Day 4081 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Psalm 73:5 NIV

What is pain?

Is it the inner intensity met at the intersection of illness and injury? Is it found within the physical feelings of physical beatings? Is it seen inside the twisting of insides due to having eaten something rotten or witnessed something the same? Is it heard within the horrors of a hope gone to waste? Is it having to wait to see if that hope might dare again show its face? Is it the fear we feel when faced with something of which we’ve long been afraid? Is it the struggle that’s made inside facing down our fears and finding out all the reasons why we were always right to have feared this something that’s left us physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually struggling?

What is struggle?

We’ve been inside this proverbial bubble for a few days now as we’re trying to plumb the depths of this seeming discrepancy we all continue to see inside what is a life in which it often seems as if one side wins and one side won’t and yet those who do are those who don’t do what ought to be done whereas those who seem to always at least try aren’t seemingly often privy to that way of life of such things as success but are rather far more familiar with those such as pain and struggle and strife and the overall misery all the above and all their like can, and tend to, bring unto a life.

And well, to be honest it’s a matter measured as entirely unfair. And, well, in ways it does seem as if it is. And that is because we’ve grown up within this mindset that always now knows to assume that there are both things we should and should not do and that our doing of either side of things divided by that line of right and wrong brings with it rewards and consequences depending upon which side we’re found standing. And yes, it does make sense that the more consequential side of things should be reserved always for those found doing those things which oughtn’t be done.

Because that’s what consequences are.

They’re these outcomes measured in misery, mayhem, madness and mystery found by those who always seem surprised by this apparently unforeseen outcome in life that’s taken them completely by surprise as they were elsewise convinced that they weren’t doing anything so wrong to have reached this song sung in chords played of a funeral dirge of the better direction they should have gone as was never known because of better decisions they simply chose not to make.

No, we never feel as if we deserve to endure anything we don’t like as we think most often in life that we’re getting most things mostly right.

Because, well, truth is that most things are usually going basically the same.

Now that doesn’t mean that we don’t all endure pain as yes accidents do happen such a making a mistake or opting unwittingly for what proves eventually yet another misunderstanding that leaves us standing in a life suddenly unsure as to where we are, how we got there, why it’s so bad as it is and what we might possibly do about any of it. For the fact is that we’re all still here learning, growing, figuring out the further idiosyncrasies and inadequacies and superficialities and damaged mental capacities of what has been allowed to become a life in which we simply choose to lead the way entirely too often.

Considering the fact that, again, since we’re all still learning, sometimes we just don’t know what we’re doing.

Proven in that we all say things we don’t mean because we didn’t think about what the words might sound like to another. Or we act upon an endeavor or endeavor upon an act that turns itself on its own head and leaves only for dead the better intentions that we imagined. Or we try something new as we reach the end of the usefulness of the old, as is measured in anything from boredom to embarrassment, and yet only find it to be even worse than the first and so we turn around and hope there’s found the old we’d left behind.

We do all sorts of things in life that bring with them an eventual regret over having done it that asks that we neither do it ever again and, if we’re so humbly bold, to maybe spend some time rethinking the apparent lies that were told, either to us from another or, and more often, to ourselves that led us to this shell of a life that we simply don’t like because of the various pains involved in the living thereof.

Those the likes of illness as is sometimes brought on us by those so careless as to simply not wash their hands when they’re not feeling well. Or those of an injury we sustained doing something that proved a little more dangerous in the rain than it seemed in the sunlight. Or those of inner misery such as are made in our making dinner but forgetting to ensure it was cooked to the proper temperature. Or maybe our failing yet again to gauge the temperature of the room and ending up feeling like a fool making light of what was a solemn mood.

These are all things that we do that do indeed, in deed, lead to pain that is either ours or another’s to bear.

Because again, we’re learning as we go inside what is His hope that we continue trying to do just that, which is to get better at this. And well, truth is that, as I’ve said before and still firmly believe now, pain is a pretty great teacher as it is remarkably able to inspire us to not do the things, say the things, simply never again make the choices we made that led us to that place in which someone, us or another, was left to feel pain.

Like putting your hand on a hot burner on the stove. Yep, good reminder that that’s not a good idea. Or stubbing your toe on the leg of your recliner. Helps you remember to watch where you’re going. Or going out to eat and eating more than you should, as most everyone here still loves to do, only to get back home and scream all of it into the porcelain turban as you throw up what ended up proving too much of something that wasn’t cooked well and had rather gone off.

Pretty inspirational unto the more intentional care placed upon what we place in our mouths.

At least for a while.

And indeed, all of us have felt these things, and yeah, all of them are pains.

But is that all that pain is? Just the physical repercussions of a life spent without embracing personal responsibility, situational awareness, a simple understanding of the generally understood nuances of such things as bad moods and the bad days endured by those who have them sometimes?

Which kind of brings me back to what we’ve been talking about the last couple of days.

It’s that there seem, from where we stand inside what often feels a life of less success than struggle and more pain than pleasure, to be those who get to experience this same journey the other way. Anymore this is a sight we see almost everywhere we look, and that mostly because most of us down here spend most of our time looking at our phones upon which we see all those living lives of luxury that leave us considering them far more lucky than we’ve ever been before or tuning into the news to hear about something good that happened to someone to whom it wasn’t deserved, and that shown at the end of a day we had that went so very bad that we’d simply rather not talk about it.

Indeed, this life just seems to continue to bring always with it this strange success for those who don’t really seem to deserve it while also refusing the same from those, usually ourselves, who we think deserve it more.

Truly, why is it that this life here always seems to have in store more of the better for those who already seem to have more than enough of it while it continues to take away any measure of everything good that those with little of it seem to have left?

Again, it’s unfairness, isn’t it?

Well, we think it is because, yes, there do seem those who never have bad days. We do know those who wake up most days with no pains. We have witnessed what is a world in which the wicked win and get to enjoy whatever they want while we, trying to do our best to always do good, seem to struggle through things that we never see others having to deal with.

And that’s just out here on the surface where most everyone lives.

But that’s not where pain lives, is it? I mean sure, there are those strugglings we’re able to see such as, again, illness and injury. We can see someone fall and know the sudden stop had to hurt. We can witness someone bleeding from an accident at work. We can hear the words and feel their sting ourselves whenever someone, for whatever reason, yells at another in what could well explode into an argument that, considering the anger alive these days, could well turn physically violent which would then only lead to more harm done.

Indeed, this is a painful life. And yet still we find that sometimes we feel as if those who cause the pain are often immune to the same.

Rather there are those who just go through life wielding this knife that is their words, their actions, their chosen way of life that chooses to treat others as if doormats or stepping stones meant to be walked on, thrown away, ignored altogether. And yeah, it hurts to see those who are jerks just continue to be exactly that, and that all while seeming to enjoy a great deal of success along the way to wherever they’ve chosen to go.

A kind of freedom I think we’d all like to know.

Because, again, we often consider ourselves to be the ones who are doing things right and trying our best to keep it that way. And yet, despite our best efforts given unto doing always our best at everything we feel to be right, we still find only this life in which we feel pain and meet misery and are left having to deal with illness and injury while watching on in the sheer brutality of those who are just bullish and brutal plowing through humanity leaving scars and scary stories told by their victims as they do.

And again, it just seems unfair.

Why do those who do wrong never seem to be seen suffering? Why do those who cause the pain usually seem rather pain free themselves? Why is it that those who sell the drugs or the guns or make the food not caring what they’re doing, all of which make others sick or elsewise harmed, why is it that similar harm never seems to come for them?

Rather there are many here who seem to always escape the heavier hurts of life. Indeed, there are even some who seem to know nothing of something so necessary as shame! Guilt, regret, remorse, sorrow, sadness, they all seem to be things only felt by those caught in the aftermath of those who seem to feel them not. They’re symptoms of the illness of another which inspires them to go on hurting their sister and hating their brother so very much that they apparently feel nothing whenever causing them harm.

Leaving the hurt to be felt by those wounded by the wanton disregard of another.

And it’s truly something that seems so entirely unfair that it’s simply impossible to make sense of.

And yet we try.

Why?

Because, as we started off this little journey through Psalm 73, we’re a people who seek for understanding. Again, we’re learning and so we remain open and ready to seek out the factual findings that will help us glean a better understanding of everything we see and what we’re pretty sure we heard. We want to, again, try our best to do our best to get this right and so we set our eyes to watching our lives and doing all we can to tweak and tinker whenever we need to ensure that better is something always closer in reach.

All while watching those who seem do nothing of the same seem to find far more success, much less stress and likely next to no guilt, regret or remorse.

Indeed, there are those here who seem to have never even heard the word ‘consequence’ as it seems unto us that they’ve never endured it.

And well, that doesn’t make any sense, does it?

For while we’ve found the logic not hidden inside this idea of this life in which the punishment should fit the crime, something itself which comes straight from Scripture itself (eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth), it rather seems an ideal we continue to lose to what is the vastly more obvious way of life in which those who do do right often are those left feeling the most pain whereas those who don’t try to get anything right, do ever anything good, they’re the ones who go on living those lives that look as if they always feel rather good.

What sense does that make?

Why are some of us more prone to pain while others are more apt to only cause it? Why does it seem as if those who do the wrong things often get to experience those things that those who do the right things never do? Indeed, why do cheaters win? Why does the bad guy always get the girl? How is it that the liar always manages to avoid every fire they set as they simply walk away from it and leave it to burn inside of those to whom they’d told it?

It’s all upside down down here!

But friends, isn’t that the point?

I mean, after all, Jesus told us plain that even those who do what seem to be the right things and yet for only the wrong reasons, such as to be seen, adored, applauded, they’ll have had their reward in full. How much more shall they who do the wrong things and yet enjoy the victories we consider inside such outcomes as success and pleasure and treasure, how much more shall those victories prove their rewards too?

Have we forgotten His promise that those who love their lives here will lose them whereas those who find not quite so much enjoyment here will be rewarded with a refreshed forever in which they’ll finally find all the peace and hope and love and mercy, and yes, pleasure and treasure and success, that they never found here?

Friends, what my point is is this: Across the scope of eternity we’ll all endure both sides of life’s now duality. One side is found and felt inside such things as pain, mistake, mayhem and misery whereas the other meets only calmness and caring and compassion and their tranquility. Yes, one side of life will find for us pain whereas the other promises pleasure. One side of life brings us the fulfillment of hope, the other only the hardship that demands it far more often. One side is filled with fun and freedom and friendship even. The other knows far more of being forgotten, forsaken.

Yes, one side of life is a war in which we endure all that a war is meant to bring, the other brings finally the best outcome of all things, things such as peace and rest and healing.

What this faith seeks to help us understand is that where we stand right now isn’t forever but that it’s all for just another moment or two. Why? So that we’ll not agree to risk having to lose our reward upon pleasures and treasures found inside what is a place in which, yes, the bad guy wins.

Why?

Because that was never God’s plans for His people. Rather His plans for us have always been for our good, for our hope, for our healing and happiness and everlasting freedom found in life the same. Everlasting. And thankfully, He doesn’t change and so nor have changed His intentions for His creations.

Problem is that we changed. We walked away. We ignored His Word and refused His rebuke when we did. We took that fruit, it opened our eyes, and instead of living then the better life, no, no rather we found all of the ways in which life now works out in ways in which it never should. Such as bad things happening to those who do good while good things happen to those who never seem to even care to try. Again, not what He intended for life.

Friends, it’s a daily clarity that this world isn’t what it ought to be. Because, honestly, what sense can ever be made of a God so good as to both create us in love and then die in the same so as to save us from whatever this is that we’ve became, that also continues to reward those who continue to refuse His call to repentance with rewards so repetitious that the wicked seem to go on finding them continually?

No, rather here’s where we finally find the discrepancy. And, not at all ironically, it’s one designed inside of us yet again. And that is that we think of rewards as those things we see folks enjoying here. Things such as pleasure and treasure and the vast amount of success that so many around us seem to have as we never really do. Yes, we think of those who are rich and famous as those being the luckiest of all. That they’re the ones who are blessed, always unstressed, know nothing of pain and can literally afford to do whatever they want.

And as the wheel turns we’re starting to find that many of them have, and that, yeah, a whole lot of it is bad as, yes, it has caused the hurt and harm of those they left in their wickedest of wake.

And no, it doesn’t make any sense how those who harm others so often manage to evade the same.

Until you remember that forever is the final table flip.

For indeed, there comes a day in which all that’s here will be replaced with its perfect contrary. This is why His warning that many will have had here their reward in full.

It’s because only a fool would seek for their best in this part that ends.

No friends, we don’t need this life to be painless nor filled with success. Rather we should embrace the struggle, the strife, any and all misery in life. Why? Because they help to remind that our reward isn’t here. That our best is still to come. That Heaven is the hope of those haven’t much of the same left for, in, of this place.

Doesn’t always make the pain easier to face nor easier to understand why some inflict far more than they endure.

But we don’t need this to be easy either.

No, we need only whatever best aids us in seeking for Christ Jesus while we can. And well, what better to inspire us to seek His healing than this world’s tendency to harm?

In truth it matters little what happens to us here because we’ll not be here forever. So then let us stop worrying about the obvious wins of a plausibly wicked stranger as we so often feel as if we go without the same. After all, we’re storing up for ourselves such treasures in Heaven, are we not?

Don’t seek your best life here.

Rather seek that hope in the place where life itself doesn’t end.

Because all the pain and misery and ongoing misunderstanding and every obvious discrepancy, they’re none of them allowed to come to that place He’s made ready for us to be.

Instead they all get to stay behind with those who caused more harm than they seemingly felt themselves.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold