Day 3991 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Peter 4:4 NIV

Fools

Such is what we are to those who think this life is meant for and thus to be forever measured by such things as fun and fame. And that’s because this world just doesn’t understand such differences of direction as this we’re walking inside what is an intention to find something more than just mere pleasure or public acceptance. All because a few of us seem to wonder as to whether that’s really all there is to live for, to give our time to seeking for, to allow our hearts, minds, souls, lives to lean toward.

And that wonder comes only at the worry of those who are elsewise certain that there is nothing greater in life than the flesh being pleased.

And so as soon as they see any who are starting to veer away from the vanity and insanity that all of life down here is so clearly becoming, they’ll at first up the ante so to speak. They’ll start trying to make their way of life look even better, more enjoyable, more rewarding in what is an attempt to both lure us back in and that whilst also reassuring themselves that what they’re doing is as right to do as they don’t want to consider it might not be.

Because none of us ever want to sit with that consideration as to the very worth of whatever it is that we’re doing.

We don’t want sit with that wonder as it brings with it an inescapable worry as is won within realizing that, well, no, not everything we’re doing is always right. Not every word we say is worth being said. Not every thought we have proves one we should be proud of having had. It just doesn’t work like that. Why? Because like it or not we’re a fallen people who’ve thus fallen for so many lies that have so corrupted our minds that truth is that we seldom know right from wrong anymore.

Simply because this world’s become what God said it would.

That’s what we touched on just yesterday. It’s that promise that folks down here would go from bad to worse, deceiving those around them while being deceived themselves. And yet the problem is that, though this is blatantly evident and increasingly obvious, almost nobody acts as if it is. In fact, most people continue to live as if this is as good as it gets, as if they’re living so right that nothing could ever go wrong. And, well, when that idea gets into the mind that’s already as prone to pride as ours have become, it’s only a matter of time before all that matters is whatever a person delights to do or see or hear or be.

And if you’re ever found as someone failing to uphold their ideals, it’s just not gonna go good.

Why?

Because everyone who stands or speaks or strolls in opposition to our chosen foundation as is being still daily built upon whatever beliefs or misunderstandings we happen to have chosen to build our efforts on, they exist then as this evidence that there’s another way to do things. Another way to live life. Another idea to consider, a different truth to ponder.

Alas, we’ve become a people who’ve bought into this idea of our each having our own truth hook, line and sinker.

And yet we live as if it’s all those who don’t see what we see, do what we do, want what we want that are the suckers. As if they’re the losers simply because they’re the ones losing out on whatever it is that we’re finding. As if they’re nothing but fools who are sadly fooled into seeing life another way from another angle toward perhaps even another outcome.

Indeed, everyone who doesn’t live their lives the we live our lives is to be seen as a fool simply because we’re each so easily convinced that we are right and everything else is thus not that we see no issue in such a grouping of so many into this title of their all being wrong while we alone are the only ones who are right. And what makes this even worse anymore is that, no, we don’t have to go it alone. In fact, this world is quite set against that!

Why?

Because again, another lie we’ve allowed in is this idea of there being safety in numbers. That we’re somehow less likely to be proven wrong when found amongst a vast crowd of others who share our opinions or outlooks. For surely there’s no way that 10, 20, 200 people could all be wrong about the same exact thing. Surely if so many of us manage to agree on something then it just has to be right. After all, we can’t all be wrong, can we?

Oh yes, my friends, we most certainly can!

And that’s because truth and reality and modesty and meaning are not things reliant upon agreement.

Read that again.

Truth, reality, modesty, meaning and all their like, they do not need anyone to agree with them as they all stand alone and fear not having to do so as they would rather stand by themselves than negotiate who and what they are with those who refuse to adhere to their highest of standards.

And indeed, I think that that right there is the issue. It’s the level of standard that we’ve come to seek either as a society or, and even more importantly, that which we seek personally. For the reality is that we have to have standards in life that we strive to uphold, to live by, to live as if are so uncompromising that they thus won’t let us compromise either.

But that’s the problem.

All of life down here has become compromised. Each of us have been compromised. Every single mind is so prone to compromise that anymore we daren’t look another in the eyes as we know that doing so is the surest way to see something other than ourselves. And, well, we’ve all lived as if we’re all that matters, as if we’re the only ones who are right about basically everything, as if we alone know the very meaning of life itself and have by ourselves figured out how to live this life best that we just can’t risk wasting our time worrying about anyone else’s opinion.

Especially if and when it differs so vastly from our own.

No, we cannot welcome such obvious impossibility as that of our being wrong or turned around or living upside down or drowning in so much misunderstanding that even what we think we know is only incorrect or incomplete.

Oh, how can that be when it so seems we are living so wonderfully this life in which everything is going right and thus proving us to be as right as our pride has long said we were!

Are we though?

Personally speaking I’ve just awoken to this feeling of all but everything being so off balance and out of whack that I don’t even know where to begin trying to put it all back together again. Indeed, my life it seems has become that scene from the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme. And indeed, this time I don’t know how to put it all back together as, well, there may not be much point in my trying because I know I’d only go back to the way things have been which have led me here to this day in which nothing feels right anymore.

Even these posts feel off and have for a while.

Why?

Haven’t the first clue. Couldn’t tell you. Maybe my focus has shifted. Maybe I’m tired. Maybe I’ve let too many voices or ideas inside. Maybe I’m just losing my mind.

But friends, that’s the problem!

It’s that all of those things are a daily possibility. And that’s because, contrary to what we want this life to be, figured out isn’t anything that it can ever be. At least not by us. Rather we’re all here still learning what life is, what that means, what more it doesn’t. And yet that last part is the worst part, isn’t it? That we do all these things thinking that they matter, that they mean something, that they’re surely going to make us better only to find that they don’t, and that only by giving our time, effort and intention unto trying them.

Thus making us failures, fools who tried something that wasn’t worth trying.

An experience that proves us wrong.

Which is what we all spend our lives trying to pretend we cannot be.

But friends, not only can we be wrong but we’re one day going to see that wrong is what we’ve been far more often than not.

And yet what makes all this so hard, so confusing is that we’ve walk amongst a culture that lives as if it knows everything, has everything lined out, is so great at doing what most here think matters most that any of those who don’t fall in line are the ones singled out for again being fools. Because, after all, if everyone is right about everything, then anyone who does anything any differently has to thus be wrong. And being wrong to a people who get everything right is the most foolish thing possible.

Indeed, we are going to be seen as fools should we fail to follow along with whatever this world is doing, thinking, saying they’re seeing or can’t see that they’re becoming.

All because so many are lost thinking of life and every aspect of it as that numbers game we mentioned above. So long as the majority agree on something, then that something is right and anything else is wrong. But friends, this is why the message of the cross is still considered foolishness to most. It’s because those same most seem to still assume that there is nothing in life we’re meant to lose. That life is rather a matter measured in our endless gain of whatever it is that we’ve come to crave.

And so seeing this story of a Man laying down His glory in order to die on a cross for a people who didn’t think themselves that lost seems to make no sense.

Because this world’s filled with those who think of themselves as surely not being that lost, that wrong as to deserve what He endured.

After all, all folks are having is a little bit of fun. And, well, what’s wrong with that?

Well, depending upon what someone may consider ‘fun’, there could be a lot wrong with it. Again, speaking personally, I’ve done plenty of things that I thought were fun at the time only to later on come to find that they were stupid, dangerous, illegal, immoral, just plain ignorant.

Should I then continue trying to be the one who determines the best direction for my life to go?

Should I look to a world that’s visibly crumbling and coming apart at the seams to help me figure out how to put together a decent life that’s worth living?

Should we trust in those who are so clearly living in sin to help us understand what life means at all?

Friends, sin is death, a fact proven in the cross that many here still consider some foolish fairy tale only believed by those who are fools themselves. Why are we fools? Because we’re willing to lose what most here refuse to believe they will too. We’re the ones learning how to lay down a life in the express hope of taking up another whenever this one is over. We’re the ones who do so out of this strange belief that there’s a better that we just can’t see from where we stand.

Meanwhile everyone else is standing in the middle of what they’re adamant to prove is their “best life” and thus one that they’d never in a million years be able to imagine wasn’t actually all that great. No, folks here aren’t willing to hear that there’s something better out there. Why? Because that would mean that both they’re wrong in their thinking that their lives are perfect, that they are perfect, and thus are missing out on something better.

And we don’t want to imagine that as that might inspire us to move on from whatever it is that we’ve long thought to be good enough toward what we’ve then wasted years, decades maybe missing out on finding or feeling.

And we can’t risk being that wrong.

Because all we know how to believe is that we’re right.

And so anyone who says otherwise, they must simply be a liar as there is no such thing as better unto a people who think they’ve already found their very best.

This is the dividing line of this life.

It’s that drawn between those who think they have it all figured out and refuse to believe anyone that says anything else and those who are willing to consider that maybe there’s always still something better that we can all become.

Which one has the best opportunity for growth, for hope, for actually finding the reason for life and our very own purpose for having been given one?

Is it that way taken by most in which they’re already as right, good, perfect as they can be? Or is it that drastically more infrequently travelled path followed those few that those many consider fools because they’re always willing to lose whatever is for whatever more isn’t yet?

See, I think that’s the issue. It’s that we’re a people afraid to lose. And granted, that makes perfect sense seeing as how we’ve settled for this estimation of life in which gaining more is all that matters most. And indeed, this world is of such immense greed that most here know no limits in regard to their cravings. There’s always something more to want, always a newer version of what they already have, always a blank spot on their wall or an empty corner in their closet that’s just begging to be filled with something this world has to offer.

But friends, doesn’t the constant searching for more kind of prove that life isn’t filled yet? That maybe life isn’t perfect? That perhaps we know we’re missing something and just can’t be sure we found it until we’ve got our hands on it?

Are we then truly fools, idiots simply because we continue to reach for something bigger and better than everything this world is willing to see?

Indeed, it’s a matter of willingness, this belief. It asks that remain willing to learn, to grow, to let go what we think we know, think we have and, having cleared the room, consider that we might not know what it’s meant to be filled with as we simply cannot possibly see the full array of things that He has made us to see, to be, to do. No, we can’t have any idea what all God is doing as it’s still underway as we speak.

But friends, why miss out on what He is doing simply because we think that whatever we already are cannot possibly be improved?

Honestly, who’s the fool?

Is it those who think they’ve already arrived at whatever finish line their entire life was meant to find? Is it those who think the key to life is found in their having fun and feeling good? Is it those who believe in only what they can see and thus never feel the need to look for what they don’t? Don’t we see all that we’ll miss if all we look for is only whatever we have already?

My point is that this world is filled with those are certain they’ve got it all figured out. Folks all around us are lost inside this idea that their lives are perfect and thus cannot be improved, and that simply because they’re having fun, feeling good, finding fame or heaping up some sort of fortune for themselves in their doing whatever it is that they’ve chosen to do.

All because those things are the things we use to measure life’s success, importance, meaning even.

Yes, this society has chosen widely to believe that life means nothing more than making friends, having fun, making money and staying dumb to anything other than only the above. Maybe they’re right. Perhaps that is the meaning of life. I just know that I’ve personally tried it that way, lived for those things only to have found that I still felt empty.

And granted, some days I don’t feel much better here inside this journey that helps me see how much I get wrong and still don’t understand. And no, it’s not fun, doesn’t feel good, probably never will.

But in a world that is so filled with what is a life in which not everything goes right, we all feel pain, we all fall down, we all get lost, I just don’t see much point in trying to find my perfect. I don’t see the use in expecting to somehow stumble upon my best life in what is a place in which such things as peace and calm and joy and love are all so easily lost.

Maybe that makes me a loser, a freak, a fool, some flagrantly felonious faith fiend forsaking fun and friendship with all who fall under the spell of a world spiraling toward hell with smiles all the whiles as they grow indeed from bad to worse in their deceiving and being deceived into thinking that friendship with the world might prove something other than enmity defining them enemies of God above.

Guess we’ll see.

And no, I don’t expect the rest of this ride to be an easy journey as it’s clear that many in this place are reaching their breaking point in which they’re finding themselves so certain that they’re right that they’re increasingly willing to hate anyone who sees anything any differently. And, well, Calvary proves what this world is willing to do to those who walk a different path.

But I’m okay with that. Why? Because this isn’t my home and so this world’s hate only reminds me that I’ve someplace else to be.

And even should they kill me for my belief, that just means I get to leave what is a world that I don’t feel like staying in. No, I’ve not felt as if I belong here for a long time now. Maybe that’s because I refuse to go along with what so many are falling for. Maybe it’s because I’m a freak who just can’t see the point in focusing so much on filling a life that doesn’t last forever with things, feelings or fame that doesn’t last either.

Again, I guess we’ll see. Just don’t let this world’s hatred or misunderstanding be what determines the direction you go because the Bible tells us that there’s not much in the way of hope waiting to be found the way this world’s chosen to head.

And so I’d say it’s better to be hated by those who refuse to know the hope that is our God than to be loved by those who think love is a matter of their own measure instead.

For people have this tendency to change. God doesn’t. And I for one find peace in that which is constant.

Even if that makes me a fool.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold