Day 3996 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Colossians 2:20 NIV

It’s a good question.

One that we don’t ask ourselves near enough as is made obvious in the fact that all of us still allow within us so much worldliness that we are still as likely as ever before to be quite hard to separate, differentiate from the weeds amongst which sometimes wheat must grow. I guess the difference is that wheat doesn’t much know that amongst which it grows but rather pours itself into being itself and becoming that self for which it was made.

All because it was made without eyes, without mind and thus without any such windows through which to see all of these reasons we ourselves have seen to have apparently found this incessant need to become like that alongside which we are.

No, wheat knows only to grow as wheat, and though it tangle and tear, still it achieves the overall design for which it’s here.

Question is will we?

Better question is can we?

Best question is how could we when all we seem to desire to be is but a reflection of the rebellion that storms still ahead into this mixing and mingling of that which is already mangled and mistaken. Indeed, how can those who’ve been taken so captive by what’s but a world captivated by every manner of confusion and delusion as is possible amongst a clearly still falling man ever be anything else but still too falling alongside them? See, that’s something that even the weeds amongst which the wheat sometimes doth grow don’t know.

For even weeds seek to grow proud and tall, reaching as high toward the sky and the life-giving light therein as they might each day begin again to try once more.

And so in this even weeds are to be seen as possibly better than we’ve become, and that even despite their having long since been promised to be only inevitably gathered together and hurled into the fire so as to rid the wheat, and He who created it to be salt and light, of that which has no such worth, such wealth, such want in life. For weeds seek not to accomplish anything other than their own growth via the stealing of hope from the wheat that would feed those for whom it grows.

For indeed, such is the purpose of such a harvest. It’s meant to achieve this sense of maturity for which it was sown and then grown in what are rains and pains as poured plain as day inside every today in which it gets that chance to inch a little closer to its having finally accomplished the purpose for which it was woven into wherever it was for reasons it never stopped growing to even think about.

All because to stop doing what you’re here to do is to open that door unto what it is to lose the very purpose of your being whatever it is that you both already are and that better that everything can forever still always be. It’s to give weight to that wonder as to whether another has a better reason, a better reward then. For it’s easily understood that to some parts more glory is given than others as there be vessels made for both special use and that common too.

And so we all know that there does exist this general hierarchy in life by which to measure all manner and matter in which it was made. We all know that there are those who have greater measures of certain things that we all mostly agree matter. We know there are those widely considered more beautiful, more powerful, more popular then. We know too then that those same are often seen as those we should seek to emulate, replicate so as to achieve our own share of whatever we perceive they are.

But friends, what then is left to happen should the wheat ever allow itself to think itself as perhaps better off being one of the weeds?

At first this is a dire impossibility as God would never so allow something to become something He didn’t create it to be, not without some sense of rather grave penalty involved in such a choice to devolve. From there it’s too a foolish thing to do as it seems to suggest that that which was sown has only since grown into this arrogance which allows it to think it’s better at thinking than He who designed it. And both of those go on to combine it into what eventually demands a fallout of sorts.

For there can be no continuity, no sense of community, no hope of eternity whenever something becomes so distracted by its desire to become that which it was never meant to be.

It’s red wanting to be blue and blue not caring about the red as instead it enjoys being blue because blue is liked by more than red ever was, which is why the red wishes to be blue.

This is anymore how we live life down here. We wake up only to daily die inside what are these eyes that seem to see only this necessity of our being something else, somewhere else as there apparently exists a better existence than the one we’ve been given. And in all truth, there is. At least one better than this in which we’ve chosen to do unto that which we were given the opportunity to be all that we’ve done that’s since become our every doubt and denial of the very divine nature of our having been designed to have become everything we haven’t yet and likely don’t care to be.

Indeed, there is a better life than this lie we live in which we give ourselves so endlessly to becoming weeds simply because they tell us it’s better to be them than to be the wheat that we both are but are not yet. All because weeds have no harvest toward which to hope, for which to grow. No. Rather weeds are always whatever they’ll ever be as that which is without want or worth will be the same no matter the day nor effort given therein.

It doesn’t matter what weeds do, or what little of they then even try to. They’ll always be what they’ve always been, and that is, again, only destined to be gathered up and thrown into the fire.

And so granted, it is better for the weeds to give themselves unto enjoying those things that are in this life in which their reward does truly exist.

Question is does ours exist here too?

Is this ground that we so sadly still peruse actually so able to prove able to provide that which we hope to find, to see, to be in life? Can gold and glitter and the worldly glamor of it all truly accomplish for us such accolade and acclaim, such a widely known and roundly loved name that we can reach the end of it all and feel as though we’d found, been, known all that we were here for?

What in this world and thus of the same is able to accomplish such a name?

Is fame our reward? Fun? Fortunes found in either followers or friends? Sure, all of those things are nice and they do indeed add quite a wealth, a certain warmth to life. But are they, ending as they are, are they then able to accomplish anything that can last? Have not a great many had said wealth and welcome within this world only to have lost it either when they left or at some point along the way?

Haven’t we all?

I’ve myself had plenty of both money and make believe as believed in within such lies as most relationships are that we long to always believe would stand the test of time and trial. The money I spent on things not worthwhile, mostly junk that’s since gone in the trash or up for auction on ebay. Made some of it back there though. The make believe still causes quite the confusion as I daily sift through all the delusions I’ve desired seeking any sign of my having not so wasted my time as I’m pretty certain I have.

And, well, those relationships have literally all gone into the nothingness they were always meant to become.

Every single one.

Does this mean I’ve lost my reward? It sure felt that way at times. For in truth my having known that life of highlights and street signs leading the way that we all went together, it became quite the bother when those I considered my sisters, my brothers went on and walked away along what are paths I never knew to imagine might so diverge as has happened. Hurt a lot and that for a time long.

Hurt heals though as hopes changes. Heals even faster when you find the Father who you quickly learn doesn’t change so easily or give up on us so quickly as many of those we once knew seemed to. Heals fastest of all when you find the One who took your fall and in so doing gave you the chance to become again what you always could have been, should have been, would have become had you not known those years so numb to your being the wheat that must wait for what isn’t yet.

That’s the whole point of a harvest.

It’s this time in which all the hard work is finally over and there lies this wealth won within what was something that only those who planted it knew it could be. It’s a season of joy as there grows this opportunity to rely upon the outcomes of works done seeking to accomplish the very purpose for which all said work was done. Such goals as feeding those who rely upon you to do so or producing the materials needed to make a house that becomes a home or purifying that which was once dirty having grown in soil and such, cleansed to be used for something more special than soil is often seen as getting to be.

And yet soil grows both wheat and weed, proving a foundation for both to become whatever it’s there to simply ensure they’ve the chance to be.

Maybe that’s why we all still seem so often intrigued by those things man finds in the dirt of this earth.

And in truth, sure, many of them have a widely agreed upon worth that’s more wealthy than others. For there comes from this ground both gold and the fool’s version. But that somehow aligns with my question: How do we know one from the other as the one is true whilst another looks so much the part that many have played the part of the fool in their thinking it the true of the former?

Because they really wanted it to be that which it simply wasn’t.

A deception desired because the eyes can deceive when the stomach is given unto the greed of gaining what this world says we need to here prove our worth amongst what’s mostly just weeds.

Indeed, this place is so vastly lost in measuring one another’s purpose as is apparently best proven in an adherence to what are mere human rules and rights and lives being lost to being ruled by rights that are apparently given only by men for men to follow and find hope within. Yes, we seem anymore a people who find our greatest hope in pleasing a world that we’ve allowed to convince us has the authority to define our very liberty.

We’ve given unto men who’ve each but breath in their lungs and deceit in their hearts this opportunity to lord over us whatever they want however they wish. And why do we do this, this falling in line and blending into the starkest of grayed stripes the likes of those seen upon the uniforms of those held captive by prison reform?

Because somewhere along the way we heard this lie that caused our eyes to start straining to find some way to believe that it is better for us to be but another weed rather than the wheat which much wait to be whatever it cannot know it’s supposed to become.

We gave up our patience, our purpose, our own piece of that promise of what is a life still to come, each given away simply because of where we are in what is a world that seeks for all to succumb to this life of lines we agree to live within, lines that strip from within our willingness to be something else headed somewhere else.

No we want for nothing else and daily then become the same.

All because we live in a world plain and willing to live and die that way simply because we all know that it’s so much easier to grow and go that way that everyone else has before. This is the path of least resistance that we all seem often insistent to travel upon. Doing as others do has become our drug simply because there’s a great sense of assurance in our doing as another has already proven possible.

And yet the only others we ever dare to look toward are those just like us, on the outside at least.

And indeed, this too makes sense as those who look like us yet have achieved what we’d like for us to look like, live like, they then become the ones we seek to follow and form our very lives after as surely in our so doing we’d too arrive at that place in which we’re replicas of they whom we’ve grown so found of replicating. After all, what better way to find your share of whatever another has that you’ve come to crave than your doing the same as they did to get there unto that place in which they have whatever it is that you hope to?

Never stop to look at the outcomes though, do we?

No, sadly it seems all we’re willing to see is but the ease and simplicity of a life ruled by rules and royalty. We see only the gain and glory of this world lost in that which is but vain and thus vanity. It’s all superficial. Still we remain those who do as called not to and look constantly upon the outside of those around and this world we’re all in together for the time. We look at what others have, how others look, how much others are loved.

And we want all of it!

We want the riches and honor and fame. We want this world to know our name and then and there agree that not only are we here but that we do matter so much. Yes, we want to matter, want it so badly in fact that we’re afraid of waiting to do so.

Just reading through Hebrews last night and chapter 11 specifically hit me in such a way that it was all I could pray as I lay down to sleep.

“The world was not worthy of them.”

Who’s this them?

Those such as Abraham, David, Moses, Noah, Samson, Daniel and his friends, and too then the many others who’ve walked similarly looking not here for what is their city but rather the one which was and is still to come. Those who, as verse 38 goes on to say, “wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.” 37 mentioning how they “were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated.”

Those are the ones that it was said this world was not worthy of.

And yet they, like Jesus, they were the ones often considered afflicted and forgotten. Those those who seek riches and honor and glory and other such gain seek obviously then never to be like.

Rather the rest of us hold in the highest esteem those among us who are here and now enjoying the wealth of the weed.

Indeed, such is the divide in life. It’s drawn between where we seek our point, our purpose, our promise of a prize proven. And yeah, there are here so many things for us to want and win. We see every single day the sum of everything that this world has to offer, and it being enjoyed by so very many that I suppose we’d all eventually wonder what it might be like.

Because it’s easier. It’s seemingly safer. It’s obviously far more comfortable and often undeniably more convenient. After all, who would forgo such things as love and luxury in exchange for loneliness and loss, that of even life itself perhaps?

Well, those who still choose to look for, long for that promise still to come. Those who want for something that this world simply cannot give. Those who refuse to imagine their reward being won within what is a world that is passing away. Yes. Those who deny themselves the widespread ease of pleasing themselves or those who live doing only the same.

Because for those strange few, yeah, to live has become Christ and the loss of this life then greatest of gain as then we get to go home.

But we are few indeed because to the many this world is their home. This life is their life, it’s their only time in which to try and find all that is here to have and hold as is held already by some and thus wanted by even more. This place is in every way the reward for most, and so I suppose that it makes sense for the same most to do all they’re doing in all this that so many are trying in this cultural attempt to find ways to make this place as good as they themselves want for it to be.

That’s why we have so many rights and rules both writ by royalty and politician and other such regal celebrity. It’s because many here have again resolved to allow others to lead them in what they consider then the best of all directions, a devotion designed inside this desire for a share of the fame and fortune of we who are all still but thieves and liars.

Yes, people will give their lives to standing in line waiting to find whatever someone else tells them they should want to have or see or be. Because doing so is easy. It’s easy to follow the herd as it’s also easy to imagine that so many wouldn’t so readily be going the wrong direction.

But again friends, weeds can only ever be weeds.

It will never become wheat and thus never be gathered together and celebrated over in that place that has been waiting patiently for it to grow into what He who sowed it knew it would be.

Indeed, many here will have found their reward as is anymore poured from glassed formed for the masses to look through unto that life in which only gold and glitter are allowed to matter. And those same will follow all the rules and guidelines drawn to help them reach those highlights and rich lives. They’ll all do as they’re expressly expected to by those who offer to lead them unto those outcomes they seek for, yearn for. And they’ll be offered little bits and pieces of things perceived as being important along the way.

Such as rules, laws, rights and such. All the things that this world thinks will help them arrive upon their goal of a life so fun and free and famous and fortuitous that they eventually forget that there’s that other place still to come.

Yes, many will have found their reward well before that even better promise ever gets here and we then there.

All because they agreed to get lost looking through rights and rules to lead the way to a freedom that such things can never either define, defend, defund or deny.

Simply because men haven’t actually the right to so determine anything in life.

That power remains God’s alone.

Guess then the final question is whether we’re His too or just still living a life we’ve all still left to lose.

Friends, please don’t lose it to living for and following along with rights and rules made by men who each forgot they too were made by Him.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold