Day 4071 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

John 16:33 NIV

The place of peace

Oddly enough it’s not a place at all but rather a person, not that it would matter much either way as, well, neither is welcome here in this place in which we are for still yet another day that’s likely to prove much the same as all the others that we’ve endured thus far. And indeed, life of late does seem a matter meant of endurance, of enduring, of our having to endure that which by no means seeks to endear itself to us nor probably expects our to endear ourselves to it.

Rather it’s quite clear that life here is turning quite violent, quite silent, quite pliant to the wants of whims of them who continue to measure that which matters in life as only that which is had here where all of us are and many for some reason wish to stay.

A mindset that I find I’m failing more and more all the time to understand.

Because, from where I stand, I just about can’t stand being here anymore. And while there’s nothing at all that I can do about that seeing as how I had no say in my being made alive, well nor then have I any vote in when I go home. If I did I’d have already been there because what is here has felt less like home and more like hell for quite some time. Indeed, we’re going on decades since life here’s made any sense. Rather for as long as I can remember now life here’s had this scent of that which is singed, burned, blacked-out and betrayed.

All because that’s just what we’ve done to it.

We’ve all chosen for this way of living in which we live for only all that isn’t alive, isn’t a life, isn’t then able or capable of making us alive, keeping us alive, adding onto or unto a life but only that which rather mercilessly steals a life away. Truly, I carry this feeling with me every single day as I see the way in which both I live my life as is lived in what is a way in which I do try but do fail more times than I’d ever care to and too the way considered normal amongst the rest of this people who too fail but honestly seem to be missing any measure of shame or disappointment.

Rather we’ve chosen for this sense of vanity that’s given us a life of sheer insanity in which pretty much everything has become or is becoming unsanitary for what are reasons that are glaring constantly every single time we happen by a mirror.

We just still can’t see it somehow.

And that’s because we’re not only looking in all the wrong places but we’re simply looking for all the wrong things.

And I say that because, well, truth be told very little of what matters here matters at all. In fact I think we’d be absolutely amazed at just how crazed life’s become over matters and meanings and materials and meetings that are all so trivial and tiresome that we’d immediately understand why we’re all always so tired and ticked off. For the answer is simple:

It’s that we’ve completely forgotten the point of life, lost it behind this pursuit that’s left us behind the 8-ball with what there feels no way of our ever being even knocked into the pocket of peace.

No, rather we’ve accepted this piece of what remains a puzzle that nobody seems able to ever put together because we threw the box away and now only exist to continually complain about how hard life is whilst never accepting the fact that we’re making it so much harder than it needs to be.

Mostly inside this effort of trying to make it easy.

Which too isn’t at all what life is supposed to be. Rather life here is meant to be misery. Sounds strange, but just hear me. Life here, if it were easy, well then we could handle it. We could carry it. We could find its meaning and measure it in whatever depth or delight we wanted in life. If life were as we’ve long thought it to be, just the sum of everything we like at least tripled over all the more that we don’t, then we’d honestly have no room for hope.

And well, what’s a life without hope?

Well, it’s a life that’s already home and there found with no place else to be. A life lived with nothing more to see. A life in which we know without any question that there is nothing and nowhere better for us to be, or go, or show or know. No, home is this place in which hope rests so that we might too.

Problem is that we’ve all started looking for home not too soon but too close.

Leaving us then chasing this ghost that is this hope of a life here easy, safe, comfortable, successful, enjoyable. And it’s not that our time here should be utterly void of all those things, an idea disproven in that God’s given us all both countless blessings and the ability to enjoy them. No, our lives are gifts in which the gifts only grow and get there greater and greater all the time as times goes wherever we won’t. No, the problem is that we’ve come to seek such things in such depth and desperation that we’ve devoted all but all of our time, attention and intention unto finding their source in some place and/or outcome that we can see.

Problem then goes on to be that all that we can see is only temporary.

A fact we forget so easily just as soon as it starts raining.

Why?

Because we’ve listened in for years to a world that’s flooded with the tears of those trying to live their best life in a place in which life’s lived but for so long. Everything here has an expiration, an endpoint, a finish line. All of life as we’ve all lived it, it’s ending. Even our very best days have always come and gone right back to finding us enduring more of those decidedly more miserable ones. Indeed, life here is measured in highs and lows, but the lows always measure more common than the highs.

A fact considered inside the way we live this life seeking to get high on everything from drugs to doing whatever else it is that makes us feel good inside any moment that’s rather meant to remind us that we’ve someplace else to be and that it’s only there that we’re supposed to seek the truth of what life means. No, I’m convinced that all of life’s hardships are only there to help us see both the fact that we can’t do this as just you and me but also that He can who came to overcome everything this world and its wickedness could insist upon all of us.

Even to the point of being brutally tortured, murdered in fact.

Yes, Jesus came to walk 30+ years in our shoes all just to lose what we all try so hard to keep, all so that we could see that life here is lost and thus something we’ll all lose. Something He determined to do so as to bring us the hope of what is now a home for which we can hope in which hope itself is no longer needed.

Can you imagine that?

That there exists a place so perfect, so peaceful, both so permanent that we needn’t there hope for anything else nor anything more? That there comes a day upon which we’ll be offered rest from what is thus unresting, disquieted, disparaging, degrading, decaying and dying? That there comes a point in every life we’re living in which we find ourselves dying and hoping that there’s still something more to come, something better hopefully?

That hope is meant for this life and this life then for hope?

But that only because you can only know hope in places that it doesn’t exist.

For doesn’t hope hope for better? Doesn’t hope dream of peace? Does not hope wish to see, hear, know however it can the very best of everything?

Is that honestly still anything that anyone expects to find here?

Look, I don’t mean to knock our world as it’s not really done anything to us that should find us so angry and frustrated and upset as we so usually are. In fact, those things are only the symptoms of all that we’ve done to this world. No, this world is God’s creation given us for the express investigation as to the depths of His kindness and goodness and generosity and grace. Indeed, this place is the perfect place for us to grow in all manner of understanding in regard to who He is, what He’s done, what He does and what that means.

Problem is that we don’t really seem a people who look for such things anymore. Instead we’ve become entirely focused on our trying always to find something we think more easily seen and quickly had. Indeed, we’ve nearly perfected impatience in this place, a choice that’s unknowingly chosen to hasten the very hardships that we all so detest.

Because what’s always bound to happen whenever you hurry?

You make mistakes. You mess stuff up. You say things you shouldn’t, do things the same. And truly, this defines nearly all of life anymore. It’s all one big mess. It’s this state of affairs in which we seek to impress those only impressed with death dressed in various disguises. It’s a way of life in which we live to win only one wage. Issue then becomes that we’ve become quite commonly convinced that what’s always best is for us to be rich.

A mindset which leaves us sat atop this assumption that it matters not the money nor how we make it but only that we make more than plenty.

Because around here plenty has long meant more than peace.

Indeed, within this world people break themselves to make a buck. They give their lives to working jobs they hate all so they can buy stuff they don’t need. We wake up early and stay up late trying to find some way to make ends meet so that we can ensure our circle of life is fully closed and there finally safe, successful, satisfying.

Why?

Because we’re only satisfied with success as is here proven only in profit and prominence.

This is why everyone seeks for these platforms upon which so many perform what is this show of their seeming to know what the good life is. I mean, just look at them! They’ve mansions and maserati’s bought with their millions made in making themselves endeared to a public that’s hanging on their every word waiting to hear of the ways in which they too can make their lives into what they see inside those who live for the show of it all.

Yes, life here has become a show in which all it seems that we all know is only to want the good as opposed to the bad because the bad is hard and the good is easy and we’re just only good at handling whatever’s always easy.

Even though it means that we never find anything more.

That’s okay though as we’ve seemingly become convinced that there exists here a version of life that is life’s best. And this idea has caused us to give ourselves no rest until we find it. And so we try. We look, we find, we buy. We believe every single lie that anyone else may be willing to tell us in regard to where to look and how it should never be hard, never be scary, never prove lonely. No, life’s success here is measured in fans and fortune, funds found in having fun and inspiring everyone else that so too should they expect to someday do the same.

Indeed, we think this life is supposed to be our reward.

And indeed, there are many here who will have had their reward.

My question then becomes what reward can ever come in what is a place in which peace isn’t?

What profit can be produced of a place that can’t produce peace? What purpose is there for us to find inside a life that we give away only to gain all that we’ll give away again? Truly, what will it profit a man were he to gain the whole world and all the gold and glory possibly known within it if he misplaces his purpose, his worth, his ability to want everything that isn’t here in the process?

And indeed, what all isn’t here?

Oh, we could spend plenty of time on those things that we’ll not find in this world! Peace, happiness, joy, contentment. Love, mercy, kindness, compassion. Purpose, hope, meaning, rest even.

Yeah, we’re missing all kinds of things in this version of life we’ve come to live in which we love this idea that this life can someday find itself being easy and comfortable.

Truly amazing all the things we’ve either missed or misplaced looking for a place that doesn’t exist in this place we are. And that’s because peace isn’t a place, He’s a person. A person with a promise. A promise of a place in which peace awaits. But that peace awaits, a fact found as easily as our looking around and seeing again all the hatred and misery we’re swimming in, does not that only prove that we’re meant to move from where we are and who we’ve come to become because of it?

That is why this life is hard. That is why this life is scary sometimes. That is why we’re all left so often feeling this weight of everything being wrong and usually then going the same.

It’s because we don’t belong here anymore!

And that’s because what’s here isn’t anymore what He intended for it to be.

No, this world was designed as a Garden in which all that was meant to exist was us and a trust in God’s ongoing goodness. The only part of that simplicity we’ve seemingly managed to hold onto is that part in which all we so often think to exist is just us.

Yes, life here has long been all about us, and well, what we’ve found is a world in which nobody else matters and nothing really means anything because we’ve all grown so overfed and yet unhappy, unhealthy, unhopeful that we just don’t care anymore. About anything. Because nothing ever manages to measure up to our personal estimation of what a life’s perfection should look like.

Instead everything here just keeps crumbling, falling apart, getting hard. Indeed, every day it seems in every way that life here is worse, more worried, more wearied and wondering why. In fact it seems that most days we find, rather than this best life we’re looking for, only this question as to what’s going on and why it’s all always so bad.

Always mixed with an arrogance that simply insists that we’ve had nothing to do with all this becoming whatever it is.

For again, we all seek for only our lives to be amazing. All of us want for nothing else than everything to be perfect. And yet things seem always to prove only hard, heavy, hairy and scary.

Could it be that we’re not only seeking for the wrong things but in the wrong place?

Because, again, it’s pretty clear that peace isn’t here, and too that we’re a people who don’t really seem to have much interest in looking for it anymore. Instead we’ve grown quite fond of the fun we have watching people fight one another, the gloating we gain in fighting some political argument over the latest war some guy in a suit decided we needed to fight, the pride we find in our feeling as if we’re always right and anyone who disagrees is nothing short of a mortal enemy that’s even potentially not worth breathing our air anymore.

Yes, we’re to the point in which we kill one another over words!

And yet we’re still of the audacity to imagine our finding peace in this world?

Shouldn’t we know better by now? Honestly, when’s the last time that even a day, an hour went by without something going wrong in your life? Friends, it’s been this way for all of time! This world is fallen and all of us, having fallen in love with it and all that is within it, so too are we fallen. Perfection is impossible here, and thus peace is too. And again, this is something we should all know seeing as how we can see the world and hear the words and know what so many of them seek to do.

And that’s to wound. To worry. To make feel sorry or sad or scared or ashamed. All we know to do is continue to pass the blame for a life so far from perfect, so far from peaceful, so far from even legal that we should be embarrassed that we still seek for our prize here!

For again, what is there here to find?

Here is where we have famine and war and the constant worry of both coming for our home, for our health, for our wealth and thus the life we’ve made out of thinking that our lives are meant to be perfect in a place in which so much isn’t.

Friends, why do we continue to expect things to go well in what is a world that’s daily showing us why hell exists?

No, it’s just as He’s told us here. In this world we will have trouble. We will face trial. We will endure torment and quite honestly probably a lot of it thanks to the swelling of such things as hatred and ego and the evil that drives it. This place isn’t meant to give us peace. If anything this place should help us see that peace must be someplace else as all that we seem to find around here is only a life falling apart.

A reality meant to inspire us to start for home.

Because that’s where peace is.

For again, it sure isn’t here!

No, rather peace is again a person and He’s already left to go and get ready our place in His peace as is proven only in His presence. Yes, we will only know peace when we know Jesus. Thankfully we can start getting to know Him now and in doing so we will come to know at least some measure of peace as we continue through the wars and ruins of a world that refuses to stop fighting them.

But the point is that the world will keep fighting them. In fact, the world will start fighting us as the truth we carry becomes more and more hated by those who again seek only to blame whatever, whoever they can for their lives not being perfect.

And yeah, Jesus has always been the favorite target!

What then makes us think that our lives will be easy in the same place that killed the One we follow?

No, it’s not meant to be easy. Rather our stay here is meant to help us get ready to leave by helping us see that we’ve nothing left to stay for.

After all, if this place can’t even appreciate peace, then what should we ever expect to find here?

Friends, don’t live trying to make here into Heaven. Rather embrace the fact that life here is meant to make Heaven into the hope it’s supposed to be.

All so that we’re always ready to leave what is world we’ve learned to stop trying to love.

For what is there to love of a life in which such things live as war and hate and the evil which enjoys them so?

It’s almost to the point that it doesn’t even really matter where, just so long as we get to go somewhere other than whatever here has become. Thankfully we can as such is the promise of He who is peace who has made ready our place for when we do finally leave this world and all its weight behind.

Thus we find peace is just a matter of time.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold