Day 4121 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Isaiah 44:20 NIV

A kingdom of stones and bushes

and birds that can’t fly

And that because we’ve either clipped their wings holding them in our hands or rather just insisted they die, and that two at a time. Because we’ve become all so assured of ourselves and our paths that we never seem anymore all that willing, interested or able to stop and put all our cards on the table. Maybe because we still assume that we’ve the winning hand and simply wish not to reveal our success until we’ve managed to stretch the betting line a little further. Or maybe because we can’t see what all our cards are clearly enough to realize that we’re holding but a suicide king, a two of hearts, the ace of spades, one get out of jail free card (forged obviously) and a draw four from Uno.

All of which we’ve pulled seeking to win the hand that is this life from what is the house of cards that we’ve spent this life building into the castle we think it is as it sure looks like one when seen from the right angle.

An angle that, if we were to be honest about our losing hand and how poorly we’ve played it, we’d have to admit that even we ourselves can’t seem to find anymore.

Rather all we seem to see are still all these expectations we have for things we feel entirely deserved and they always served with a side of our remaining blind to the opportunities we’ve both been given but since then determined only to leave forever untaken, a matter too seemingly entirely based upon what we do and don’t deserve but that only of the undeserved variety.

Which is perhaps why we’ve never taken them for anything but for granted.

Because maybe we’re all actually, though outwardly impressively prideful, maybe we are really amazingly humble. Maybe we’ve all of us looked all along at all those gifts that God has given and seen within them all the better days and fonder memories that we didn’t deserve to have or hold. Maybe we’ve agreed that our lives shouldn’t hold but some monstrously unhelpful hand such as that made of the five cards mentioned above: three playing cards from two different suits, another faked from the game of Monopoly and one that insists another person draw four more in what’s a game of only five.

Indeed, maybe we’re all so well aware of how we’ve spent our lives that we want to lose every hand we play.

I mean, I doubt it, but that could be the case.

Unfortunately it seems always entirely more likely that we’re just so far gone into, unto the building of broken cisterns that we truly have no concerns as to the losses we’re winning thanks to all the sin we’re committing in what are lives so filled with crime that it’s amazing we’re all not doing time. Which, in all honesty I guess we are, but in truth that’s neither here nor there as, well, we’re all going to run out of time in both and this life is merely given us in the hope of our choosing finally to lose what we cannot keep here while we’re here as opposed to having it all taken away unto the tune of our not having what we can’t afford to lose when we’ve lost the ability to be wherever we are.

Which is again lost in the midst of what are all these plans for a kingdom of us built upon a trust in only the same.

Just us.

Truly, I really wish that someone, anybody could help me to understand why it is that we believe so deeply in ourselves as to go on entrusting our souls to those same beggars that have already proven entirely willing, able, capable of doing whatever it takes to make some bread. And that either the kind you eat or the kind you spend upon that which you consume. We’re nowadays usually vastly more concerned about the kind you earn as that’s clearly our favorite to burn upon what we still seem to legitimately believe are building supplies that we really do need if we’re to keep building our lives.

And that still only upon this idea that we’re all kings and queens, masters of our destinies.

Never mind the suicidal tendencies as proven in our daily falling short still of God’s all-surpassing glory, the two hearts we hold inside (neither of which seems to have any idea what to do with a life), the ace of spades that is really nothing more than a shovel we keep using to only dig ourselves deeper into what is honestly a really pathetic forgery of a card we can’t play in any other game than Monopoly and, well, we’re still not sure what to do with the Draw 4 but we’re really excited that we have it!

Because the fact is that we don’t know what we have. We don’t know what we are. We don’t know where we are, how we got here, why it is that we apparently don’t want to leave. Indeed, life here has rather found us quite content with the content of our current contention aimed always against the very God of all creation, not because we don’t enjoy a ton of what He’s created, but simply because we’re not too appreciative of His continuing to ask us to stop killing all the birds.

Both those we’ve gotten our hands on, which, having had and held mean more to us than those many more we’ve missed still hidden in the bushes of hindsight just waiting there for us to find that our lives are decidedly empty considering all the things we have had and held and too those two we’ve tried to take out with every stone we’ve thrown trying to accomplish two things at once, neither of which is ever repentance.

No, we know nothing of the idea here inside our little kingdoms.

Rather around here we just keep doing as we’ve always done, almost seeming to take His having said that there’s nothing new under the sun as something of a challenge almost, although one in which we accidentally find ourselves on His side in that, within our lives, all we seem to really live for is the doing of nothing any differently.

Thus proving ourselves the veracity and authenticity of the very Word which conveys the will which asks that we stop destroying ourselves.

We’re just now so blind to everything better, ourselves included, that we are indeed so very deluded that we can’t see that we can’t save ourselves from what we’ve convinced ourselves to be. We can’t see the walls we’ve built in bricks of betrayal aimed at everything from God to ourselves and every blessing and mercy found and yet forsaken between us both. We can’t see these castles we’ve crafted for the cages they’ve become. Can’t see that our eyes are numb from looking only unto all that keeps us the same.

Can’t see that we haven’t the Name that can save from what we’ve done.

Which is nothing short of reaching for every lie that’s only stolen our life.

Mostly just that one that continues to tell us that we’re here to win and that only whatever we manage to want. Which, to be honest, is pretty much inevitable I guess seeing as how we’re surrounded by all this shiny stuff that everyone else continues to say is such a great thing that we too come to become too willing to lose whatever it takes to find this thing in our own hands too. Settling then always for replicas of another life repeating past mistakes as are made every single time that any alive choose to chase whatever they want as opposed to the little we need.

Such as following Christ, trusting in God, surrendering our will to His and then waiting patiently as His plans unfold within the perfect timing that’s already been proven within His Word promising that “when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.”

Same Word which asks elsewhere that we all do what few if any are actually even pretending to try in that we should “be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.”

For what’s about to come?

The showing forth of our every kingdom and castle for what they’ve all always been.

And that’s but lies that are these lives that we’ve lived.

Indeed, I cannot tell you how thankful I am that He’s been so patient with me as to arrive me to this place in which I can see at least some of the mistakes I’ve made. Can’t describe the gratitude I feel for His having extended my life unto this time in which I can see, at least a little more clearly, the chaos and confusion I’ve chosen, and that at the express expense of the peace and hope I haven’t. Can’t explain the appreciation I feel for His having allowed me to see just how prone I am to failing, to falling, to forgetting and forsaking all that He’s done and all I could have done instead.

No, it’s absolutely amazing to me that I’m not dead thanks to all the death I’ve held in my hands.

All of which I reached for thinking it was the better parts of life.

Rather all it seems to have turned out to be was but the missing of me the better life I didn’t live as I instead fell in love with building this castle of stones and bushes in a life that’s but a kingdom of birds that can’t fly.

Simply because somewhere along the way I seem to have agreed that nor should life itself have any wings but rather only wins and sadly those only the ones I’ve alone wanted to know. And know them well I have! I’ve known so deeply so many of my dreams for things that I wanted my life to see, to be. Indeed, my life has gone pretty much exactly the way I wanted it go seeing as how, well, I’m the one who chose all the choices I chose.

After all, isn’t that the glory we seek inside doing all this ‘our way’?

In fact it is as, yes, we have opted for this version in which all we’ve found, or rather will find fairly soon, is ourselves so far gone that many seem to actually think they’re doing well. That their lives are going well. That they themselves are thus so good at living a life that they needn’t any help. Some even seeming to assume themselves so versed and rehearsed as to the finer meanings of life that they’ve embraced the life of an influencer offering others a nonstop flood of tips and tricks to make their lives seem as amazing as they think theirs really are.

An insanity proven in that none of us know what we’re doing, a fact itself proven in that most of what we continue doing is just tinkering away on our little castles made of sand and sorrow, neither of which we seem to realize we’re using.

All because the harsh reality is that we can’t see what we’re doing.

Indeed, most days find us still holding to every plan we’ve ever had and every dream that we’ve ever chased. We’re, all of us, still doing so many of the same old things that we likely know next to nothing of the new thing that Christ came to do, which in case you’ve forgotten, was to purchase our adoption.

Problem then seems proven in that as those who’ve always seen ourselves as kings and queens who could do no wrong, none of us then know what to do with the idea that we’re actually not but orphans who’ve ourselves chosen it to be that way.

For who would do that?

Who would willingly walk away from family, from belonging, from becoming what is another in the line of those created by God himself? Who would reject the gift that is repentance, not seen as a gift because it asks us to stop doing what we sadly still like doing? Who would refuse the chance to lose every lost aspect of our lives? Who could look upon the cross that was carried by the Christ and see still nothing of life in the effort?

Who could look at Jesus hanging there in a horror we can’t imagine and still be unable to fathom that it should be us up there instead?

Well, only those who are in fact so blind that, yeah, we’d be better off dead because at least then we’d not be able to mess up anything else!

And, well, that’s all of us!

We’re all of us so completely lost inside ourselves, our plans, our passions and priorities that we can’t allow ourselves to see them for the lies that so many of them are. That’s the danger of idolatry my friends! It’s that these things, whatever it is that our favorite idol is, it’s nothing but a distraction from life itself! It’s nothing but a lie that we give our lives to. It’s literally an empty, hollow, heartless vessel that we cram our time, attention, intention and invention into thinking that in so doing we’ll end up with this grand something that will make our kingdoms seem more amazing.

But rather I look up and see in mine only all that’s missing.

Because so often there’s no hope to be seen, no joy to be found, no peace or purpose or even reason in so much of what I’m doing. And yet, still I do it. Still I buy it. Still I try it. Still I believe it, and that literally only because I want to, and that literally only because I know what’ll happen if I stop believing all the lies I’ve believed.

And that’s that I’d finally see my life for the lie it’s always been.

And none of us want to see that. None of us want to look at all the mistakes we’ve made. None of us want to know all the amazing things we’ve missed. None of us ever want to admit that we’ve made a living out of losing our lives to the wrong side of everything from time to truth.

No, none of us want to look at the life we’ve gotten our hands on and admit that it’s pretty much only all wrong.

And it’s been that way for so long now that we actually believe that we’re getting things right. That we’re doing pretty well. That we’re not half bad at this living of a life.

But friends, even half bad is still only half good.

And, well, what have we that’s honestly good? Sure, we all have plenty of amazing things in our lives, blessings beyond measure in fact. But the problem seems to be that we still seem to see them not as such but rather we spend most every single day still stuck inside this living of a life within this way in which all we know is to want even more, something else always the goal, the prize, the hope.

Yes, we’ve opted for this attempt at life in which our lives are never satisfied.

And yet we act as if we like it like this, not because we really do, but rather simply because we know what all we’d stand to lose should we ever admit that we don’t.

So we don’t. We don’t look at who we are, what we’ve done, where it’s all gone so wrong. We don’t think about the many mistakes we’re making, never asking ourselves what we were thinking. We don’t look at our hands and wonder why they’re reaching for what’s obviously just another false hope held inside something that we can here hold.

Instead we just keep building. We just keep buying. We just keep believing this lie that has us convinced that we know what we’re doing in life.

Friends, the only thing we know about life is how to lose one.

And yet we’re all so far gone that we don’t seem to even see that someday we really will thanks to the fact that we all really have.

Indeed, I’m convinced that we’re all going to live one life and yet lose at least two in the process. And that’s because we are in fact alive in a life that will end because all men die. Problem then is that we can have never any hope of living again have we lived this one losing, missing, forsaking and taking for granted every chance we’re given to lay it down.

A choice we should make thanks to the shame we should feel in having already lost that life we never lived as could only exist in all the choices we didn’t make.

What are coming of the choices we’re making now? Are they making us better? Or are they only making our lives here bigger?

Friends, my point is that we’re all rapidly approaching a wall that we cannot move or deny. The problem is that we’re all living this life so fast that we’re at risk of smashing headlong into it at such a high rate of speed and opinion of ourselves that there will be no walking away. We’re destroying ourselves every single time that we spend any amount of time trying to convince this life to go the way we want it to go.

Why?

Because time and again we’ve proven that we have no idea what we need but that rather all we think we need is but everything we’ve come to want.

And we just can’t see any of it for the lies that it’s all always been.

Simply because we don’t want to see what we’ve become as I think we all know that it’s not kings and queens but rather losers, freaks and fiends always in need of another fix in what are lives that we don’t know how to fix because we seem to still assume them not broken.

And yeah, if it’s not broken then it doesn’t need any fixing.

Problem is that we’re all so broken that we may be beyond repair.

Guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s time to stop building our lives as if kingdoms our own because all we really have are a bunch of piles of lies that prove us only out of our minds and running out of time to realize it.

Sad truth is that many won’t until it becomes a forced issue.

Don’t make Him pry your eyes open to seeing who you’ve become at the hands of all you’ve done. Rather hit your knees and beg Him please to help you see all that you need to stop doing so that you can finally stop losing every chance you’ll ever have to be something better than you’ve come to be.

Not because that’s easy but simply because we have to lose what we think we have if we’re ever to find what we don’t realize we don’t.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold