Day 4021 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Proverbs 23:4 NIV

Down or free?

Seems there’s a generally hopeful reality, hopefully, in which we’re all promised to reach what is the same experiencing of something that will only prove to go one of two ways. The same experience which awaits each of us is our very own breaking, a moment which will go differently because we’ll get there only to either break down or break free. The oddity is that the road to this moment is paved the same no matter what. The hope is that along the way we come to learn the necessity of the one option as proven in what should be a blatant disinterest in the other.

But still, when our own end we have reached, what then will be found by each?

I suppose what makes this hard to even begin to understand is that it seems we meet a bit of both along the way. Indeed, inside of almost every single day we all find ourselves breaking, struggling, sinking into this believing that it’s both all on us and thus something we can control and yet that it’s then best for us to lean on us which only then leaves us limited by the limitations the former thought has caused us to think. And it’s truly strange how it all works both for us but yet against us because of that.

For while we can in fact enjoy a time in which we find inside this life that letting ourselves lead the way, trusting heavily upon our own strength and understanding to lead us toward whatever, wherever, whoever we hope to be, and indeed find a great deal of whatever, wherever, whoever we’d hoped to find, what we’ll all inevitably find just beyond those obvious successes is this stress that begins to swell within us that demands more from us than we have left to give.

Simply because all humans are again limited in one way or another. For some it’s a limitation of strength, weakness always waiting to catch us whenever we reach that place in which our strength, though having been enough to get us there, just isn’t enough to get us any further. For others it’s understanding, confusion then waiting to prove at some point that we don’t know what’s going on nor then what to do in order to overcome it. For many it’s arrogance, humility then waiting to find us just as soon as we accidentally round that corner only to come upon something that it simply bigger and badder than we ever dared imagine we were.

Whatever the case may be, the truth is that there is coming for each of us a moment in this life in which we’ve reached the end of us.

Again, question is what will we find waiting for us to get there?

Either way it is a breaking. It’s an entire way of life that’s to be taken away from whatever it was and handed over to whatever it wasn’t. In simpler terms, it’s a turning of tables. It’s a flipping upside down of whatever was that it just will not be anymore. It’s the grand undoing of all we’d been doing up until that time in which all we’d done is then left undone.

My worry is that odds are so too shall we.

Why?

Because our general approach to life seems to continue to be this one in which we have so much trust in ourselves, in our own cleverness as it were, as it is, that we seem to know very little of even any reasons to ever even consider our considering of something other to either look to or lean upon. We have all become so convinced of our own cleverness that the same seems always to us the very best thing to ever give our trust. After all, again, doing so has already proven to pay some decent dividends.

So why walk away from what’s been working?

Well, because again there awaits for each of us an end in which we’ll find either our having broken down or broken free. Problem is that, again, our general approach to life has long been one in which we’ve leaned primarily upon ourselves and thus trust mainly in our strength, our ability, our understanding to continue doing as they’ve perhaps done well enough for long enough to achieve in us no reason to ever imagine that they’ll somehow fail.

After all, they’ve gotten us this far into what seems a life thus far pretty good. And indeed, we’ve all become quite big fans of pretty good. In fact such measures in mediocrity are those for which we most often reach as they’re the ones both easily found and thus rarely failed. And the ease in which they’re found and the odds of our not then failing to find them finds for us that lack of reasons to not trust in ourselves seeing as how it’s long been ourselves who we’ve trusted to lead the way.

All with likely very little in the way of our letting ourselves down.

But we never really ever seem to ever stop to ever wonder why it’s all been so easy. Rather we just, for obvious reasons, find no reason to ever question what is so clearly working. After all, if it’s not broke then we don’t need to fix it, right?

Well, true, but what if there’s more to life than the little we think is going right? What if we’re supposed to be doing more than the little we’ve settled for due to our ability to uphold it well? What if a life lived well isn’t actually one that always goes well? Ever think about that? Honestly, I don’t know that any of us ever really have as rather we’re a people who clearly continue thinking that success is measured in the glory of accomplishments and the pride of our achieving them.

What if it isn’t?

What if life is more about what we do than what we accomplish? What if we’re to be measured by our efforts instead of their outcomes? What if life was never this great big list of boxes to check that so many seem to so honestly believe it’s best to have so become as for most it seems to be?

Indeed, what if there’s but one box to check and it’s labeled ‘I did my best’?

Is our best measured only in the success of whatever we tried to accomplish? Is success something only met whenever we’ve found another finish line we’ve drawn for ourselves? Is life truly a matter of our drawing the limits we’re willing to look for alongside a finding beyond them nothing then of any interest or importance?

Does God need us to be the ones who determine for us what matters most and when we’ve achieved it?

Does not our thinking that we know enough to accomplish what matters only demand we either fail whenever our best falls well short of even better or that we always adjust the lines in order to always manage to find our best within what we can’t fail?

This is the problem with trusting in our own cleverness. It’s an approach to life in which we look only unto ourselves to know both what’s best for us and how to get there. And well, I’m not really sure which is more foolish. For on the one hand how can we possibly know what’s best for us when we’ve seen only but a small fraction of all that’s possible, of all that exists, of all that consists of life and love and this world and all the more that’s both still above and a forever away?

But so too, how can we know how to get to wherever it is that we think of as being our best for us when, again, we’ve never been there before?

Because, well, haven’t we always managed mostly to find only all these finish lines in life? Are not our accomplishments always measured in accolades such as trophies and triumphs? What more waited beyond them?

Don’t we know that we don’t know what more could have been had we not been so ready to call it a win and walk away before we dared venture any further and perhaps face there failure?

Friends, my point is that we’d all probably be pretty shocked at what all we don’t know of the life we’ve already lived as, despite the many things we’ve done or accomplished or finished or achieved, what more could we have found, been, felt or become had we not given up? What was there waiting for us just beyond our understanding of what we were able to do? What more could we have seen had we not leaned upon our sight to show us the way to wherever we got off?

Indeed, where do we get off thinking that we know what matters most in life when what seems to matter most to most is merely money and the notoriety that still comes with it?

Is that not why so many do as we’re here told not to?

So much of life has come to be measured in monetary or material success that such things are what matter most to most of us. And granted, such things are in fact quite able to accomplish for us a kind of life that is easier, safer, far more comfortable. And, well, easy and safe and comfortable are truly all things that all of us seek to find and wish to feel. Why wouldn’t we?

Well, because such settlings only serve to set us up to be entirely unready for whatever else is still to come in what is more a war than it is a life.

Problem is that said reality would only keep us up at night and we need our sleep and so we don’t see any reason really to ever sit within the understanding of what this life really is. No, it’s far better, in our understanding at least, to continue thinking of life as something of a 9-5. It’s become a job in which we work for a while and then rest for a while. We try for something and then we rest from the trying. We wonder and wander for a ways and then get tired of trying to find whatever it was we were looking to find and just decide to sit and recline as we try to find something else to look for.

It’s all this general ebb and flow in which each days goes basically the same way as the day before. For again, it’s all about the boxes. We live our lives trying to both draw them of what matters most, which is mostly things such as money or fame or friends or jobs or houses or cars or whatever else people have as priorities here, and then from there spend all our time trying as hard as we can to find them all as fully as we might.

All of which is then done only by our might or our mind or the both combined together leaning only on each other to accomplish for us what we both believe to be best but also thus what we know we won’t fail to find or feel.

All then resorting to us being the ones to lead the way toward wherever it is that we know we can go.

Thus limiting us even further to only finding what all we can see.

Which is why so many still hold so fervently to this forsaken idea that seeing is believing. It’s because seeing is easy. Seeing seems safe. Seeing keeps us comfortable as our sense of sight is one of the strongest we have in terms of offering us what we don’t even have to believe. After all, if we can see it then we know it’s there. And if we know it’s there then we know we can find a way to find it. And if we know we can find a way to find it then we know we cannot fail it.

And that’s exactly the kind of thing that we love to look for!

Which is why so many still hold so fervently to this forsaken idea that fame and fortune are worthy rewards to give their lives unto seeking.

Because, well, they’re easy. Granted, they do, as everything else does too, require some effort. They ask that we give them some devotion and determination and discipline, which are hard things most of the time. But they’re all made far easier whenever we know we’re giving them unto something that we can’t fail.

Problem is that, again, what if it’s not the outcome that matters but rather the efforts we give toward it?

Because the truth is that while in this place it’s fairly easy to get rich and famous, that doesn’t mean that fame and fortune won’t fail us. Because they will. In fact, I believe that such things are as flimsy as a house of cards. Make one wrong move and it all just collapses. And yet sadly so many are still building their lives hoping only to find such things as wealth and welcome, and probably doing a decent job at finding them.

But the problem then is that their every effort is being given unto what will probably fail them.

And when it does, when it’s all taken away, then comes the breaking down.

All because they never dared imagine breaking free from giving their lives to all that couldn’t give life in return.

See, it should all come down to having a good return on our investment. Whatever we do in life should be done not because we know we can do it but rather because we believe that doing it will amount to an outcome that proves worthy of the work and worry that we gave to it. And granted, like I said, money and material are both matters that matter most to most because they do in fact offer us a pretty good return on investment.

But what about when they run out or become ruined? What will we have have we had a bunch of stuff in life that some natural disaster blows away? What will be left if all we’ve looked for in life was only stuff that couldn’t come with us whenever we do leave this place? What will it matter how much money we had in the bank when we’re in the dirt and not then able to spend any of it?

Would not then all the time and effort we’d given unto getting it have been better spent upon getting ready for wherever we will go when we have left here?

Granted, such wonders and worries don’t accomplish for us all that much of anything that anyone here really considers all that important. In fact, faith remains foolishness to those who have faith only in themselves. Indeed, the cross is considered contemptable to those who continue to contend that life is about the contents with which we fill them as it makes no sense to so empty out a life when we’ve still seemingly plenty of time with which to go on living one for more of whatever we’ve come to believe matters more than mercy itself.

But friends, what can possibly matter more than mercy? What fortune is there to find here that’s worth more than forgiveness? What can worldly fame accomplish for us that means more than knowing we’re loved so much by our Father that He sent the Son to die in our stead? On that, if He did, well then what better could we do in life than give all of everything we have unto knowing more of Him and helping more know of Him?

I may be out of my mind but it seems to me that the promise of eternity is worth a little bit more than all the riches and renown this world has to offer.

Why?

Because nothing here lasts forever. We spend it. We forget it. We sell it. We throw it away. It gets rusty. It gets dusty. We get tired of keeping it dusted or paying to repair it. It’s all so impermanent and yet so many live as if it’s all anything but worthless all because the majority here continue to measure worth not in effort but in outcome.

But friends, why seek our outcomes in the one place we’re all promised to leave?

Indeed, doing so has brought about a great many breakdowns as people were laid in the ground only to thereafter come before the Father and hear those words which agree with their having never had all that much worry about getting to know Him, giving effort then unto an outcome found only in faith. No, rather many here have lived their lives only faithful to all that is here, leaving them believing only in all that they’ve since left behind.

Never then knowing anything of what it is to have broken free from a life lived in captivity, slavery unto all that is only worldly.

We give so much of our lives to only filling them with only things that matter only here. And sure, again, it’s a fairly reasonable undertaking as it’s not hard to understand the efforts given unto things that we know we can find. Working overtime or getting a second job are things considered commendable. Even thieves are met with grace whenever it’s proven that they’re stealing to feed their families.

We can wrap our minds around effort as it’s something that we’re all giving to something.

Question is to what?

And, well, is what we’re giving all of our effort to something that can prove something that will last? Or will we look up one day only to find that all our hard work only ever went to all that we can’t take with us?

I fear the latter is the matter far more common as it’s clear to see that just about everyone is so worried about so many things that are only found in or of this world. And thus this world has become the goal, the hope, the reward that so many are seeking. But friends, there is no bigger disappointment coming than having given our lives to getting rich or famous or powerful in this place.

Because one day this place won’t be here anymore.

Will we, having reached our end of this life spent here, will we find that we break down because of all the hard work we’d given to only what wasn’t really worth it? Or will we have by then broken free from such a common wasting of our efforts and energy upon those things that we’d learned along the way weren’t worth all that much?

Those are the two outcomes that we can choose from.

Will you continue living your life racing daily unto the edge of a mental, physical, emotional breakdown in what continues to be a life in which you try so hard for so many things that you think might matter and hope really do? Or will you break from that way of life spent trying to fill this life with stuff that doesn’t matter and rather turn your efforts and intentions unto storing up for yourself treasures in Heaven?

Simple fact is that we cannot do both. We’ll all either break under the load of what is a life in which we try to do it all all by ourselves or we’ll break free from that approach and let another lead the way.

So then what’s it to be? Break down or break free?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold