Day 4119 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Job 15:31 NIV

Two birds in a bush

We’re told that such are worth as much as one held within the hand, a lesson leant toward our learning to be grateful for what we have rather than wishing for the more that we don’t. And agreed, I do agree that we do indeed need that sort of gratitude and gratefulness for all we’re given in our lives for a life lived without appreciation for what you’ve been given is a life bound to remain a victim of want and wish and the hurried worry which seethes from the both. Failing to be thankful for what we have only shows forth an arrogance which seems to assume it deserves more simply because it wants the same.

Not the way to spend this thing that we call life.

But what I fear is that, such as with that adage we discussed yesterday, there may be more layers to peel away from this one as well as, well, what if the one bird we hold in the hand is but a fake, a phony, a picture, a portrait, a painting so lonely that to look at it from any angle other than that which we’ve chosen to cherish finds that it falls immediately flat and leaves us feeling all but the same?

For you see, so often in life we get caught inside such this lust for all manner of rust and ruin that we haven’t any clue what we’re doing as what we’re doing is often done to achieve our having of something we’re wanting in which the want eventually supersedes our understanding of the need either involved or not at all. Indeed, we’ve all become of such the greed that wants always for a new thing, a better thing, a shinier and prettier and thus vastly more prized thing. And we want it until we get our hands on it.

But what then?

What’s come of all we’ve come to want? What’s come of all we’ve come to have? Of what matter do all those moments hold now in which we held whatever it was we wanted in the moments that have themselves now gone?

Did it last? Does this idea, this ideal still retain the same meaning and merit it had in that moment in which you first finally had it?

Has anything ever unfolded like that?

Or hasn’t the vast sum of nearly everything gone basically the same way? It begins with what is a simple matter of comparison agreed to in which we allow these eyes which peruse all that another has then to find something within the mix that we ourselves don’t have but think we might like to. And then we set to trying to find it, feel it, be it, see it then as close as possible. This single focus becomes slowly for us something of an idol that we, perhaps unknowingly, begin to serve via time given and effort offered unto our having it.

And this then goes on for however long it takes for this thing to be either found or forgotten, either of which can prove to take longer than the other which is usually what alone determines whether or not we end up actually having whatever it is that we’ve hoped to have. For the most part the desire tends to overrule the patience necessitated in any such pursuit and, well, most of the time we indeed do come to have whatever it was that had become a hope.

But again, what then?

What has come of all the birds in our hands? Do we have them still? Would we do, do they still mean as much as they did back when they were merely ideals we wanted? Should they indeed still mean as much, well then how much longer might that be the case?

For does not every new day offer us some new thing for which to want?

And, having given way to such a way of living this life, what are the odds that we’ll ever truly be fully content with the content we have in a culture that contends against just such contentment by continually creating content so exciting that the vast majority of those around us continue ahead upon what is this consumer’s conveyor as if here only as endless purveyors of all the wares and wants this world can weld?

What are the chances that we’ll truly make it throughout the rest of this ride without our wanting to hold something else?

Not good, are they?

No, and that’s simply because we’re an impressively fallen people who, thus keenly aware of the process, have often no qualms with falling for whatever desires and deceptions may just so happen to catch our eye or ring our bell or call our phone or even send a pre-paid letter to our home.

Indeed, they still send out all those credit card offers for a reason!

And it’s not because we need them.

Rather it’s simply because they offer us a way to afford the many other things that we’ve come to wish were in our hands. It’s because this world knows that we’ll always know of something else that we want so very bad that we’ll probably even measure our very lives the same until such time as said want is had. It’s because we’ve become such violent consumers of all this world wants for us to consider that we know now only to consider all this world has to offer.

And there is a lot this world continues to offer unto any and all who agree still to fall for this idea that somehow we can manage to have it all, every single bit of all we’ve come to want.

But again, what then?

For after all, haven’t we all come to have a great deal of all we’ve hoped to have? Haven’t we all known the vainglory gained in our getting to hold a hope for which we then no longer need to hope? Indeed, hasn’t hope itself become something of a hurried adventure in which, thanks to our nigh sense of almost personal danger won within our always thinking about all we still want and how we’re running out of time to have it, we want to hurry through as fast as possible?

We’re truly becoming a people who hope for so many things in life that life itself is rapidly draining of hope.

Because, in truth, what can any hope mean whenever said thing for which we’d had some hope becomes but yet one more thing that we do bring home? What comes of everything that comes into what are already overfilled lives? What’s happened to all the things that have already come in our minds, our lives, our homes even?

Indeed, why do all these storage units exist if not because we’ve become so bent on having that we can’t bring ourselves to admit that all we have is a ton of junk that we simply no longer want?

And so we keep this stuff tucked safely away in a climate-controlled closet that we visit whenever we want to either see it or finally break down and either sell it or toss it, not because we still want whatever was once a prize we held inside our hands, but simply because we cannot become those who agree to the time and effort and hope and, well, even life we’ve wasted in what is basic greed.

And again, I agree that such adages as that which teaches that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush does a pretty good job, or at least could/should, of stifling such greed, the problem is that for a people like us who know of a life in which all we do is want, what then are the odds that we take away from that saying not a lesson in gratitude but rather this entirely different attitude that leaves us so focused on what all we want in our hands that we lose all awareness of the birds left in the bushes?

Sure, it’s a great thing to be thankful for what you have, but friends, what we have should never become so idolized that we cease all worry and wonder as to all the better that we don’t.

And no, I’m in no way saying that we should always discount everything we have as everything we have is a blessing from God. What I am saying is that what we are is often a betrayal of the same. And that’s simply because we’ve become a people who spend our lives so focused on things that all we know to spend a life on is sadly the same. It’s all about wanting something else, craving something more, getting our hands on something only to there and then realize that something else would in fact probably be better fitting said setting.

All because, as great a hope as it may be to hope that we could do away with any and all greed, truth is that we simply don’t know how. We will always want more. And, well, the more we’ll probably end up wanting is but another something that’s so incredibly hollow that we’ll find only shame and guilt and regret in the path we chose to follow trying to chase it down.

Why?

Because there comes for each of us a day upon which we’ll look up and there upon all the things that we’ve wanted and won within our lives and, while much of it will still probably seem pretty nice, we’ll not be able to silence the violence that is that wonder as to whether or not another path would have been better. Every single one of us know already the sheer brutality of wondering what if, what could have been, what would have been had we been not quite so focused and faithful unto the figures and figurines and figurings of the life we chose?

What were those two birds in that bush?

It’s a question we ask not because we’re not grateful for the one bird we chose to hold but simply because there’s always that worry that maybe we missed something better along the way unto that day in which we did get our hands on the bird we ended up with. And yeah, I completely agree that this is probably one of those truly unwise things to think about seeing as how there is no such thing as going back and doing anything over again.

But friends, that’s kind of the point I’m trying to make.

It’s that we do get but one shot at this. We get one chance to choose what all we chase and what all we then waste every such similar opportunity not trying to find. Each of us have but one life to live and, yeah, I truly hope we do come to love how we live it and that we’re able to enjoy every blessed moment we get to experience within it.

But what are the chances that we’d have made some changes if we could?

What of all we focused on ended up proving far more worthless than what all we didn’t know to want? How many of our ideals turned out only as idols that have indeed gotten so rusty and ruined that we can’t even bear to look at them? How many hopes have become nothing more than one more accomplished dream that’s sitting beside some other forgotten thing in a storage unit we pay for every month simply because we can’t stomach the thought of admitting we were so wrong?

How long can we afford to remain so affixed, transfixed by what all we seek to lay our hands on that we forget there are millions of bushes with so many birds in them that we could choose instead?

Because the truth of the adage is that the bush is a path that we don’t take in life because we spend rather our time so often focused on only our hands and all we want to be found being held within them. The birds are opportunities and outcomes that come about due to the path we choose. And then too the two that we know nothing of remain forever mysteries because of the sheer severity that we gave unto getting whatever it is that we chose to want instead.

And yes, we should be grateful for what we have as even our ability to be grateful and that often for things that we’re likewise blessed with the ability to enjoy is indeed a blessing.

But I just worry as to the tendency of ours toward settling. And that often for what we see. And that because what we see slowly makes its way to becoming something we think we need. And once we’re convinced that we need something in our hands, in our homes, in our hopes, we’ll stop at nothing and consider nothing else along the way because we become so focused on a singular vision that everything else all but fails to exist.

It’s tunnel vision, and honestly, it’s something that happens far more often than we’d ever imagine.

Problem then is that waiting always to be proven only whenever we’ve reached the end of the tunnel with what’s but a perhaps fake pigeon in our hands and billions of eagles still waiting behind us in bushes that we may have never even realized were there.

All because perhaps even gratitude can accidentally trip over into greed.

Indeed, maybe we get so focused on all that we are truly thankful for that we become all but blind to all those things we don’t so have inside our lives that we’re thus not quite so able to be so thankful for. Because we’ve become a people who are only ever thankful for what we have. And while that can be a good thing, it can also perhaps prove a bad thing should the thing we have prove nothing but yet another hollow idol that has no worth at all.

Trust me, I’ve been there for the entirety of my adult life.

Been lost inside this drowning under the weight of all that I’m just now finally realizing I may have gotten really wrong whilst always thinking it mostly right. Indeed, even in my dreams at night I still find I live that life that I didn’t really live but always really hoped I would. It’s not that my life hasn’t been good because it has. In fact my life’s been far better than a sinful beggar like me could have ever imagined it would be.

But I just can’t shake this feeling that I’ve spent so much time focused so intently upon what I wanted to have in my hand that I’ve missed a thousand bushes or more that were each filled with all the choices I didn’t make, all the chances I didn’t take, all the questions I didn’t ask, all the hopes that I didn’t know to have.

And yeah, maybe it’s foolish to even think about as, again, there is no going back.

But friends, maybe that fact could find for us a willingness to try harder to do better going forward. Maybe realizing that we have no idea what all we’ve missed that would have obviously been far better than forgotten dreams now sitting lifeless in a storage locker could inspire us to stop settling for what is more junk that will just end up sitting in the same setting. Maybe the weightlessness of all we’ve come to want that we’ve indeed come to have can encourage us to seek for only those things that will leave us with more than all the nothing we’ve known.

I just know that I’ve known a lot of nothingness over the years, and too that I thought it was all something vastly different. I’ve chased after so many choices that I just knew would help me make it through to the kind of life I wanted to live only to find that they only left me for dead a million miles from home, each mile measured in millions of memories I don’t have of the life I didn’t live.

And it’s a misery unlike any other I’ve ever felt to look at the sum of all I’ve wanted and won and see in it so much that’s so worthless that I can’t help but wonder what worth was waiting within all the birds in all those bushes that weren’t the ones that I’ve held in my hand.

Because the problem is that all manner and measure of idolatry blinds us to considering anything other than this idea that becomes so needed in life that we all but stop living every other facet of life until we achieve it. We walk past so many opportunities because we’re so focused on the one thing that we want that we probably don’t realize all the better things we’re passing by.

Because, to us who’ve known so many idols, seems we’ve yet to learn that focusing so much on our having of one thing only utterly destroys our chance at having anything else.

And maybe it works out for the best.

But then again maybe it doesn’t.

After all, what’s so amazing or impressive about a bunch of junk locked away in a storage unit and how can even the sum of everything within it ever prove to be actually better than all the other things we never knew, never saw, never held, never were because we spent all our time trying so hard to find, to have, to hold all the junk that’s now sitting cold and alone having been found not even worth keeping in our homes?

Friends, my point is that we all have this incredible risk of becoming so focused on what we either have in our hands or want within the same that, odds are, we’re spending next to no time wondering about all we’re missing that may not prove quite so worthless one day.

Not to say that all we have is without purpose or meaning.

Just saying that maybe we should be spending a little more time wondering about all those things that aren’t what could well be but idols that will mean nothing once we get our hands on them.

In the end we’re all to be left holding the outcomes of both every choice we make and too the consequences of the ones we didn’t. So let us be monstrously careful as to what all we’re giving our time, our attention, even our gratitude to. Not because being grateful isn’t a good thing.

Simply because being grateful for something that ends up being only worthless, hollow, empty, well, that will only leave us knowing guilt and shame and regret.

And those are all definitely nothing we should ever wish to get our hands on.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold