Day 4077 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Ecclesiastes 8:14 NIV

A topsy-turvy world

One of the more unforeseen aspects, symptoms perhaps, of what is a Christian walk is that it turns you into something of a student of life itself and how it’s lived and why it unfolds the way it does for those who do whatever they do or don’t. It causes us to consider basically the sum of everything done under the sun seeking to find those things which seem right and thus should be emulated as measured over against those which seem only wrong and thus haven’t the same need of being replicated. And this has in fact become something that I find myself doing all the time.

Just can’t find any way to make much of it make any sense anymore.

For what we slowly come to see is that the world isn’t really anything of everything it was meant to be, could still be, ought to be if only we could gather together and stop treating God like some whether or not situation, destination, consternation, objectification. Indeed, I think we’ve gone and gotten so much so screwed up and turned around that some even seem to have turned God into an idol.

How’s that for confusing!

But indeed, it’s but one scene we’re sure see whenever we set to a world-perusing. And that’s because, when He gives us eyes to see and ears to hear, well, we will! And that’s pretty much where and when we finally start to realize that pretty much every aspect of the way of life lived within this land is just about as upside down as it could possibly be. And indeed, it is a very hard thing to see and that mostly because most here seem to be stuck still on the other side of the cross’s line in which it’s apparently still hard to see but somehow the other way around.

For on the one hand you’ve a collection of people, the vastly fewer in comparison against the other, who watch on as the world burns thanks to so many here doing that which shouldn’t be done. And it’s an unexplainably miserable thing to have this hope inside your bones of one day having Heaven for a home and yet walk alongside those still doing things as if they simply don’t want to be there with you. It’s horrible! Absolutely gut-wrenching, and that only growing at that.

But then there’s the other side of the dividing line as is lined by those many more who apparently still haven’t the eyes to see what we see and can’t quite hear what we hear and thus for who knows however many reasons still seem to live as if life is best lived here.

In what is the one place in which life will be lived the least.

At least by those who have Heaven as their hope.

And yet perhaps then lived most by those who don’t.

See, this is where it all starts to get kind of confusing. It’s because, as we discussed yesterday, we’re all a people who seek for meaning. We want for life to make some sense so that we ourselves can make sense of it too. We seek for these things such as logic and reason and, at least some of us, truth as we know them to be unmoving, unchanging, challenging and yet unchallenged. And we seek them because deep down we know we need them as we can see inside of every single day of this life that without some kind of firm foundation, well, we’ll just keep getting blown about by every wind of cunning and confusion.

And as fun as that might be when we’re young and are better able to do okay without much care involved, things start to change as you start to get older and slowly start to realize that time’s running out and so are such things as strength and interest and willingness then to waste any of them upon anything not worthy of the little we’ve left.

So you start searching for the meaning of it all so that you can try your best to ensure that whatever you’ve left is being left to only the best.

But this is when you start to realize that there’s strikingly little good left in this world, a truth thus rendering ‘best’ a distant and yet dissolving hope. And that because, well, seems anymore that most days hold less hope for here than did the day before. And that’s because things down here just continue to feel backwards and turned around and so unwhat they should be that it usually feels as if we don’t know what is from what shouldn’t be.

Or at least that’s apparently what the majority here still seem to see.

For again, just watching the world for an hour will help you realize that most of those alive are living for this life. And sure, there’s some modicum of sense to that as, well, this we’re assured of as it is what we can see and feel and thus know it to be. Indeed, for a people who agree that seeing is believing, our ability to see the world in which we’re living and to see too the many plans and prizes we have still for the lives we’re living within it, it all accomplishes this easement to the journey as there is demanded no trust, no hope, no belief even.

Because we can see it and thus have in that the evidence that it really is whatever it is that we then know it to be.

Problem is that it’s not good.

It’s not even decent.

Rather this world’s been stuck in this rather adamant descent away from all things good and decent for, well, literally as long as humans have been here. Granted there were a few days spent in the Garden living life as we were meant to live it, that short time before the fruit was taken from where He’d told us we shouldn’t. But ever since then, well, our eyes have been opened to the knowledge of good and evil.

And wow, what a sight to see!

And no, it’s not one that we should have ever wanted to see but is rather a deepening misery as is made within a mankind that is making such a mockery of life that the only mystery that remains is why He remains so patient with us as most here continue to prove only at best indifferent toward Him.

For inside that mystery of God’s amazing grace we find the basis for all the others that we come to realize.

And there are entirely too many to cover.

Because, well, nothing makes sense anymore. I truly don’t understand pretty much anything that anyone does these days. It’s all a mystery to me. And that’s because, again, my eyes have been opened to see things from a perspective neither mine nor the world’s but rather one which runs everything through Scripture seeking to discern that which is good from the far more that isn’t. And indeed, friends, there is so much here that is not even anywhere close to good.

No, this place is so ruined in so many ways that we literally haven’t enough days to fix it.

And that’s because we’re the ones who broke it. And, well, as those who created the problem, and that either unwittingly or rather willingly (which is most likely), we’re probably the last ones to trust with putting it all back together.

A fact proven in that you can’t fix what isn’t broken and, somehow, there remains a whole lot of people who seem to still assume that this world’s either not broken enough to warrant being fixed or that it’s really broken but the best way to fix it is to just keep blaming everyone else.

For surely it’s never been our fault as we apparently have none, am I right?

No.

And that’s without question one of the very hardest things that this faith in Christ causes us to see. It’s that no, we’re usually not right. In fact, within that life that we’ve all lived in which we all lived as if we were right in doing whatever it was that we did, turns out that the majority of said deeds are what now deserve our death. A bill that will be settled. As it should be, considering all that we can see in what is a world in which there is again very little that’s even close to being good accidentally.

Which, sadly, that’s pretty much the only way we seem able to happen upon anything good. It’s by accident. And that’s because the vast majority of all we do is all done seeking self first and the pleasure thereof. Indeed, this has become such a selfish world that most folks have just disappeared into their phones placating the very algorithms that learn their rhythms seeking to make them ongoing victims of themselves and their pleasure.

Which is probably why He told us to not think more highly of ourselves than we ought. It’s not because we’re not worth the concern but rather because He knew we’d eventually become concerned only about ourselves.

And, well, not sure how that’s supposed to help us make this world better than whatever it’s become.

Because whenever we determine to put ourselves first, we thus become dumb to anything that asks we do otherwise. Which is something else easy to see with these new eyes. Indeed, there’s a degree of selfishness and vanity alive in this world that is as grievous and egregious as it gets. We’re literally to the point in which folks are “dating” virtual partners that they themselves created using technology so as to ensure their significant other is everything they want them to be as well as nothing they don’t seek.

Don’t even have words for that.

And yet that’s just one example of what’s happened to people. Again, we could talk about all kinds of things that are being done under the sun that seem to say that those doing them have no awareness, interest, appreciation for the Son.

Nope, most here are living as if Jesus didn’t and thus isn’t.

And what really confuses the life out of you is when you see them succeed.

For indeed, those who do things wrong are so often victorious whereas those who do things right sometimes aren’t. Those who try their best to live life via truth and honor and mercy and compassion are so often shown none of the above while those who cast aside such an upstanding approach to life are rewarded with praise and applause and appreciation. Those who break the law are held up in places of special attention while those who stay within the lines are often found living unseen lives.

Just think about some of the heroes people have made of those who didn’t do much good.

Pretty much the majority of our favorite old-west stories are made of them!

And that’s because there’s become this sense of awe and wonder regarding those who managed to exist outside the confines of a respectable life. And that because, well, we’d all like that freedom to literally do whatever we want and be loved all the while.

Because I think that’s one of the baser human desires. To be loved. To be appreciated. To be seen, noticed for our doing something that is then deemed worthy of someone else noticing it. We all want to feel like our lives are worth something, like we’ve accomplished something, like we’ll be remembered for something.

Making then laying down our lives and taking up our crosses and agreeing to basically be lost to this place one of the very last things that most in this place would ever care to chase.

Because most here can only see all the fun, the fame, the fortune and friendships they’d waste. And, well, we’re just not a people who seem to know all that much about denying ourselves. Rather we’ve become so selfish and ego-driven that there exists now an entire section of society that exists solely to make all this junk that we agree to buy simply because we remain convinced that life does consist in an abundance of possessions.

After all, we’re all kings and queens, ain’t we?

See, this is where our world’s even forced God into some measure of idolatry. I know I’ve mentioned it before but I even heard a “pastor” one time say that he was God almighty. And this said by someone who claims to be Christian, who is a follower, a student, a disciple then of He who is the Christ “who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage” but “rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”

Which, in case you either never knew or somehow managed to forget, is our example too!

For yeah, we were all made in God’s image, but friends, we’ve also made a mess of His creation ever since! Sure, He made us to be His children, but instead we’ve lived like little hoodlums. He created us to long to honor Him and praise Him and serve Him, and to love others, and yet we’ve chosen to do literally anything else with all the above.

No, again if you’ve eyes to see and ears to hear then watching the world around us for even an hour will cause you to hear and see all sorts of things that prove perfectly that life here isn’t what it ought to be.

And the hard part is that most can’t seem to see any of it.

And we know this because nothing ever changes. Rather everything just continues to deepen. People just keep going in the same direction they’ve already chosen, spending their every single day doing the very same things they’ve been doing for years. And all the while the world just keeps getting worse. More angry. More hateful. More divisive. More divided. More indignant. More undignified. More ungodly.

Can’t you see it?

It’s right there in every story about some criminal being released back to the streets only to hurt someone else once they are. It’s in every headline about some billionaire being caught doing something horrible. It’s in the wealth of those selling drugs that kill people. It’s in these governments that pervert justice so as to please their donors. It’s in the corporations that lay off workers as they’re deemed expendable thanks to technology being more affordable. It’s in people fighting cancer just trying to survive while others pump themselves full of drugs and have no issues at all. It’s in school shootings being still a common aspect of our way of life.

The innocent having to die just because some evil person has determined they should.

No friends, not much here works out the way it should. In fact, so much of what happens here is quite backwards. The evil win while the humble are mocked in their agreed upon losses of what the wicked take from them. Indeed, even truth is anymore used as a weapon meant to hurt those who may have not even done anything wrong, other than not agreeing to the misuse of Scripture being something we should ever undertake to do.

And yet you even have mega churches that use the pulpit as a stage upon which to perform for the people such a lavish production that all of them leave talking more about the show than about the Savior they still don’t know even having gone to church.

That’s not how that should work!

So much that goes on here is nothing close to how any of it should work as you get farther being a jerk than being kind. Being rude is considered funny while being kind is considered weak. Strength is apparently proven in power and so then those who don’t hold some special position thus aren’t people worth our consideration. Indeed, we’ve made a life out of ignoring those who aren’t seen as important while we give all our time and attention to those who make the meek their victims.

And it’s all hard to watch because, well, it just doesn’t make any sense.

In fact, I think this is one of the main reasons that so many still reject the idea of Christianity. It’s because it’s a faith that’s supposedly built upon righteousness and morality and the express expectation of personal responsibility and yet what they see oftentimes instead are those considered to be clergy doing things that don’t line up at all with the example they’ve heard Christ is supposed to be.

Because yes, sadly even the church has gotten a lot of things really mixed up.

Because yeah, it’s really hard for us to deny ourselves the success, the fame, the popularity it would bring if we allowed the world to creep in and make things more appealing to more people.

And, well, there you have it. It seems to all boil down to yet again another numbers game. For we sadly measure success via behinds in seats and digits in a bank account. And, well, sadly those things are accomplished far more easily whenever we agree to do things a little more questionably.

But thankfully nobody really asks all that many questions anymore.

Because the vast majority here have either never known or simply forgotten all that’s still in store.

And too that that promise of that day of judgement is for all of us!

And too that the promise is that upon that day everything will be reverted back to the way it was meant to be.

Indeed, on that day the wicked will find out that they’ve already had their reward in this life and thus have no reward left to find. Yes, the first will be last and eternally left out of the gift that is eternal life that will be given only to those who gave their lives here to following Jesus Christ and doing only whatever might honor Him as best as a fallen people might.

Friends, trust me when I say that I understand our inherent need to understand everything. But the simple truth is that so much that’s happening here is just without meaning. There is no reason to find for so many things. Rather all most of it boils down to is a simple truth:

“The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

A fact which causes them to continue doing things which shouldn’t be done, simply because they cannot see the Son nor that the sun is setting upon this life.

Ask Him to open your eyes! Not because it’s easy to see a world filled with people wasting our only opportunity at the hope of eternal life. But because we too will miss the same if we never come unto a knowledge that this world is everything we should never wish to remain.

Because this world is the contrary to everything He’s told us.

Indeed, let us stop trying to make sense of the stains hoping that doing so will make them go away and rather pour ourselves fully into He who washes them away. Because the sad truth is that very little here is ever going to change.

But He has promised to change everything, everyone.

For what is now upside down simply will not be allowed to stay that way forever as He is not a God of the chaos we see but rather of the order that we so often don’t.

Thankfully He has never changed.

When then will we?

#LeaveNoSoulUntold