Day 4112 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Hebrews 12:3 NIV

What is emulation?

Is it a manmade and thus mundane measure of mere mimicry? Is it the supposed sincerity societally seen inside all such forms of familiar flattery? Is it an audacity to do that which another’s done, chosen simply because you enjoy the looks of the outcome? Is it the courage to consider the content of the contest contended against along the way toward said outcome? Is it a willingness to withstand such war as that won by whomever it is that we seek to mimic? Is it truly nothing but our seeking to copy only all that only another has chosen to attempt?

Is it an attempt to opt for a path already blazed so as to avoid the barbs and blood as are won within being the first?

Is it a thirst for trust, both that seen in us and thus us of them from whom we’ve gleaned this apparent daring to do as they themselves have done?

Whatever it is it is indeed a form and function of mirroring. It’s a matter made of our making our minds to, for whatever reason that even our own pride may not abide, follow another who is thus forever, or at least for however long we so dare allow them to be, they who are in the lead with us then mere followers. And indeed, anymore, outside of such confusions as social media and the nigh existence it’s become for many here, the idea of following is something that has managed to remain what it’s pretty much always been.

And that’s a worthless conversation as there’s simply no consideration ever to be given to our being they who exist as mere duplicates of another.

For there’s a form of following that, again because of the likes of social media’s having been made to measure our meaning in likes and other such momentary attentions, exists solely interested in ensuring that we’re the ones that others are following. This is why we’re all so enamored by these platforms that allow us to feign a figment of popularity. They help us to feel as if all that we say, all that we do, literally the sum of all then that we are is the very same as hopefully a continually growing number of others appreciate enough to at least come back time and again to learn from.

Makes us feel good to think that there are others, who again form what become basic links in a chain whose length continues to grow as more and more come to know who we are, or at least the image we show.

For that’s basically been the very sum of everything we’ve long assumed we were actually here to do:

Just look good to the people who, being themselves willing to remain so weak as to look always unto another for whatever guidance and assistance they may need in order to daily revive the persistence needed to live a life, thus look unto us to be these exemplars they seek of whatever they believe a life here is supposed to be.

It’s truly as if we’re all of us still somehow convinced that since life is here then we need to learn always from those living what we ourselves consider a better version so that we too can grow to live that same better version.

Alas our understanding of better is largely based upon and built within this arguably blasphemous belief that bigger is all that’s better and that usually measured in the measures of such things as bank accounts and other creature comforts. And sadly our list of said comforts has become in fact so very big that it’s all but impossible for us to break out of our ability to see life only through that lens of the lives being lived by those who we tend to think, and judging from follower numbers many others seem to agree, are living better lives than you and me.

And because we and so many others do agree that we all do seem to see the substance of something bigger and better and brighter within the lives, lies and laughter of another who, despite being but an estranged sister and brother (seeing as how we’re all made in the same image of the same God, but estranged from Him thanks to what are differing distances which exist thanks to vastly diverse differences in doubts and indifferences), we too seem to easily believe that said number of others who see whatever we too seem to, well, we can’t all be wrong.

So yeah, perhaps we are best to just gather together and follow along behind what’s become a life basically lived only to survive upon what seem to be always but crumbs which fall from the tables of those who’ve such lifestyles of the rich and famous and thus measurably better than us.

We’d never admit that as, well, we’ve still our own pride to protect.

But the fact is, and it’s sadly one that’s being left to be only realized in a distant day’s retrospect, we’re all following so many “influencers” simply because we mind not being influenced by those who seem to be living these lives of the relative affluence that our own arrogance would too so love to live.

Which is pretty much the problem that’s causing pretty much all of our others.

It’s that, again, we’ve grown unto this understanding of life that apparently knows only to measure the same in what are those things that we consider better things. We want always for the best, the biggest, the most embarrassing bank account and the most massive house and the fastest car allowed on the road. We want our lives to hold so much wealth and wonder that others indeed line up every morning to wander ever behind us trying to glean from us all the little secrets to our success that we dole out for the simple price of a social media like.

Granted, some we protect behind paywalls that ask that others literally pay us for our most special suggestions as to how they too can live the lives that we’re too not really living.

But still, the end result is still the same and that’s that around here life’s waned so plain that we all stand in the same rain following the same names who continue to claim that they either know how to make it stop or at the very least offer the most robust and thus reliable umbrella in the shop.

All because all we want is for all of life to always be easy, safe, comfortable, productive, maybe.

Truth is the jury’s still out on the last one as, well, it seems that productivity is a matter decidedly prickly as we’ve now the technology that’s beginning to help us begin to do the very same less and less that our fear of stress and test has always had us desiring almost as much as life itself.

And, well, wouldn’t you know it but there are many already in line trying to find their way to own it, at least whatever part the designers thereof are willing to allow unto the underlings that we still can’t really seem to see that most see us as continuing to be.

No, we’re all in this together and there seeking always the very best in and of and for one another.

Or at least that’s the gist of what say the little pamphlets that are continually passed out by those who are the powers that be, which are the ones that we allow the lead as, well, they’ve more money and stuff than us and too seemingly then less struggle and barely any strife in life.

And indeed, such is the life we too want to live!

We want to be so rich and famous that the entire world loves us and we can afford so much more stuff that our fellow idolaters will just continue to wade in wonder as to all we’ve won within lives already torn asunder. Again, we’re not necessarily there quite yet, but I suppose that such is actually one of the better purposes of all belief that we, for what are then obvious reasons, choose perpetually not to see.

It’s because we don’t want to see the sum of those fears that are equally believable, if not in fact vastly more perceivable given our culture’s current confusions and the arrogant delusions both designing them and yet still denying them. We don’t want to see the downsides, the costs, the audacity of consequence to come along and all but upend our having built what are coming close to finally becoming basic villas in what is a veritable village of those we can’t see are but vicious villains.

A reality to which we’re willfully unaware because, well, neither do we really care and nor do we wish to admit that our favorite guru is just a goon who, for all we know, practices voodoo and has then no interest in any of Christ’s attributes.

Which is who we’re supposed to be following, mimicking, emulating, honoring thus.

But alas, no, His path remains that paved in what remain ways that, well, none of us are really all that interested in. Again, we’ve a veritable plethora of others from which to choose, most of which are paved not in things we have to lose nor misery we’re promised to find but rather things we hope to have and misery we get to miss along the way to getting them.

Easy to see why the Bible says that narrow is the path which leadeth unto life and thereby there be but few who trod thereupon.

It’s because His path is hard. His way is heavy. His will breaks us down and His Word tears us up once there. Everything He does seems to do nothing but bring the hurt, remind us that we are but jerks, prove endlessly, and that all but effortlessly, that no, we are not those who are meant to be followed as we’ve all proven only to know of the way back to lives lived hollowed by things so unholy that many of them are unspeakable.

Thankfully many of those whom we’ve chosen to follow are finally to the level of sheer arrogance and audacity that many are in fact starting to say said quiet parts out loud.

Problem is that we’re still not listening.

And that because, again, we’ve so tuned our ears and turned our minds to hearing the sound of cha-chings cha-chinging that we know only that as any form of a life worth living. We listen to only that or they which promise to lead us along the way to that better day in that brighter place in which we’re so stinking rich that we can buy our way out of any disease or discomfort that comes along obviously not knowing who we are nor then that we’re above such struggles and strains.

Indeed, these lives we live know only the strain we agree to endure knowing for sure that we’re sure to find the fame and fun that we see so many others enjoying already.

And that’s because we’re a people who continue to believe only the sum of all that we see. And, well, in one approach to life we again see what sure seem a vast majority of people who are having so much fun and finding so much success and enjoying their avoiding of so much stress that, for obvious reasons, we then want to be like them because we too wish to find success and have some fun and be the proud owners of bank accounts with such an abundance of funds that we can afford to do nothing but enjoy ourselves while we’re here.

And in the only other direction we see only all these calls unto discipline, determination, self-denial even. Yes, in Christ’s footsteps we find such things as pain, loneliness, abandonment, persecution, mockery, rejection.

You know, literally all the things that none of us want to know any more of than we all already have in what are pasts that we’ve tried so hard to forget?

And why?

Because those aren’t the fun things in life. Those aren’t the prizes that our preferences prefer to prioritize. They’re not the promises we were hoping for.

They’re nothing we were hoping for.

And so most here continue turning away from the Way that is the Life. Because the way He lived His life is pretty much utterly void of literally all the things that we’ve all come to believe we’re all but supposed to see inside our own. Sure, I’d imagine that Jesus had some fun, told some jokes, even had some hopes. I find no struggle in believing that He made friends, felt love, experienced joy sometimes.

But still, His life, one defined here as having been lived in endurance of sinners, thus enduring their mockery and abuse, it’s one in which we still see only all we have to lose and all we then stand to miss.

And there’s just too much being asked in all that because, well, we’re still in a world in which we don’t have to lose. We don’t have to hurt. We don’t really even have to hope as hope itself has been mostly relegated to junk that sits on shelves and thus remains so easily found that all we need to find is the funds in the bank account that will finally allow us to buy it. Don’t believe me? How many things do you have saved in you cart on amazon at the moment?

We’re a people coasting gingerly through life looking always for only all that we want, and most of what we want is to simply avoid all the pains and strains that none of us do.

But do we not yet see what that has left us continuing to do?

That we’re merely delaying the inevitable? That, no matter how hard we try nor however long we’ve left to do so, one day we will all lose and that all that we have and all that we are and even the very ground that all the above is currently on? That we’re not actually avoiding life’s miseries or sufferings but that we’re simply kicking them continually unto a future day upon which we’re going to find them all stacked up and still waiting for us?

That there is no feasible way to actually avoid all the things that we fear nor the honesty of all the times in which we’ve failed?

Friends, what Christ came to help us understand is that there are two approaches to life and that we’ll all live them both but never simultaneously. We’ll live one version here inside this world whilst we’re too inside the same and then we’ll live the other later whenever we’re not. Issue is that one is right and the other is not. One is good and the other is not. One is commendable and the other only condemnable.

And we get to choose.

And we have in fact already been choosing.

And that we have been choosing, and many seem to be doing so seeking clearly the best sooner rather than later, this then leaves the worst for later too.

This is what we’ve all decided to do because we’ve all fallen for this lie that has us all apparently convinced of this nonsense of our having our cake and eating it too. Doesn’t work like that. For, again, there are two lives, one good, one bad, and we’re all tasked here with determining where and when we live the both. But again, they cannot be lived both at once.

We live one in this world and we find the other then waiting for us whenever we leave.

So then, whose path should we trust to lead?

Is it that we’ve all followed for the vast majority of our time here, that one paved in fame and free from fear? Is it that path along which is promised fun and friendship and a following then of all those who will come to want all they see we have? Is it that way spent storing up treasures around us here and now rather than elsewhere and thus for later?

Or is it that of He who’d so stored His treasures elsewhere that He only waited until He was 30 something to leave here?

That of He who, as this verse puts it, endured such opposition that eventually His opponents just resorted to killing Him? That of He who was mocked and rejected and tormented by the very ones He’d come to forgive and set free? That of He who watched as all His friends turned and ran away when all He’d told them became far more real than anyone among them ever would have expected? That of He who was hated by most, belittled by many, laughed at by some as He hung upon a dirty sinner’s cross?

Yes, we are called to emulate He who lived a life that He came and lost.

Why?

Because we’re the lost He did it all for, endured it all for.

And, well, if we can’t find the humility inside of us that we see inside of Him, then it’s probably safe to say we’ve no share in Him and then He none either in us.

And yes, that’s clearly the commonest of all ways to live this life. The vast majority of folks down here continue to seek for only fun, only fame, only fortune. We’re all so taken aback by such measures of apparent success that we seem all but perfectly unable to even consider such things as humility or consequence. And sure, in this life we can find that way within which we both need and experience little if any of both.

But just because we avoid that humbler life for now doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Just means we’re leaving ourselves, our souls to being humbled later on down the same road.

For that’s the reality that nobody ever really talks about. It’s that all roads taken through life will end up at the same spot. And that’s at the foot of He who’s sat upon the Judgement Seat of Heaven.

Only question is both how we’ll get there and who we’ll be by the time we do.

Thankfully He’s made it painfully clear that if we’ll not gather to Him then we’ll be scattered from Him and that if we refuse to take up our crosses and follow Him then we’re not worthy of Him and so too then that if we don’t do as He both did and calls us all now to do too, He will confess in front of God and all of us that He doesn’t know us.

And friends, why would anyone want to spend any amount of time with anyone who refused to see any worth, any reason, any reward in all the pain, suffering, misery that you’d endured on their behalf?

Let alone all of eternity?

No, the gate of Heaven is made of humility and thus such too is the only way through. Problem is that humility is found only in the version of life in which we agree to lose. And that’s just not anything that most if any are at all willing to do.

Who then do we agree with? Who then do we walk with? Who do we seek to emulate?

They whose lives here are great or rather He who is the Gate?

Can’t do both, but the scary truth is we’ve already done one.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold