Day 4100 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Hebrews 12:10 NIV

What is direction?

Is it the overall aim we claim toward a choice we choose? Is it the trajectory which seeks obviously to avoid all tragedy as rather its delight is designed inside a decidedly more triumphant destination? Is it the discernment demanded to ensure we’re handed the hopes for which we hope? Is it another offering to share in our hope as is done from what is an outsider’s perspective placed upon a share of our preference as is shared because they too can see the worth of it? Is it having another act as if truly a sister, a brother, a mother, in this case, a Father as they decide to help us decide which way is best to go so as to ensure that it is the best that we come to know?

Is it something we can know or rather must it always remain something we figure out as we go?

Is it the way we go or instead more worried about where?

Where can we go other than usually back to those places we already know having known the way to get there as being then the safest journey to take as it risks not a bone to break nor even a choice to make but rather a pattern to repeat? Is this not precisely why nearly every direction we take in life is one in which we’ve already gone before? Granted, we know where it leads and, well, probably a few reasons as to why we didn’t determine to stay the first time we went.

But still, it’ll always prove easier to do that which we’ve already done as we know it both possible and that proven in that, again, we’ve already done it and thus know how.

Indeed, is direction not a disciple of knowhow? Must not someone know how to do something, to get somewhere, to avoid the various pitfalls plotted along the path there if they’re to either make it to said destination toward which to go they’re determined or elsewise help another to find their way too? Does this not in fact define basically all that we all do?

For in truth there’s been this newfound weight placed upon my heart for what feels a week or so now. It’s this realization as to wheels spinning and eyes tiring of trying to be but merely entertained thanks to a brain that apparently believes that more direction is what I need. And indeed, I’ve grown to spend the better part of every night straining my eyes trying to find the substance of something that I assume I need to know and yet have to watch in order to find out why.

Cut to a life in which I live, yet again, all but perpetually glued to a blasted screen blasting scenes showing the self-perceived growth in things that I think I need to know, or want to know, or, and sadly more often than I’d care to be the case, just things that I find slightly amusing. Yep, I too seem to have been found agreeing unto my own being entertained to death. All the way to this point today in which my eyes are so tired that now getting up so early to write these posts has become something that’s as much a struggle as back when I started.

All because I’m blowing my eyes out watching videos on youtube trying to find within them a bettered direction in regard to how to do what I’m already doing.

And granted, I do believe there is some use to that as, well, yeah, others often do have a perspective or past from which we can perhaps learn a thing or two as, well, none of us, contrary to common contention, none of us can actually know the entire sum of everything and so it stands to reason that there could be some reason found in our finding reason to spend some time listening, learning from those who may well have some bit of insight as to how we might improve our lives.

But it seems that what we tend to find is an entirely thin line we thus unknowingly race right over as we waste more time than reason or resource we happen to find in so doing.

All of it done in the hope of finding direction.

Simply because, deep down in those places we don’t talk about and actually won’t even admit are there, truth is we’re all scared because we know full well that we don’t often know fully what we’re doing and thus haven’t any real way to ensure we’re doing it right. That is outside of our baser estimation as are formed on the basis of such experiences as excitement or pleasure or popularity.

Indeed, all but all of humanity has decided to seek most if not all of their directioning from basically just those sort of things. We make nearly our every decision and determine its every outcome as either delight or disaster based almost solely upon such things as whether or not it felt good or paid good or looked good to those who we still for whatever reason actually seem to really believe are still watching everything we’re doing as if we’re here to be their daily entertainment.

Truth is that anymore everyone here’s so lost in themselves that most folks haven’t even the slightest recollection that there are literally millions of people around them. We’re all so glued to our phones or worried about paying our loans or making sure we stay in the zone that we haven’t any worry left to spend upon those around us. Truly, it’s like we’re all living in different worlds, each with a population of one. And so it’s become fairly reliable to estimate that there’s probably few if any who are actually paying any attention to what you’re doing.

And even fewer who would ever have any idea as to why.

But there’s always one.

Or should I say One?

And yet, oddly enough, that God is watching has itself become something of a worry entirely too weary for most. In fact most here seem to have opted for this general direction in life in which they live as if He doesn’t, perhaps never did. And why? Because they know that if He is there and does care so very much as proven in His choosing of the cross, then He must really know all the times we’ve gotten lost and the sum of all we’ve lost in doing so.

And that’s a terrifying thing to know He knows as, well, even we don’t.

No, there’s not a one of us who knows every mistake we’ve chosen to make. Not one of us knows the entire sum of everything we’ve missed under the sun. Few of us even seem to worry about whatever it is that we might be missing in a life spent stressing as is done only because we know far better, having lived it far longer, that life lived not under the Son.

Though that life doesn’t actually exist as, well, He does and thus it doesn’t really matter if we live as if He doesn’t as that is merely a direction we’ve chosen seeking to stay frozen inside a life lived as if such things as personal pleasure and material meaning might actually mean as much we’ve long proven we really hope they can.

They can’t.

Which, sadly, is a really good example of why we need a little help with direction. It’s because, again as proven inside our every single past, we’re all really bad at doing what we should, knowing what we should, not doing or knowing what we shouldn’t. In fact, going way back to the Garden in which our chosen fall of a direction was chosen, oddly at the inspiration of another who we decided for whatever reason to trust, probably that whole “you too shall be as gods” stuff, we’ve kind of proven just about perfect in only knowing what we shouldn’t and thus usually doing as we shouldn’t too.

We’re actually really good at it!

Not that that’s anything to in any way take pride in. But you know us, if there’s a will then there’s a way and, well, whenever pride’s the prize, we’ll find the way!

Simply because we are sadly just that dumb. A fact proven in the masses faithfully doing basically the same things over and over again, and that, at this point, often without even expecting different results.

Indeed, is there a version of insanity that’s more insane than insanity?

Because if there is then I’m pretty sure we’re there as it seems like the world’s strangely stuck on repeat, so many doing only over and over again the very same things, all while all but knowing that nothing good is to be found happening or resulting from it. Take politics for example. Our country’s been playing this very same game for decades. We get all excited about a change in leadership, as, let’s face it, there’s always at least some room for improvement if not in fact a whole lot, and so we get all giddy every four years to head to the polls to vote for our favorite idiot who, once elected, somehow manages to come down with amnesia in regard to all the wonderful improvements they’d promised whilst out on the campaign trail.

And so we then spend another four years being grossly disappointed as we find out that most of what they said was a lie until the next time the process kicks up again and we, being idiots ourselves, line back up and cast our next vote for someone we apparently don’t know is probably a liar too.

Simply because that’s the direction we’ve chosen to stick to. And that because, well, doing as we’ve always done is vastly easier than tearing everything down, resolving to figure out how it all went so wrong, and then rebuilding a better idea that’s based upon a set of what should be vastly different principles that should aid in our finding that way that is finally better than whatever it was that we’d elsewise settled for for however long we did.

Sort of like the process of salvation as is proven in our enduring of sanctification in which God, the One defined here as He who does all He does not only for a little while nor as He can only at best THINK is best but rather works out forever that which He KNOWS is best thanks to His being the All-knowing.

It’s the grandest of all upendings as is offered only unto those who, again, HE KNOWS needs such a fresh start.

And too more than a little help with the directioning thereafter.

Which is why Christ came. It was to both open our eyes to the danger, and in fact death, that was to be proven in the direction we’d chosen and to also, having faced said danger thanks to His dying our death upon that cross, sent back the Helper who exists to both instill in us a humbling willingness to follow Christ’s example and that by helping us to remember all He said, all He did, all the reasons why, and that it was all to help us too die to that life in which the direction we’d chosen was only that aimed into the grave without any way back out.

Indeed, He came to become the Way back out, and that by making all things new, including setting me and you upon what ought to prove quite different directions designed with different devotions.

But again, the problem is that different is something we’re all quite terrified of as, well, we know that we can keep doing whatever it is that we’re doing, which is more often than not just convincing ourselves that what we’re doing is what we should be doing as is done, again because of dumb, by pointing out how good it feels or how popular it makes us or how much money we’ve made in doing it.

Truly, the truth is that we’ll walk away from nothing as we just don’t seem to yet realize that that’s not only all we have but in fact has become what we are.

Just nothing.

Why?

Because our most commonly shared direction in life has long been that one taken by everyone else toward what is the eventual sum of such things as, at best, a bunch of money, a big house, a fancy car, a ton of friends, hopefully a bit of fame, and, most egregious of all, a faithfulness to financial success that we all still assume means as much if not more than the souls we often sell to get it.

Yes, the most common direction in life is that defined as the wide which is a road paved toward hell along which, honestly, the intentions never really mattered.

Because intentions always go out the window just as soon as something gets hard and something else seems then easier. Or whenever the choice we’ve chosen proves a little more expensive than we’d imagined and thus another choice becomes a voice singing this song of comparative ease. Or whenever the direction we’ve been going ends up proving that it’s always been aimed at nowhere and nothing, and our having and being of both, which then makes any other road seem a good idea.

Indeed, we’re a people literally willing to try anything to find anything that we can easily believe is better than wherever, whatever, whoever we currently are.

Which is in fact incredibly easy seeing as how most of us are usually unhappy, don’t feel all that well, are impressively bored and that so much so that we spend our nights watching videos about goofy things that dogs do.

Truly ashamed to admit that as a 38 year old man.

But here I am!

Where?

In a place in which I seem to realize that better is still waiting out there somewhere for me to find it but also seemingly too lazy or tired or unsure to really ever start in any way that I haven’t already. And, to my credit, I have in fact started trying to find better, do better, be better in many ways over the years. Alas my fear is that found in all those ways that I’m not so improving as they seem the ones always best to keep on proving that no, I don’t know what I’m doing as, yeah, what I am doing is often wasting my time numbing my mind watching videos online about goofy things that dogs do.

Which, though sometimes cute, simply cannot aid me in becoming the best that I can be as, well, I have no intention of ever being a veterinary, an animal groomer, a dog walker, even a pet owner as I’m busy and not really all that interested in the whole idea.

So why then do I need to spend my time watching videos online of things that will never have any actual impact on my life?

I don’t. And yet, apparently that’s the direction I’ve chosen.

Which is why I need help.

That’s why we all need help. Not because we all watch pointless little videos on the internet every night but because the fact is that in this life we are all wasting our time and spinning our wheels and letting entirely too often how we feel be the only thing that leads the way. And we do that because we know for sure and for certain that doing so will lead us always back to comfort, to success, to pleasure and a life then with seemingly less stress.

Friends, we need stress. We need worry. We need pain because it inspires us to hurry up and get on with living life before we’ve not here any life left to live.

And that with the knowing that everything we’re known for doing will in fact be judged one day.

Yet we all live as if that day is either never coming or is so long off that we can afford to spend a few more years stuck to our fear of trying to be something more than we’ve sadly settled to become.

Hit me the other night that God did not give me this life for me to use it to become nothing more than a youtube connoisseur filled with a vast amount of worthless facts about everything from how to dress like a gentleman to how not to change a tire.

Not that those things don’t matter, but honestly, do we not already know?

And, if so, why spend our lives in the direction of making sure we do by watching a bunch of videos or reading a ton of articles about it?

Telling you friends, we’re all far more lost than we could ever imagine!

A fact proven in our glaring lack of discipline, of determination, of devotion devoid of delusion and general dumbness. We waste so much time worrying about things that don’t matter, focusing on things that don’t help, complaining about the ways in which others are genuinely trying to help and arguing about how we don’t need any help that we’re slowly losing our lives to everything lesser than everything better we can still become.

Yes, we can all still become something immeasurably improved from whoever we are right now.

But said growth in and toward that hope of a truly better life and us actually better at living it isn’t found on youtube. It’s not waiting to be discovered in our doing more of the things we already know how to do. It’s definitely not found in our continuing to avoid those things we don’t want to do like learn, change, repent.

Rather all growth, especially that made in hope and toward home is waiting for us to stop spinning our wheels or whining whenever someone else dares suggest we are.

Friends, if only we knew how far we’ve not come from who we were and thus how far we remain from the better we’re not, we’d not be wasting so much time arguing with God over the ways in which He’s trying to help us lose those things in our lives that are literally killing us.

No, if we knew even half of all that Heaven holds, all that Jesus is, we’d readily lay aside whatever we had to in life so that we could have more room for Him to do what we could then know was what He knew He needed to do to help us break through the barricades we’ve built around ourselves.

Not because it’s fun and definitely not because it feels good because honestly most of the time His way does neither. But I think that ought to hammer home the point! Our feeling good and having fun is what led us to wherever we are today, which is again, vastly unhappy, unhealthy and woefully unholy. That is the direction we’ve chosen and we’re spending our every single day wading through the miserable outcome!

Don’t we want better than whatever this is that we are?

And if so, as we all should, then when do we start? Will ever we start?

Start what?

Getting out of His way and finally letting Him take the lead no matter what that means.

Friends, it shouldn’t matter to us the things He asks we lose or those He insists we go through. If we trust Him, again, as we all should, then we should know that it’s all for our good. And that itself is something proven as easily as it making us different from the world. I mean, just look around my friends! Is this the place we should want so badly to fit in?

This world is offering us evidence every single day of every single thing that none of us should want to be. Which is itself a measure of directioning. But it all comes down to which direction we’re willing to go. Is it that which continues to see this world as home or rather that which knows that home shouldn’t know so much darkness and misery as this world does?

I get that our being disciplined, challenged, changed isn’t anything that any of us know how to enjoy. But folks, just because we don’t enjoy something doesn’t mean that it can’t make us better. It’s like a diet, yeah, not much fun to not eat like heathens all the garbage we’re used to. But putting down the cake and losing a bit of weight is undeniably something that everyone could benefit from.

What else might be benefit from putting down?

Truth is that we probably don’t know, but that’s the whole point of the Holy Spirit. It’s there to help us see all those things in our lives that we don’t need. It’s God pointing us in the direction we should go.

Question is will we go in the direction He points?

Or will we simply stay who and what we are as if we honestly believe that there’s nothing better we can be?

I pray that we’ve not actually given up on the idea of our being better. For sadly it sure seems we have.

Thankfully He hasn’t.

Not yet at least.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold