, today proves yet again that God’s not done with us quite yet. Why then should we be done either? After all, all we know right now is what is.

Can’t you find the excitement in wondering then about what isn’t?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold